I had a large patch of it when I moved into this place. It grew to be about 8 feet high and took up a full 6x8 patch of my yard last summer. I noted where it all grew, and made my plans. I got out there first thing as soon as the snow melted this year and dug up all the roots I could get out, but it still sends up shoots here and there. As I find them, I take my shovel, and cut straight down about 3 inches away from the shoot, then wiggle (I have a straight edge square shovel about 6 inches wide, not much flex) but don't scoop the dirt out (you don't need to dig out the shoots, just the woody roots). That loosens the dirt around the shoot, then grasp the shoot at the very base (try to get it below the ground slightly if you have mulch or loose dirt) and WIGGLE it as you pull it, and you'll get the whole shoot, not just breaking it off at the ground. I've been told that if you keep pulling the shoots, after you've dug out all the woody root you can (THAT is the hard part!), you will slowly rob the plant of its strength, and it will eventually give up the fight and begone. Do NOT attempt to put ANY part of it in the compost pile! It's NOT just the roots that start new plants, it's ANY PART OF IT, so don't drop even a tiny shoot! You must BURN all of the knotweed plant and roots, as if you put it in the trash, it will then just takeover the landfill, and spread from there. If you have the concrete block to support it, you can leave the plants to completely DRY OUT, but there cannot be any soil contact of any kind, so it is just easier to burn it all. It's an extremely invasive species here in Vermont, it's a regestered Class B Noxious Weed, and its taking over like the kudzu did down in Tennessee. Every roadside is covered in it, it has killed out almost all of our traditional roadside flora like ferns, milkweed, grasses, wildflowers. It's all dead, it's just knotweed, everywhere. Southern Vermont is basically infested beyond all hope at this point. Here's a good webpage on eradication methods: http://efotg.sc.egov.usda.gov/references/public/VT/JS315-knotweed.pdf For a good note: I made the effort to talk to my neighbors about what it is and how invasive it is, and EVERY ONE OF THEM let me dig it out of their yards too. So, don't be afraid to talk to your neighbors about it, there's a good chance they will be smart enough to let you eradicate it from THEIR yards too! Here is a link that might be useful: Vermont Agency of Agriculture: Noxious Weeds

we had a concrete yard with a foot high layer of soil in a raised bed and we raised rocket lettuce basil spinach and chard in there. if you have about two or three foot you could try anything just buy some seeds and see how they fair seeds are fairly cheap and if nothing comes of it theres little lost. just top up whats already there with a good layer of compost and sprikle your seeds on top. wildflowers native to your area will grow almost anywhere they can find footing even out of walls and many are shade loving you could try collecting seeds from wildflowers along shaded woods that take your fancy or if your permitted taking the plants and a good chunk of soil with them and replanting beside your trees. beans will also grow in shade and climbers will creep up the trees and find light something like honeysuckle or jasmine so long as they have enough food to feed the roots while they are climbing up. you may get less of a crop of flowers or fruit from anything in shade like kale will grow much smaller but it will still grow.

PopMama, I got curious enough to check out the Colorado Noxious Weed list on this one—and it’s NOT on it! As of now, none of the Campanulas are on it! But here’s a good info page I ran into if you want to see more about it. Check out the tabs on top for pics and other info. On the “legal status” tab it tells if a plant is a Noxious Weed ANYWHERE in the country. If it’s not, there’s just no “noxious weed” info there! (This is the USDA site some of us have referred to recently, but it looks to me like they’re changing it—for the better! There's more useable info than I remember the site having!) Pics of it on the “images” tab, and I agree that’s what it is—I hadn’t been familiar with it before! http://plants.usda.gov/core/profile?symbol=CARA&photoID=cara_004_ahp.tif I way agree with OakIris that it’s a good idea to get rid of it NOW, while you still can. I made a mistake when I decided the Mexican Evening Primrose (Oenothera speciosa ‘Siskiyou’) that was here when I bought the house was SO Pretty that I didn’t want to get rid of it—even tho I KNEW it was invasive. A couple years later—after it had gone UNDER my 3’ wide sidewalk I decided maybe it wasn’t so pretty after all—and spent a few years fighting it to finally get rid of it all! I KNEW it was invasive! It was pretty dumb of me to decide to let it grow in the first place, pretty