"I've never heard of canary reed grass. Can you cut it & feed it to the goats, and after it has been cut, reseed with native grasses with hopes of them filling in while the canary grass in weakened?" The problem is that unless we had a long drought, there's really no way to harvest this stuff as hay without causing severe disturbance to the soil (the tractor would sink in pretty far in on such wet ground). If we have a no-rain period for more than a week, I could probably put the portable fence in there to let the goats munch the stuff, but goats ain't sheep, and won't eat it to the ground unless I lock them in there for a couple weeks (in which case they might turn to eating the poisonous plants). "I understand from The One Who Knows, these fora do not allow a direct link to the ISIS website." Given our kind host's penchion (sp?) for free speech and proper footnoting, that sounds a bit silly. In any case, thanks, Carol, for the link! FYI: Reed Canary is one of those odd native plants that suddenly becomes invasive in disturbed habitats (Phragmites and Ragweed are two other examples of this type).

If forsythia could be killed that easily, I would not have the monsters in my garden. If you don't like the unkempt look of them, though, with their "wild, long sprouts [that] shoot off in every direction", you might want to replace them. This is the nature of forsythia, and trying to tame them will be a losing battle. Mine are along a side border, and I just leave them be, cutting lots of branches during late winter for indoor color. To me, those long, wild branches are graceful and kind of sweet, but I have a high tolerance for chaos. I'm on my 5th huge vase full of forced cuttings already; that's what makes late winter bearable around here.

first, anything but ANYTHING except crown vetch. that stuff sux bigtime. and as much as i like to think that plants can do anything and everything, some times machines and men need to clean up the mess that machines and men did. what im saying is that there may be some serious soil issues now and maybe some terracing and/or other solutions in addition to the planting that needs to be done. if i read this correctly, u are living under this 'slope' that 'used' to have trees on. that = easy movement. there are some solutions that ive used and seen. cheapest and maybe best solution is to put down a landscaping errosion matt and seed w/ a very hardy fast growing native mix. im not going to offer a mix cuz im here and u are there, ask the local conservation people. my down the road neighbor put in chain link fence and has seeded it and planted it over the years and the area has remained stable for 20 years +. tho not sure i like this idea, it gets to the solution of non-movement so one can plant into. jute cloth is a neat idea that incorporates errosion matting with the seeds. i know they do it for shoreland resortation, maybe some locals in ur area use it with the local natives. one last comment is about seeding hills. ive seeded many a hill and ALL of them end up having much more seed @ the bottom and much less @ the top and mostly devoid in the middle. and this is after concentrating on the middle and top. this is always the case unless there is something holding the seed inplace long enough to germinate. i find that multi seedings can help but be aware of this fact. typically i kill a serious slope only once with round up and seed the $#!+ out of it and hope for the best. i dont till or touch the after roundup dead thatch and leave everthing there to act as a mulch/soil matt. froggy Here is a link that might be useful: jute cloth

This may be a little bit off topic, or maybe it's still on the topic. A couple of Summer's ago, I fell in love with crown vetch. My parent's had chosen to plant it around a small pond that my Father built and it grew like crazy all around it! I use to love this wildflower as a child and played with it a lot. I really love it because it smells like watermelons! Do you think it smells like that too? Just curious... Also, there's this similar wildflower that also looks a whole lot like crown vetch...it looks exactly the same, but instead of the beautiful light, pastel purple flowers with white, this 'other' kind has yellow and white petals. Is that a wildflower related to the crown vetch? One last thing I would like to mention here is, is I also fell in love with the tiny little green faced winged bee's or fly's that hung around the crown vetch too. There were handfuls of them hanging around, sipping each little flower all day long. Does anyone know what they are or are called? They're not your, usual honey bee's either...they were very small, had small black eyes and had a greenish color to them. If anyone knows anything about what I'm talking about, please tell me more because I love them and are very curious about them... thank you