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multi flora rose invasion

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posted 16 years ago

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there are large areas of land that are being invaded with multiflora rose (it dormant but I am pretty sure that is what it is) I will be setting the goats to work on it when we get moved in but I am wondering if there is anything else I can do to discourage this nasty invasive weed???

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"One cannot help an involuntary process. The point is not to disturb it. - Dr. Michel Odent

Susan Monroe

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Location: Western WA

posted 16 years ago

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I'm certainly no expert, but the ones that were in my yard were a real pain to deal with. It took me about seven years to get them all killed off by repeatedly digging them up and chopping off their heads. Now I've got another one in the front yard that my brother was carefully mowing around before I knew it was there.

Maybe the constant attention of your goats will work better. My rather sporadic attempts may have extended their lives by allowing growth and photosynthesis to feed the roots.

And be sure to whisper in your goats' ears: "KILL! KILL!"

Sue

Posts: 92

posted 16 years ago

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cutting them back in the middle of summer heat does help.

We had 10 acres of pasture covered with rose and goldenrod, and with nothing more than mowing at the proper times we now have pasture ready for hay production. (it was previously pasture)
I have great before and after pics.

I'm talking about commercial mowers, but it only took 5 cuts over a year and a half to make it happen.

Patience..........

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Posts: 133

Location: West Iowa

posted 16 years ago

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Goats will take them out, that I know. I don't really mind them, they seemed to have been good wildlife cover, but now that rose rosette disease came through, don't see any big ones anymore.

Leah Sattler

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posted 16 years ago

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maybe you can send some of that disease my way, just a little sample

glad to hear that the mowing will work so quickly, maybe we will just need to get our hands on a brush hog and between that and the goats we can wipe them out. thanks!

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Posts: 92

posted 16 years ago

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I tried to get some pics up, but I need to resize some pics.
I'll get some before and afters up soon.

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http://www.lawntimes.com

Leah Sattler

Posts: 2603

posted 16 years ago

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looking forward to them! looks like I found something to do on the homestead that my dh is interested in! he is already looking at brush hogs.

sue I have been dutifully cultivating a killer mindset in my goats for some time. I have introduced them to the concept slowly with small jobs such as poison ivy and honeysuckle so they don't know they are being indoctrinated into a dangerous terrorist group hell bent on destroying invasive plants and restoring native grasses. their training has been complete and they are about to go on their first real mission. I have a few suicide eaters still in training now. young naive males that will eat and eat until they are fat and will then sacrifice themselves on my barbeque pit or crock pot.

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Susan Monroe

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Location: Western WA

posted 16 years ago

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EXCELLENT, Leah!

Way too many people raise livestock that is so placid it just wanders around waiting to be eaten. Once you have them trained to attack honeysuckle, blackberries and rugosa roses, see what they can do with idiot politicians and IRS agents.

Sue

Leah Sattler

Posts: 2603

posted 16 years ago

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i have left the horns on a few hoping that I can train them to demasculinize politicians including hillary. with out the testosterone producing organs I hope to render them harmless and without aggression. as for the female polititions they will be endless harrassed into submission as I have left the horned animals intact and as we all know male goats will 'do' anything and are very persistant upon the chance that the male goat succeeds in his endeavor the female political officer will be rendered harmless as that is likely what she has been needing all along.

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"One cannot help an involuntary process. The point is not to disturb it. - Dr. Michel Odent

Posts: 92

posted 16 years ago

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This is what we started with.

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Posts: 92

posted 16 years ago

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After the first cut, the high stuff in the middle is a runoff from a couple of ponds.

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Posts: 92

posted 16 years ago

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This was the last cut in july of last year. Lower section of pasture from the previous pic.

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Posts: 92

posted 16 years ago

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This is what it looked like October of last year.
As you can see, we've purposely left some rose there for the birds to perch on for now, until the horses get there.

It will be cut for hay this year. The clover and birdsfoot trefoil have come along nicely along with the grasses simply from properly scheduled cutting.

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Posts: 92

posted 16 years ago

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I should add, this was old pasture land that had overgrown, that's where the clover and trefoil came from.

And it should be noted that this is over a two year period of time. October '06 to October of '08.

My previous post on timing was a bit off.

The timing of your cuts is important to achieve your goals, if interested I might be able to help you out with that. ( your climate is somewhat different than this area.)

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Leah Sattler

Posts: 2603

posted 16 years ago

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absolutley! how do you determine when to cut it? ours isn't quite as bad as yours started probably because it has been randomly brush hogged over the years but not enough to compelety do away with them. so if you turned that into pasture in two years then I am very encouraged!!

