Brad I do appreciate the advice. I only have two plants or divisions of YG that are up on my back hill. so far they have been slow to spread. Of course it has only been one full season for one and the other i got in the spring. my guess is the soil conditions.....very rocky....may be one culprit. i do have two small Henons growing back there as well. one gal size. maybe two ft tall. i can barely find them amongst all the weeds....i have to weed every now and again to find them. that back property line for me is about 130 ft across......I think another 5 to 10 divisions won't be hurting me any. that whole area is pretty much unlandscapable. I cut all the threatening trees down that might crash onto my house so all that is left is brush....its even a pain to water up there. I have to keep a hose in place up there. I drug it up in the spring but now i can barely find it lol. This is my main area i want it. If YG is what is working best for me in my area well this is what i want for erosion control. My Original original plan was to create a 'natural fence' because there was no way to get fence posts in the ground. My two Nigras i have on the hill but further down(about 2/3 ft as well). if i ever get to finish phase two of my deck they will reside about 6 ft above where the deck meets the hill. the YG will be about 25 ft further up....I have a couple other spots in the yard that i plan to get ready for diff. sp. Like you said to me way back when i do consider myself a bit of a pioneer as far as trying to grow in my area. Bamboo is pretty scarse around by me. other than that one place down the street from me, i haven't seen(heard) it anywhere but further east or south. I am hoping to get a bit more because i don't know how much more i can get from that guy. I'm hoping the Arrow will do a bit better next year too. 6 ft would work for me but you saw the pic of what i have. I'll give it 2 more years in that spot.....alot of trial and error for me... Kurt

It's pretty but a pernicious weed that spreads about and is impossible to eradicate. There are better things to grow than Polygonum cuspidatum (Fallopia japonica).

there's probably more information here than you need - but maybe this can help get you started.... first, you will want to clear the vines from your "keepers" - shrubs and trees. and you want to be able to identify invasive species in your area and get rid of those as well. if you are pulling out large patches of invasives, you may want to look into spreading some seed, or filling in with plants. otherwise you might find yourself pulling up multiflora rose, only to come back next year to a patch of garlic mustard. I don't know how overgrown it is, but you may want to do some "pathkeeping", too. after these basics are done, I find that the garden will kinda tell you where to go next. there's great information here, and other online sources. get a list of invasives in your area, and try to familiarize yourself with them. a good guide book would help, too. you'll be doing a lot of subtracting - if there's something you cannot identify, I suggest leaving it for now. you can take photos and try to identify them later, but there may be something native and desireable growing. here are some threads from the garden forum and the search words I used to get there. some tips to get you started..... clearing woodland: http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/woodland/msg071110068318.html http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/woodland/msg0317183118236.html http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/woodland/msg0402262725394.html http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/woodland/msg071436024378.html http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/woodland/msg07140337930.html neglected garden: http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/newgard/msg0813524910737.html http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/design/msg0610583824814.html overgrown garden: http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/newgard/msg0813524910737.html http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/newgard/msg0813524910737.html (sorry, I tried to make the links clickable, but it wouldn't put the message thru ... if you do want to check out the links, you'll have to copy them, and paste them into the address bar) good luck!

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