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How to kill siberian elm and "tree of heaven?"

 
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I have two herbaceous plagues to deal with.

Siberian elm and Ailanthus are epidemic where I live. I am working on a property where I cut down a siberian elm two years ago and it still is coming back, despite being cut down on a regular basis and being doused with diesel fuel.

I don't want to use glyphosate and will never, ever use a dioxin based herbicide. Anyone got a good way to kill these things?
 
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Try building a fire over it, under safe conditions, of course.
 
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the tree of heaven is a problem here as well.

we chop it down, dry and use the wood for hugelkultur beds or short term fence posts.

when it re grows, not if re grows. you can let it grow for more biomass, or put some goats in there.

one season of goats on the re sprouting trees and its done for.
 
                                  
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LasVegasLee wrote:
I have two herbaceous plagues to deal with.

Siberian elm and Ailanthus are epidemic where I live. I am working on a property where I cut down a siberian elm two years ago and it still is coming back, despite being cut down on a regular basis and being doused with diesel fuel.

I don't want to use glyphosate and will never, ever use a dioxin based herbicide. Anyone got a good way to kill these things?



20 + years ago I bought a HUD home that had been vacant for many years. It is in a neighborhood where Alianthus and Siberian elm are rampant. There were many, many themgrowing around my property.  Cutting them down doesn't get rid of them. I used herbicide and many things to try to get rid of them.  Ultimately, I had to dig the roots out past the major part of the root. WHat I learned is that when you cut off the top, the root keeps growing as though the top is still there. I had some deep holes in my yard.
 
Lee Einer
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H Ludi Tyler wrote:
Try building a fire over it, under safe conditions, of course.



Would love to do so. But I live within city limits. So fire is out.
 
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We use tree of heaven at the flower shop.....if you trim the branches with the  green seed pods you can sell them to a local florist....some of these florists really like the lush green seed clusters  and leaf stripped branchs could be sold too.
 
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goats will eat tree of heaven???  will pigs?
 
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Samuel Thayer's book "The Forager's Harvest" has a chapter on Siberian Elm. Turns out that the clusters (called Samaras) are edible. If you are interested in wild edibles, Thayer's two books are amazing. Here's a quote from the book -

"The time to get Siberian elm samaras is in the middle of sprind, just as the leaf buds are beginning to open. In two weeks the leaves will be fully formed and the samaras will have become tough, so the season for collecting them is short. You don't want to miss it." ....

he goes on about adding them green/fresh into cooked dishes like rice pilafs and pastas.

a few paragraphs later...

"Once the seeds of the Siberian elm ripen, the samaras become dry and brown. They flutter from the tree in the breeze, littering the ground below and sometimes getting blown into convenient piles. They can often be collected very easily. After they are thoroughly dried, you can rub and winnow them to procure rather soft, lentil-like seeds. The ripe seeds are delicious raw or cooked. The flavor reminds me of a cross between sunflower seeds and oats...."

So, there's a suggestion about dealing with them. Let me know if you try the samaras. I haven't had a chance to yet.

Joe
 
                              
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I'm not exactly what you should do under your exact circumstances (I would be curious to know what other types of "weeds" are growing near the plants, but...  I've always found that the soil is the first place to start.  Plants like this usually spring up in highly unbalanced soils, usually with an unbalanced Mg Ca ratio, also not enough oraganic matter and low sugar content.  Good luck!
 
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Try driving copper nails into the base of the stump ever 1/2 inch or so all the way around. it is suppose to poision the tree. Haven't tried it but it cant hurt. I would also chop all the bark off and scar the sides to let fungi attack it.
 
                                
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Why would you want to kill a perfectly good tree?  Where you live, to the best of my knowledge, doesn't exactly suffer from too many trees or too much shade!

Ulmus pumila and Ailanthus altissima are pretty rampant around here, too.  Fact is, this would be a far more barren landscape without them, because there aren't many trees that can spread by themselves and grow without human intervention in this climate.  And why spend time, money, work to reforest when the trees will do it for us?

Couple possibilities... larger trees can shade them out, as they are not climax species, but pioneers.  Or, coppice/pollard them and call it a free source of mulch. 

