Good for you, Judy. This plant is a scourge throughout my state and all over it seems. I do remember wet meadows full of the stuff and how great it looked.

Thank you, thank you, thank you! Now if we could only get nurseries to stop selling the pernicious stuff.

Don't feel too bad-they will show up soon enough. Unless you did a super tremendous job, you did not get all the roots. This plant is called invasive for a reason!

That's great! Millions have been spent nationally to try to control PL. But as others have said, they'll be back. Each plant pruduces millions (really) of seeds/year that mostly drop beneath the parent plant. They'll be coming up for years. You may want to knock the seedlings down with roundup as they come up in the spring.

Good for you for pulling them up!

Here is a link that might be useful: Michigan Purple Loosetrife Project

Uh yeah...because vigorous plants are bad and Roundup is good. Yum...Roundup. Yay Monsanto!

Judy, we moved into this house in May. Bought it in Dec (04) but it needed lots of renovations before we could move in. I was excited to see what all I had gotten. Nothing that were to my liking, and nothing native. I also had a purple loosestrife. I debated over ripping it out or just seeing what it would do. The yard had not been cared for in a long time ( was a rental for about 4 yrs), and it was the only purple loosestrife here. None anywhere else. When I inquired about it, I was told some were sterile. Perhaps you'll be as lucky as I and find yours are sterile also.

Terry

The problem with "sterile" loosestrife is that it can cross with fertile loosestrife...and make seeds that are viable.

Rokoku,

I love using Roundup on "vigorous" non-native plants that push out native ones. I enjoy watching them curl up and die.

I'm sorry, I wasn't clear in my post. I ripped out the purple loosestrife. If you can use a garden fork to "push" up any seedlings you might have, it would be better to use that method than to use Round-Up. To me, going native also means no herbicides or pesticides of any kind. Guess that's just me though.

Terry

round up is extremely effective, causes minimal or no environmental damage when used correctly, and it's real hard to establish a prairie without it. I use it very minimally. But when I have to use it...I do. It saves a lot of time. personally, I haven't used it since I got my prairie established...3 years ago.

It's a tool.

lol......you just think you got rid of them

Yes, really spreads in the wetlands and muscles out other plants with no benefit to wildlife. Too bad they are so pretty.

Ahughes, look at the new studies on long term residual effects of glyphosphate. And then witness the slap on the wrist fine the makers of Preen got for changing the formula to "improve" it. Busted by Eliott Spitzer for packaging a new chemical not yet recognized for sale in New York. Are you sure what your using has been truly tested? Don't bet the ranch...

Cutterpup, bless you, that's the first step. TerryR is right; if you really love your planet enough to plant native, do your ecosystem a favor and don't use chemicals. None of them balance all life as well as the natural methods.

Compost rocks!

Scott

Ummmm..I don't use Preen. Or chemical fungicides, fertilizers, pesticides or anything else. The only herbicide I use is glyphosate, and that rarely.

I'm sure that glyphosate has been thoroughly tested. I believe the results of the testing. There are new test results out saying DDT is harmless. Should I believe them, too? If it's new it's true?

I really don't need a lecture on how to respect nature, I've been respecting it for more than 35 years.

It is difficult, if not outright impossible, to restore or recreate a prairie without using herbicide. In very small areas, like a small garden bed, of course it makes more sense to smother or solarise, or just pull undesireable weeds. The state parks and county parks all use glyphosate. It would be hard to get enough mulch to cover 50 acres 6-8 inches deep.

Glyphosate (aka Roundup) is basically a plant hormone. As I understand, it works by stimulating uncontrolled cellular growth. It degrades rather quickly, but I wouldn't recommend breathing it, eating it or swimming in it (unless you'd like a vacation in intensive care...)

The Nature Conservancy, and all sorts of other environmental agencies have adopted using Round-up to control invasives. No, it isn't the best chemical in the world, and if you can go organic on your own property - more power to you. However, when you measure the ecological damage produced by invasive species it far outways the problems with round-up. Besides, generally the method used is to remove as much possible manually, then treat the stumps with round-up. (They don't just spray it around willy-nilly on a conservation site.)

To those nay-sayers out there, you are welcome to visit me in Virginia at any time and help remove Multiflora rose, Ailanthus and Kudzu with "organic means" from conservation sites on a yearly basis. I dare say that it won't take you long before you are converted. In fact, I'd challenge anyone to demonstrate that there is even a viable way to organically eliminate these species on a large site (while not killing other species in the process). If there is, then please let me know!

BTW, to the original poster, good for you for removing those plants. Yes, there are plenty of other lovely blue and purple natives that are so nice that you won't even miss your purple loosestrife.

yarthkin, we are talking about in our own yards. We weren't talking conservation areas, we aren't talking about acreas and acreas, we're talking about using RoundUp in our own little slice of the earth.

I'm helping my dad remove multiflora rose and honeysuckle on 3 acres. It's not converting me, sorry. If he wants to use it, it's his land and his business. He knows I don't agree, but he also knows I know it's his land.