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"One cannot help an involuntary process. The point is not to disturb it. - Dr. Michel Odent

Gwen Lynn

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posted 16 years ago

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That's a beautiful pasture! The horses will be very happy!

Posts: 92

posted 16 years ago

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How many acres are you looking to keep as pasture area or grasses and such?

What type of grasses do you have and other growth besides the rose?

What is your end goal, to achieve a pasture area or simply get rid of the rose and leave it more natural afterwards?

When does your planting season begin and when do you get your first killing frost in fall?

You've mention using a brush hog, depending on what your goals are a finish mower may be more appropriate after the "rough" cutting is done.
Finish mowers use slightly less horsepower and give a better cut on the grasses to help them crowd out the weeds over time.

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Leah Sattler

Posts: 2603

posted 16 years ago

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I'm afraid a finish mower is probably out of the question at first. the area is littered with large rocks that would destroy a finish mower in a hurry. as we slowly extract the rocks we will start trimming some of it with our gravely but we will have to start with the tractor and brush hog. there is about 11 acres with the a sporadic rose problem. I would like to leave 8 natural/multi species (minus the the rose) and have a few acres that is more kempt to hopefully eventually grow millet on or at least good grass for our ponies.

mid april and mid october are frost dates. but even now the honesuckle and rose is sending out leaves. we have off and on highs in the 80's right now so as usual, hardy wild things get a head start. my floribunda never even lost its leaves this winter but it is mulched in rock and planted next to a brick wall, and
i am moving (the acreage is ) a zone south!

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"One cannot help an involuntary process. The point is not to disturb it. - Dr. Michel Odent

Posts: 92

posted 16 years ago

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Well, for the rose alone, cut it after it's got some good spring growth, allowing it to use up stored energy on that new flush of growth.

Whack them again in the summer heat when it is dry and hot, then again
3-4 weeks before frost. The following year you can cut twice, after spring growth, and during late summer heat.

The pasture that was pictured was only cut once, during 2008, in July.

Other species need more specific timing due to seeding times and that sort of thing, but the basic plan is to weaken the root system on the rose until death do us part.

For the grasses you will want to find out what type of grasses you have, their seeding times, etc. which you can usually get from the extension service online. Many times you will find that kind of info under hay production, or forage production, since timing of hay cutting for a sustainable, and low maintenance pasture is important, and seeding of weed species can determine cutting schedule as well depending on what you are trying to achieve.

It's a learning process, but simple mechanical cutting can do wonders to achieve goals.

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Brenda Groth

pollinator

Posts: 4437

Location: North Central Michigan

posted 16 years ago

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i always had well behaved roses in my perennial beds and then i got this one rose that went totally wild spreading..it had runners that were like 10' long and sent up all over..it is pretty but man it is dangerous...i feel for you all

Brenda

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Leah Sattler

Posts: 2603

posted 16 years ago

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death unto the roses!!! its true. the goats LOVE the roses and are demolishing all in there path. unless I get a few hundred goats though I don't think their efforts alone with eliminate them, and they would do to much damage to other things in those numbers so we are still going with the brush hog plan.

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"One cannot help an involuntary process. The point is not to disturb it. - Dr. Michel Odent

Mike Dayton

Posts: 149

Location: sw pa zone 5

posted 15 years ago

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I hate multi floral rose. The state of PA brought it in years ago as animal cover for wild life and it has taken over. I have it in my woods where I cant really mow. I am thinking about getting a chain saw on a long handle so that I can cut the stems down at the root base with out being cut to pieces. My neighbor had 60 acres of old farm land that had grown up with the roses. He did brush hog them out. He had to back the cutter into alot of them and he had a jacket that was cut to shreds, but he did get rid of them. The land is back to farm land again.

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Julia Franke

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Location: Eastern PA

posted 12 years ago

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Hi! I'm new here, and I am really digging (pun intended) these forums and all of the wonderful videos Paul has put up.

My husband and I bought a home with 2.2 acres, about 1 of which is wooded. In the woods we are blessed with many raspberry bushes, BUT we also have multi-flora rose. I noticed some very creative ways of dealing with invasives, such as planting something that would choke them out. Do you know of any techniques of getting rid of the multi-flora rose? I am curious where to start?

Thanks!!

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Michael Moreken

pioneer

Posts: 485

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posted 5 years ago

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I have been slowly attacking with a maddox/pick axe grabbing by root and try to get most of root that is not thorny and pull out. Then I typically like to burn them. I have seen old multiflora rose vines buried in my digging and seemed to start coming alive?

Bless your Family,
Mike

J. Graham

gardener

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posted 5 years ago

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Things that might choke out multi-flora rose: bamboo, kudzu, honeysuckle...

I had an uncle I remember saying, "They just love a good Bush Hoggin'!"