For a stump, I suppose you could drill a bunch of holes in it and plant fungi.
 
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I always get as much of the root as is possible when dealing with Tree of Heaven.  There are certainly practical reasons to kill them apart from simple invasiveness - they can be pretty brutal on foundations and the like.

I noticed some of you who've posted in this thread have an understanding of how tenacious they are.  Well I thought I would post a couple links and mention that a Tree of Heaven was only 350m from the epicenter of the nuclear blast in Hiroshima and is still alive today.  It is described as being almost directly underneath the epicenter of the bomb and the elementary school where it was planted was completely destroyed.   http://www.lang-arts.com/survivors/honkawaes.html

Here's a list of all the trees that survived the blast: http://www.lang-arts.com/survivors/
 
Jordan Lowery
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larger trees can shade them out, as they are not climax species, but pioneers.



wrong, they easily start in the understory of trees and shoot up past the canopy.

and they dont only grow in areas devoid of natural tree cover. here they displace dozens of species of trees that give us a natural and useful tree canopy.
 
                            
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i lived in farm in mediteranean region and it was full of ailanthus everywhere. since its not native plant and also being pain in the ass for gardening i tried to exterminate it all, which is very hard but possible. easiest way is cut them all, pull small ones completely with roots than dig some soil around every thump and make big fire. for complete extermination even to follow every root and to put it out. lot of work but it works.
ailanthus is maybe pain in the ass for farmers and smells terrible but is great medicinal plant, well known for thousands of years in chinese medicine....
 
                                
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hubert cumberdale wrote:
wrong, they easily start in the understory of trees and shoot up past the canopy.

and they dont only grow in areas devoid of natural tree cover. here they displace dozens of species of trees that give us a natural and useful tree canopy.



I just don't get the way some people think.  Why is one tree "natural and useful," and another isn't?

Shade is shade.  Shade protects soil, water, plants... creates habitat... and trees contribute enormously to the water cycle.  There is really no such thing as a useless tree.

I live in an arid region.  Every tree for sale at the local nurseries requires irrigation.  What sense does that make?  We should waste water just to have trees that won't propagate? 

And for that matter... while this has been covered in other threads, just what is a "native" species, anyway?  I talked to some guys who, on a jobsite south of Denver, dug up a petrified palm tree -- few million years old, reckon.  Should we only plant palm trees?  Clearly, the palms were here before the pines and cottonwoods!  And how would we know that Ailanthus didn't originate here 100,000 years ago and get spread to Asia?

Perhaps a little reading about succession would explain this... check out Allan Savory's Holistic Management

There's a use for everything.
 
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I would think the wood of Siberian Elm (Ulmas pumila) would work well for hugelkultur.  As an herbalist, let me give you another helpful idea!  It is an excellent replacement for Slippery Elm Bark, and unlike the Slippery Elm tree, Siberian Elm is not vulnerable to Dutch Elm Disease!!  You can cut the newer-growth twigs in any season, and if the leaves are on, that is OK too.  I just dry them and break them up for tea.  While the active ingredient is in the inner layer of the bark, it won't hurt to just boil up the whole thing!  You can eat the seeds too (and they are quite yummy).
 
Jordan Lowery
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Why is one tree "natural and useful," and another isn't?



because here, this tree REDUCES diversity. an area with 10 tree species and dozens of understory species, it can and will be overtaken by the tree of heaven in just a few years, reducing the land to a monocrop. that's why. it may not be a problem where you are, but it is here. a big problem.

here's a tidbit i found.

"A few trees along a fencerow or forest edge can rapidly invade adjacent meadows. In addition to its prolific vegetative reproduction, ailanthus has allelopathic effects on many other tree species and may consequently inhibit succession."

ive seen them do exactly that many many times around here, destroy ecosystems and kill neighboring trees.

for the person who mentioned using them as hugelwood. you need to let them dry until the fungi start to eat them, or you get some of the bad allelopathic effects in the soil.

 
                            
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TheDirtSurgeon wrote:
what is a "native" species, anyway? 



everything man didnt touch is native.
 
                                
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hvala wrote:
everything man didnt touch is native.



So... nothing, then.
 