Why does a conversation of this nature always have to turn ugly? My opinion isn't the same as yours or ahughes. That makes me wrong and you right? Or me right and you wrong? No. It just means we have differing opinions. I respect that and would like my opinion respected also. I didn't read anyone lecturing anyone. I read an opinion expressed.

Terry

Terry,

My appologies. Actually, I quite admire people who choose to go organic, and I have no love at all for Monsanto. As I said, Roundup is some nasty stuff and you don't want to have too much contact with it.

I had just recently heard some really extreme opinions that round-up is never appropriate (mostly outside this thread) EVEN on conservation sites, and was overly reacting some opinions expressed on this thread about the use of the chemical. Check out the news story about the people in Alaska fighting use of round-up against Orange Hawkweed for example.

Personally, I do use it on my own property, but exclusively on things like ailanthus and multiflora rose (in combination with manual removal). If other people have the time and energy to dig out every tiny piece of root, then they have my respect for doing so. I wasn't being sarcastic when I said that if you have organic alternatives to let me know!

Also, I do not advocate using roundup randomly on herbacious weeds you want to eliminate or for clearing garden space. There are better ways of dealing with those (like covering an area with black plastic, or burning).

So... here's the question. When our homeowner gets a billion purple loosestrife plants coming up everywhere, what method would you use to ensure complete removal?

Thanks,

Yarthkin

Yarthkin, don't worry about it. I've seen the post here and another site about the article regarding what's going on in Alaska. I do understand and acknowledge that sometimes RoundUp is probably the only way to go. And yes, sometimes people do have really strong opinions on a subject and do make it sound as if it's their way or no way. But in this case ( we do have to decide case by case) of somebody's yard, I just don't feel it's appropriate. I don't know the size of her yard, but I know if I have any that come up here, I'll use my fork and lift them out. We used to live on an acre, half of it was cleared to build the house. Then I got busy planting. When weeds came up, I grabbed my fork and lifted them all out. When they're little, they should be easy to pull up, especially after a rain. The OP has said she hasn't had a problem with them reseeding, so I'm not sure if she'll have a billion volunteers. I know here, there was just one plant. This house had been a rental for about 5 years and nobody did anything outside (except destroy windows and such), and I had just the one plant. I do believe I got all the roots outs, but if I didn't, or I have more resprouting, I'll use my fork. Did I answer your question?

As an aside, I've got friends who see something that isn't where it's supposed to be and automatically grab the RoundUp. I hope to teach by example, that RoundUp isn't needed in our gardens.

Terry

Terry, I also can't help but wonder if soil type isn't an issue here too. I usually can't fork anything out of my soil - it is red brick clay. Past about 6-10 inches and you have to use a maddox! What you say is true though... get invasives when they are young, before they are a problem and then you generally don't have to resort to herbacide.

I was also pretty much speaking in hypotheticals. With any luck, destroying the parent plant was enough. Truthfully, I have no personal experience with Purple loosestrife, besides seeing it in wetlands when I travel north. We've been lucky in that it hasn't shown up in our county. Of course we still have ailanthus, english ivy, periwinkle, kudzu, oriental bittersweet, Japanese honey suckle, multiflora rose... and more nasty imports. My parents "forest", most likely a regrown farm*, has so many invasives, it would almost be better to clear it all and start over. We're lucky in having an old hardwood forest in which invasives find it hard to get a foothhold. (I suppose there is a lesson there too, in protecting older forests, as they have more natural resistance)

Yarthkin

*Incidentally, I suspect the land behind my parent's house was once part of Meriwether Lewis' farm.

Ahh Yarthkin!! You've got the soil I had when we lived in TN! Nope, shovel won't work, maddox or pick ax does. I did have yards and yards of topsoil/compost brought it and we spread that around, so my weeds were pretty much in that top part (the builder removed all of the top soil and didn't replace it, so I had what I call hardpan). I put newspaper and cardboard down and then put the topsoil on that to eventually help bring in worms and help loosen that stuff you guys call soil :o)! In the other half, where it wasn't disturbed by the builder, it was pretty easy to dig. Lots of leaf mold, I suppose? Out at my parents place, in their woods is the same thing. Easy digging, just so many invasives. Their acreage used to be a timber farm. When they bought it, the owners took out all the hard wood in there and sold it. So my parents is regrown timber also. They bought it about 10 years ago, and it's grown up a lot. Unfortunately, it's got tons of multi flora rose and honeysuckle in there. For the medium size stuff, dad bought an attatchment for his weed whacker. Like a circular saw blade, and I had fun cutting the stuff down with that. For the really big ones, we used chain saws. And for the little stuff we used his brush hog. He decided late October he wanted all this done, so we ran out of warm weather pretty quickly. Come spring, we'll be back at it. He's talked about looking into a controlled burn, spraying RoundUp and he talks about using something called Cross Bow. He's pretty anal about how he does things, so I know he won't be spraying willy nilly in there. I just don't like the thought of spraying anything in there. There's also a creek about 1/2 mile from them, so just the thought of him spraying....??? Don't ya just love that multi flora rose and how it grabs you just walking by it, then grabs you as you cut it and hangs on for dear life as you throw in it the fire?! We'd come up to eat and my mom was always gasping at our bleeding arms, necks, foreheads.......

Terry