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Heather Sharpe

gardener

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posted 5 years ago

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I can't speak to actually getting rid of them, as we only had one, so I dug it out. Until you are able to remove them, you could harvest the rose hips to at least keep them from spreading by seed. They can be great food and medicine.

We do have the bush honeysuckle and Japanese knotweed in abundance and I know from that it can be overwhelming, thinking that you need to get rid of all of it right away. But it can be so much work as these are some determined plants! I have found it much better for my mental health to take a more gradual approach. For example, girdling the honeysuckle rather than trying to totally cut them all down at once and dig them out. Or pulling knotweed as it emerges, rather than trying to dig up every last root. I think doing it this way has also helped me learn more about why those "invasive" plants are doing so well and what role they are filling in the ecosystem, since it gives me some time to observe. I don't like to remove plants when I don't know yet what work they're doing. This also gives me better ideas about what would be good to replace them with.
What might the multiflora rose be doing in your woods that is beneficial and who else could do that instead?

Another thought, I have found wild grape to be great at smothering honeysuckle. It could be a potential competitor for the multiflora rose. But it's quite rowdy itself and might cause other issues and/or make it tricky to get at the rose to remove it.

“Action on behalf of life transforms. Because the relationship between self and the world is reciprocal, it is not a question of first getting enlightened or saved and then acting. As we work to heal the earth, the earth heals us.” ~ Robin Wall Kimmerer

Richard Kniffin

Posts: 39

Location: Vermont, USA

posted 5 years ago

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Multiflora Rose can grow quite tall and wide, making it hard to approach on foot. If you have a pole pruner (for pruning fruit trees), they work very nicely for reaching in horizontally through the thorns and sawing the plant off at its base. If you want to eliminate MRose permanently, you'll have to mow/cut continuously, probably for years, or else burn a large bonfire over the root system of each plant.

Goats and pigs can probably take them out, too, but I don't have any experience with that. Good luck!

While they're there, enjoy the rose smell wafting off their flowers each season in bloom. Probably early July in my neck of the woods.

Richard Kniffin

Posts: 39

Location: Vermont, USA

posted 5 years ago

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And as others have said, digging their roots out by hand is the other way to eliminate them. Sometimes that's practical, if it's a small plant.

T Melville

gardener

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posted 5 years ago

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I have pulled up whatever would pull out, then dumped rocksalt in the hole on the broken roots. (Our rainfall dilutes this such that in a few months the salt is no longer visible and the gass is green. Think twice if you get less rainfall.) Now we mostly cut them back severely then give the sheep access. They love rose. One in the open will probably die eventually. One in a fence row? If the sheep can only access one side, you have a rose hedge. They'll help maintain it, though.

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Michael Moreken

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posted 5 years ago

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I am still digging up and drying out all I pull out in separate pile on a log.

Not only multifloral, but some other broad leaf with thorns too. I don't think I will bury these thorns but try burning them, maybe try building a small can rocket oven to burn them.

In photo got both. Not worried about this stuff blowing away with all the thorns!

20201220_Thorns.jpg

Bless your Family,
Mike

Matt Todd

pollinator

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Location: Northwest Missouri

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posted 5 years ago

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I like to get a tow strap cinched around the base of the plant. You can use one or more poles or tree branches to "part" the brambles to get access to the plant base. Then I'll use a come-along to pull it out, roots and all. Then you can drag them off by the tow strap to be burned.

I don't own the plants, they own me.

Janet Reed

pollinator

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Location: Dry mountains Eastern WA

posted 5 years ago

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Let it grow ther, bloom and enjoy it

Dan Boone

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posted 5 years ago

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Richard Kniffin wrote:Multiflora Rose can grow quite tall and wide, making it hard to approach on foot. If you have a pole pruner (for pruning fruit trees), they work very nicely for reaching in horizontally through the thorns and sawing the plant off at its base.

This is the big problem for me, and perhaps for anybody else who is working primarily with hand tools instead of, say, a big brush hog. I have one on my property that's the size of a schoolbus and another one that's about at big as a large SUV. Haven't tackled those yet, and anyway they make great wildlife habitat like any defensive thicket. But smaller ones that are trying to choke out my fruit trees, I've been attacking recently with my battery-electric pruning shears. Love those things! I don't have to stuff my arms/hands inside the bush to cut at the base any more; I can just stand in the sunshine and go "zip zip zip" as I chop the thing into 18" pieces and let each piece fall to the ground. It's a bit slow and painstaking but there's no disposal problem (in my climate I've never seen them root from cuttings left on the surface of the ground, although it's possible in theory I suppose) and it's completely bloodless, which is a huge improvement. I don't even have to wear gloves because I never touch the stalks!

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Leigh Tate

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