Jey - I'm local too and since I do landscaping professionally, disposing of debris (and a LOT of it sometimes) is a pretty routine occurrence. Here's what I'd suggest: grab a copy of the Little Nickle (at any 7-11) and call a few hauling services listed there for estimates. Be able to supply them with an approximate size of the pile you need to dispose of, although they should come by personally to give you an estimate. And that will include dump fees. They will take it to a yard waste recycling station or to Pacific Topsoils, as that is the cheapest way to dispose of it for them also. At least you'll be assured the stuff is being recycled. 1-800-Got-Junk works too but they may be more expensive. An alternative is to contact Pacific Topsoils. They also recycle yard waste. And they rent containers by the day with a delivery and pick-up fee that is a lot less than the county. And they have yards all over the county, so should be convenient to you. And yes, all of King County's yard and kitchen waste is recycled into compost - Cedar Grove Composting. But they don't give it away for free :-) I've broached this subject here a couple of times, but the recycling process and Cedar Grove in particular is cutting edge and a very large and high standard commercial composting operation. Certified organic Cedar Grove Compost is sold all over the county at nurseries, garden centers, groceries and box stores. Unfortunately, unless you have the means yourself via a chipper or truck, disposing of a large pile of garden debris is going to cost in this area. btw, King County transfer stations charge by the weight not the truck load, so other than a bit extra for gas, multiple trips to the recycling transfer center will not cost any more than one, single, massive load. Yard waste is $82.50 per ton. (good to know so the hauling guys don't gouge you, although they should be paying a lower, commercial rate). Here is a link that might be useful: Pacific Topsoils recycling

Chemicals would be the easiest. Even with tilling the area, there are still going to be weeds and tubers left. I am assuming you will be growing the fescue by seed,so you can't use any pre-emergent anti-germinating prevention (such as halts). You'll probably be struggling for awhile. I had sod (bermuda) laid down over a weedy patch and it took 3 years (and a lot of round up) to get rid of the weeds. It all depends on how tolerant of weeds you are. THe only other thing you could do is cover the area with black plastic and 'solarize' the soil to try to kill off as many of the tubers/weed seeds before laying down sod or seeds.

In January I killed off grass in my front-yard to expand my rose-beds.. I put down pieces of roofing shingles making sure to overlap, and by the end of Feb. the grass was all dead... I like the shingles because it lets the rain water drain, also the weight keeps them in place they don't blow away... I use them in my garden to kill random weeds, drop a piece on the weed and a week later it is dead... if the shingle appears too 'ugly' just drop some mulch on it... works for me... sally

Ouch, sorry to hear about VC causing you that much discomfort. We have been battling this vine along (and up) the north wall of our house off and on for several years. We found we can keep it out of the St Augustine just with regular mowing. If yours are out in the open where you can get to the whole vine with the mower, you might be able to do it in just by keeping the leaves trimmed off. Our challenge has been the small bits of root that remain under the shrubs or other places it can't be reached with the mower or trimmer. The spray-on vine herbicides sold at the big box stores do a good job killing off current growth, but don't seem to be able to finish off the VC roots even after several repeat applications. A better approach might be to let the vine grow out, coil it up, and soak it in herbicide. I've done this for other vine problems, but should also work on VC. I used plastic bags and tape, but the following forum post describes a slightly different approach using a can. Think I'm going to pull some runners and see how well this works when applied directly to the roots. Here is a link that might be useful: Advise please on how to KILL a vine This post was edited by bostedo on Mon, May 20, 13 at 16:14