                                
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hubert cumberdale wrote:


"A few trees along a fencerow or forest edge can rapidly invade adjacent meadows. In addition to its prolific vegetative reproduction, ailanthus has allelopathic effects on many other tree species and may consequently inhibit succession."

ive seen them do exactly that many many times around here, destroy ecosystems and kill neighboring trees.



In the short term, yes, that is what appears to happen.  But that's the problem with short term thinking.  Nothing stays invasive forever. 

And given the obvious fact that we can't stop this critter, we should be thinking of ways to use its qualities to our benefit. What can we do with a rapidly spreading pioneer species?  How about pioneering marginal lands?  A few decades of regularly chopping & dropping will produce a pretty rich soil with gobs of humus.  Thin it out, and you have a shaded canopy in which to grow less hardy but more valuable species.  This requires management. 

Take Russian olive (Eleagnus angustifolia) as another example.  It grows mostly in completely barren soils.  Most of the places I've found wild-spread Russian olive won't grow anything but tumbleweeds (which aren't native either, btw).  But it fixes nitrogen and adds humus.  After a while, the soil will be capable of supporting other species again, which will out-compete the pioneer.

The bottom line is this: pioneer species are Nature's answer to degraded soils.  How have the soils been degraded?  Man does that.  Ailanthus is not the disease -- it's a symptom, and it's a repair mechanism.  Just like modern medicine blames blood serum cholesterol for heart disease, when it in reality is trying to repair the damage from poor diet.  The alleopathic response is to pop pills to destroy the cholesterol! 

And another thing... an excess of one thing is usually a deficiency of another.  Take kudzu for instance.  When it was introduced to the US, it went rampant.  But it's not rampant in its native Japan.  Why?  Japan also had the insects that eat kudzu.  Now that ag departments in the South have realized this, and begun introducing kudzu's predators, they are finding it manageable.  Everything balances when you know what to balance it with.

 
Jordan Lowery
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i cant see how its a pioneer species when its taking over maturing oak forest and reducing the diversity year after year to one tree species and grass. more like reverse pioneer.

i don't think anyone has 100+ years to let the natural world work it out either, only then to begin working the land. when there are simple steps to get past the tree in a couple years.

autumn olive is a horrible comparison, it has no allelopathic effects like the tree of heaven, it doesn't sucker, lots of things. i have over 40 Elaeagnus planted i should know. it is a good example of a pioneer species in some environments yes no doubt.

kudzu doesn't take over japan because the climate is far different than where its taking over. insects play a small small part. if you go to japan i highly doubt the kudzu is covered in pests slowing it down.

i am not saying your wrong or anything, everything you posted has some merit. there are just better ways to go the plant succession route in a shorter time frame. wouldn't it be better if it was elaeagnus, black locust and other useful pioneer species? the tree of heaven isnt the answer imo.

here is a good link with sources for anyone who wants to read it
http://mason.gmu.edu/~dnguyeo/projects/plant/plant.htm
 
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I have a very small lot, so I can be a tyrant about what I want to let grow there. I try not to think of it as being at war, but the bamboo roots here do give me a challenge not to feel hostile. For the elm, if I time it right, I cut it at the beginning of the hot, dry summer, and if there is drought, sometimes it dies. I have a soft, fast growing maple in the same category. Also redbuds, privet, rose of sharon and poke - the birds and squirrels plant more stuff than I do.

The only sure fire way is to dig it up. I actually brought in a dozer one time, and I won that battle, but not the war.

Also, this may be too woo-woo for you, but you can plead with it. The diva for that species is in charge and may listen to you. Also ask the landscape angel for your area for help. To learn more about this - read about Findhorn. When I returned from there in the 70s, I found I had fewer problems once I worked with nature and stopped fighting it (well. sometimes I do fight the bamboo roots, but that is regression).
 
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Paradise trees were planted here to stabilize the soil on incline. It kills everything else, and seems impossible to kill it. even tiny roots leftover will re-start.

Have only seen fungus growing on one patch, on one dead tree, out of the hundred thousand growing here.

Have to dry the wood for two years before you can even burn it. Smells like hydrocarbons.

If you ever find anything that works, i would luv to know. It is tearing down all the stacked rock walls in town, and breaking up all the sidewalks.

