No, it's not futile..but it's difficult. What do you do with the GM after you pull it?..it will go to seed even after it's dead. Gather the pulled up plants into a garbage bag and throw the bag in the trash.

You can make a difference..just keep pulling and disposing of the blooming plants. They're a biennial. Eventually, you'll wear them out. April

Yes, keep trying. It's like killing a mosquito - every one you get rid of is hundreds (thousands?) of ones that can't be reproduced from that parent.

Besides, they just found the first pieces of garlic mustard in Georgia! Those probably aren't the only ones here, just the first ones that someone identified. So, we need you guys north of us to try HARDER!! (smile)

i generally am opposed to using roundup for personal use. however if you have large acreage and are overwhelmed with garlic mustard then you may want to crack out the bottle.

i too felt overwhelmed with gm this year and i only have one acre. i dont have any answers and i am just frustated.

my friends that work in natural area management have made some progress and are seeing reduction in plant numbers but only after several years of continual control. they use a team of volunteer weed pullers and follow up with walk a through using round up. pulled weeds are bagged and landfilled.

Compared with Norway maple or multiflora rose, I really think mustard is easy. It's biennial and shallow-rooted. If you pull every flowering plant two years in a row, you're done.

Why don't you throw a party? ask everyone to pull flowering plants for an hour or so, and then feed them well.

Keep up the good fight against Garlic Mustard. It spreads so quickly and overwhelms everything in its path. Did you know that the West Virginia White Buterfly mistakenly lays its eggs on GM mistaking it for the host plant. The eggs never develop into butterflies.
GM germinates in Sept/Oct. Learn to recognize the seedlings and they can be zapped with herbicide at that time. If you are confident of the location you can even apply corn-based pre-emergent herbicide before they germinate which will have minimal effect of other plants.
See link to my native plant society's control measures.
Sam

Here is a link that might be useful: MNPS Invasives Control

I'm on top of it in my acre - after 5 years it's way down. But I slacked off one of those years when I was pregnant and it made a huge comeback - don't ever slack off one year. And ordinary round-up doesn't really kill it except for the littlest seedlings. Maybe a high concentration.

Im using Roundup quite effectively..... get it before the flowers spew the seeds. Spray the hell out of it - use unbridled rage in the war.
I have reduced the population in my woods down to manageable levels.
There are GM plants burning to a crisp as I type this.
Watch the banks of streets, culverts, low areas, streambanks, etc. Seed dispersed from populations on higher ground wash down and germinate anew.
I am also battling Ailanthus, Polygonum perfoliatum, Celastrus, Lonicera tatarica and japonica, Asiatic dayflower and Japanese stilt grass.
As long as I own this property I will spray and kill this crap.

Rx

I'm with Treedoc and Sam...I don't like using herbicides..but sometimes, I must. I don't have the time to pull 10,000 plants and seedlings! April

you know, one minus about removing invasive honeysuckle and garlic mustard is that it makes it easier for the deer to find your desirable plants. i only have 6 or so jacks-in-the pulpit, and the deer or some hungry varmint has now found 3 of them since i've cleared the invasives out. isn't that somethin?

I have been reduced to pulling the flowering plants each year and using round up in the fall/early spring when everything else is dormant - apparently the seeds can survive and germinate for up to 10 years, so I have my work cut out for me. Elaine, I don't think you'd call GM easy if you saw the concentrations of it I have here! And it is a many year process, not two, that's for sure.