The only thing i have found to slow it is lye. I pour it into foundation cracks just to keep it from spreading. Still sprouts the next spring tho.
 
Morgan Morrigan
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Woo hoo !

This site tells how to do it, and when you shouldn't try.

Turns out girdling starts an "emergency response" in the roots to increase suckering !

Wiki also points out that a tea from the bark and roots, will inhibit growth of almost 100% of other plants. might be usefull to clear out a pasture

http://www.nps.gov/plants/alien/fact/aial1.htm
 
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I had a Siberian Elm right next to the side of my house and was able to kill it quite easily. Per instructions from somewhere online, I cut it down leaving a few inches of trunk above ground. Then put a tin can (without any lining) over the trunk, and pound it into the ground so as to keep out any sunlight. That was about 4 years ago. Once in a while I lift the can to take a peek, and not any sign of growth. As far as I know, the tree is dead, but I may be naive about what's going on with the roots. Hopefully they're going nowhere.
 
Morgan Morrigan
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When you cut off a tree of heaven - ALL the roots left out there sprout suckers.

It goes into survival mode, like an aphid.

We used to try stripping off all the leaves and branches to keep it from doing that, while slowing down the spread and growth. worked a little bit, till you could get time to dig em out.

The ones i poisoned with lye last year are back. smaller, but still alive. Is the only thing i have found that puts em down for at least a year tho.
 
Jordan Lowery
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shari if that was 4 years ago i think your good. ill have to give that method a try.
 
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We have a Tree of Heaven (or Hell as I call it) on our small urban lot. It's the only plant in the world I'm allergic to. At any given point during a nine month period I can go throughout the yard and pick no less than 40 new shoots. The branches are useless for building as they are jointed and snap easily which makes it even more destructive in high winds. It's not really a tree, in my opinion, it's a weed with no use. I can't even use it as firewood as it will give me hives. The shoots can be found down the block as we have the only tree in about a three block area.
I will agree that the shade is nice and the ONLY thing keeping it alive right now, though I do break off branches from it constantly in a vain attempt to keep it under control. Thank goodness this one doesn't grow as big as they did in Michigan or we wouldn't have a porch left on our house. The "seeds" and twigs plug up the gutters requiring a lot of extra work. I think there is something toxic to the tree as well as it seems to eat away at the roof shingles where a lot of debris accumulates before we can get on the roof to take care of it. I do not mulch the leaves unless they are completely dead and the twigs that fall off with the leaves choke out all my plants as they make an impenetrable barrier that only they can grow through. Perhaps there is a use for this tree somewhere in the world. But, as far as I'm concerned I feel the same about the Tree of Heaven as I do with Bermuda grass...I'd like to stab any person that purposefully plants them.
 
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Just out of curiosity, why are you willing to pour diesel fuel on it, but not glyphosate? My own guess would be that diesel is much worse for the soil than glyphosate.

I would try girdling the tree without cutting it down. If you strip the bark and cambium layer off in a ring around the base of the tree, the roots can still provide water and minerals to the leaves, but the leaves cannot send sugar to the roots. Over the course of a the season, the roots use all their reserves, and next year, the tree will be dead. You would have to pinch off any shoots that emerge from below the girdle.

I've done this successfully with small maples and mulberry trees. I have not tried it with larger trees.

Alex
 
Morgan Morrigan
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girdling starts the roots emergency response to extend and send up shoots.
at least you can track the roots direction then, but you are going to get lots of starts.

have girdled many, and killed none. sawed all the way around a 10 ft one last summer, with a sawzall, and it is leafing out quite well this year. chainsaw in its future.

Think TOH has hydrocarbons in it anyway. and a little oil actually helps plants grow, i think it feeds some types of soil bacteria.
lye seems to keep it in place at least, over half the ones treated with drain cleaner last year are back, but havn't spread root runners.
this was digging down to root, scraping cambrian with hand axe, and painting with lye.
 
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tree of heel..oh how I loathe thee. I am constantly at war with them....

I am pleased to note that nuking them does not work...that was next on my list.

try this....cut a good sized tree of heaven down...strip all the branches, leaves and buds off it...lean it, root end down against a building
with the edn resting on the ground. the damn thing will sprout.

I cut three like this a couple years ago to make a tripod to butcher a deer carcass...and the bloody tripod put down roots...
 
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We bought 26 acres last year that adjoined our current property. There is a section of about 1.5 acres that is a solid grove of tree of heaven. Interspersed with them are dead oaks, maples, poplars and pine. They killed everything. Only thing that grows in among them is honeysuckle and it doesn't even climb the trees. We cut down a bunch of them, they are only about 6 inches in diameter but very tall. They made kind of a tropical looking grove. All open with a very high canopy. The ones that my husband cut high (3+ feet above the ground, I have no idea why) did not come back. Everything shorter than that put up suckers like crazy. We cut a bunch of the poles up to try and dry for firewood (worked great by the way, burns wonderfully once it drys), and left a bunch of the poles laying on the ground. A couple of weeks ago, we went back in with machetes to cut down the suckers (so soft, so tender - ha ha ha ha, die little trees) and as I started to whack on some I noticed some leaves all black and shriveled, looking closer, some of the trees were infested with hundreds of little black caterpillars, with webbing running through the branches. A little friend helping us? I have never seen them before and they were on none of the other trees -- we left all infested trees alone. This week we were wandering and checking on things and the poles that were laying on the ground were covered with oyster mushrooms! Pounds and pounds of them. Tried them and they were great. We are going to cut down more and pile them up with the ones making mushrooms now and hopefully we can keep the mushroom culture going. Maybe pour some coffee grounds (we have hundreds of pounds) amongst them to tie they all together. I know oyster mushrooms like coffee -- and apparently tree of heaven as well. I still don't like them but now I don't completely hate them.
 
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Just curious... Why would you be worried about using glyophosphate if you have already doused it with diesel?
 
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This anecdote is similar Marsha's the caterpillar/oyster mushroom story above-

We had Siberian elms that we had cut down, some years ago. They dropped more branches than we could handle with every heavy snowstorm. They were otherwise beautiful trees, though- it's kind of sad. We planted a large-leaf oak tree and large rose and honeysuckle bushes to replace them.

The stumps were about a foot above ground. I patiently cut the suckers several times a year. Then, one day a couple of years later, I noticed some big funguses growing on the stumps and apparently off of roots from the stumps just at the ground surface. Big pretty orange ones. These funguses seemed to have killed what was left of the poor elm trees, and suckers stopped coming. Now the stumps are slowly decomposing and helping the plants around them.

Your mileage may vary. I don't know, the diesel might make it hard for funguses to grow. The funguses on roots were a small distance away though, so you may get something like this happening with time. Just those little suckers weren't enough to keep the big root system alive, especially when I kept cutting them, and eventually it was too weak to fight off something like those funguses.

 
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Bummer!

I had hoped that someone out there knew how to kill siberian elms. I have some trees that are being "removed". Ha ha, I know what that means. The above ground parts are cut off of the roots, but they will sucker at the stump in the spring. They will sucker from every place the roots are near the surface of the ground. I have worked on eradication of "Tree of Heaven" for years, and have experimented with the removal of large elms. It is a long and arduous process, and if you slack at all, you lose ground.

I read a couple years worth of this thread, and have a few responses to some of the things discussed and questioned. I'm having the elm trees taken out because they are self pruning, and the over burden reaches over my house. Earlier this summer, a huge limb weighing more than a ton fell, hitting only the fence. It was not a windy day, the branch was in a protected part of the tree. Similar sized branches reach right over my house. I have long known they needed to come down, but put it off, and put it off. The shade is wonderful. I should say WAS wonderful. But I planted replacement trees 20 + years ago, and they should fill out now that they will have sun at last.

I will mow and use my string trimmer frequently, and mulch and curse and dream of the death of the trees. I did once have an elm which sent roots down the leach lines. The guy came with a stump grinder and that tree never resprouted.

Once, I drilled holes in a stump, a locust, in the way of an addition onto my house. I poured diesel into the holes and let it soak in. then I lit it and it burned it some, which I think speeded the water loss from the roots. I was able to dig and chop and get most of the below ground portion of the stump and the major roots out with my axe and a rented tractor (Vermeer skid steer, - I highly recommend it ) I don't know if the tree might have resprouted, as the area had compacted sand and then a concrete slab poured over it. That was 5 years ago. No sign of regrowth.

If you can rent a stump grinder, or hire someone to come with a stump grinder, that works, but you would probably still have minor suckering at a distance from the former trunk. it would not look any different than a fast growing seedling.... until you get after the root and find it runs horizontally towards the location of the removed tree

Best wishes to all who toil against these unwelcome plants, and are reluctant to use glypso/ round up, which kills fish at a distance, having been carried through the ground by the ground water because of the surfactants that are included in the round up. Not an issue with small amounts of strategically applied diesel, though i don't want to use that on these trees, which are in my garden and very close to my house.

Thekla

 
Morgan Morrigan
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Location: Verde Valley, AZ.
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I am going to try some copper saturated water this spring.

That is what is in the root killing formula for keeping pipes clean.

Lye only works for about 6 months, but also appears to keep the roots from spreading...
 
Thekla McDaniels
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After I looked at the thread, and made my post, I found an article - I think it originated with the NPS - about elms. It said: girdle the tree, removing the bark and cambium, leaving the xylem undisturbed. This will kill the tree with out suckering. if you disturb the xylem, it activates the tree's survival through suckering response. I had noticed the tree guys had left two 15 foot standing trunks, and thought I would try this method on them, but at the end of the second day of work they took those down at the soil level.

I can either get a stump grinding person, rent one, or do the whole anti sucker process for ever and ever amen. after I find out what it will cost to repair the fence and the broken pipes, I'll give that some serious thought.

Otherwise, I will find some large pieces of sheet metal that would approximate the tin can thing, and maybe drill holes and pour a copper solution (sulfate?) down them before covering it to exclude light.

I'm open to any new ideas.

Thekla
 
Morgan Morrigan
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copper water stopped it from sending out new shoots, will have to see if it leafs out next year.


New technique is to girdle it the the cambrium, but not the inner layer, which triggers the emergency response.

Watch for the color changes on the interior barks
 
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I am going to get some Goats and coppice/ pollard the elm's, if you really need to kill them though you cut it down leaving a nice tall stump then you drill holes and pour in 20% vinegar and rock salt, that finishes em off. And you may have to repeat, also like some said if you keep the leaves off it for a period of time about three years the tree will not be able to make any starch and it willl die http://maestro-gro.com/vinegar20acidity.aspx
 
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OMG apparently you have the best Tree of Heaven karma of anyone ever! thanks for sharing this.

still wondering if there's verification of goats working for this?

Marsha Richardson wrote:We bought 26 acres last year that adjoined our current property. There is a section of about 1.5 acres that is a solid grove of tree of heaven. Interspersed with them are dead oaks, maples, poplars and pine. They killed everything. Only thing that grows in among them is honeysuckle and it doesn't even climb the trees. We cut down a bunch of them, they are only about 6 inches in diameter but very tall. They made kind of a tropical looking grove. All open with a very high canopy. The ones that my husband cut high (3+ feet above the ground, I have no idea why) did not come back. Everything shorter than that put up suckers like crazy. We cut a bunch of the poles up to try and dry for firewood (worked great by the way, burns wonderfully once it drys), and left a bunch of the poles laying on the ground. A couple of weeks ago, we went back in with machetes to cut down the suckers (so soft, so tender - ha ha ha ha, die little trees) and as I started to whack on some I noticed some leaves all black and shriveled, looking closer, some of the trees were infested with hundreds of little black caterpillars, with webbing running through the branches. A little friend helping us? I have never seen them before and they were on none of the other trees -- we left all infested trees alone. This week we were wandering and checking on things and the poles that were laying on the ground were covered with oyster mushrooms! Pounds and pounds of them. Tried them and they were great. We are going to cut down more and pile them up with the ones making mushrooms now and hopefully we can keep the mushroom culture going. Maybe pour some coffee grounds (we have hundreds of pounds) amongst them to tie they all together. I know oyster mushrooms like coffee -- and apparently tree of heaven as well. I still don't like them but now I don't completely hate them.

 
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