or not! OakIris, I definitely agree that if you use an herbicide, no matter which one you pick, they all have some sort of a problem or disadvantage. I, also, try not to use them whenever possible, but there are times when, for me, there’s no other option. Here are a few pics I took yesterday! My front yard is, literally, turning into the new Aspen Pando! I’ve been fighting my neighbor’s aspen trees ever since I moved in here, and, in this case, the only alternative to using an herbicide is to BOMB my neighbor’s aspens—which would inadvertently include his house! It’s not possible to pull them out—no matter how often you pulled them. The roots from his trees are still in MY yard, and the suckers will keep coming up into perpetuity! Here’s the situation! (Yeah, my grass looks awful! I didn’t want to mow until I got them sprayed so there’d be as much foliage as possible, and with the rain we had it wasn’t possible to spray them, and I finally just got it done yesterday! Right after I sprayed them—decided I wanted to Document them! Tonite I’m gonna water the heck out of them to get them sucking up as much of the WBG as possible.) From the neighbor’s side of my yard! The dandelions, other assorted milkweed, and other assorted WEEDS are from the Weed Lot Neighbors BEHIND me! Before that house was foreclosed and left standing empty for a year+, I had had virtually ALL the weeds—except aspen trees!—gone from my grass! https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/PXqT8lNzQ9syFNJAVkrt4KdtHZHTh5d06Slth8pk5yQ?feat=directlink Looking toward my neighbor’s yard! Location of HIS trees in text on the pic! https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/X3ooWHX8AfOdgHkMo0R0GadtHZHTh5d06Slth8pk5yQ?feat=directlink From a little bit in front of his trees looking toward the street. The stump is “my pine” that died last year! https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/kiJS55iy80IyQpRB3bE0cKdtHZHTh5d06Slth8pk5yQ?feat=directlink And a “side” view to show how BIG they actually are! You really can’t see that in the other pics! https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/5LHffPo37QgpixQcyypCrKdtHZHTh5d06Slth8pk5yQ?feat=directlink No other options! Also, I have found a way to use WBG in my perennial beds—even when the weed is right in the middle of a good perennial plant. A few years ago I took these pics so I could show people how I do it if it ever came up around here. In this case, too, there was no other option. Or, I guess you could say there was an option, but that option would have been to dig the whole plant up in order to be able to get the whole root of the weed—which was a thistle—out of the ground, and then to replant the whole—big—plant! That wasn’t gonna happen! Here’s a pic of the thistle in the MIDDLE of my (good) plant. https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/Ilh2INAPjBhE1nsFp34gMsK0nZGRGfHLEy4-V3DuEj0?feat=directlink What I do is to cut a small hole (just big enough for what I need to do) in the corner of the bottom of a plastic bag (I use non-zipper ones—they’re cheaper and easier to handle), and then I pull the entire weed up into the bag, “secure” the bottom of the bag where the hole meets the ground—usually by pushing the plastic slightly into the soil, and then, after being sure ALL of the weed is inside the bag I spray enough to wet all the foliage with a pressure sprayer (I think it would be really hard to keep the spray in the baggie with a spray bottle). Then I leave the top of the bag open for a day or so, so the plant can keep “growing” and draw the herbicide down into the roots, and then I usually close the top of the baggie and let it Stew In Its Own Juices! Kind of like Zach’s solarization system! I leave the baggie in place till I’m sure the entire plant is dead—or until it starts to grow again, in which case I give it another spritz of WBG. With this particular “weed,” one application (of WBG, not RU) was enough to send it to that Great Weed Cemetery in the Sky—or wherever it is! With bindweed (I only have an occasional “individual” one at this point) I wrap the vine around my fingers into a little “role” and tuck it into the baggie. (One other thing! If you use an herbicide and accidentally get it on a “good” plant, if you rinse it off immediately it won’t do any harm. Just rinse it off BEFORE it dries!) Here’s a pic of the thistle “in the baggie,” about to Meet Its Maker! https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/abquB3E3LFGyx5o5jGytvcK0nZGRGfHLEy4-V3DuEj0?feat=directlink In other situations with weeds just “near” perennials, I’ve used things like cottage cheese type containers with the bottom cut out—or anything that’s the right size that I can cut the bottom out of. A couple times I used a club cracker box—just folded the flaps on the bottom up into the box, put it over the weed, firmly into the soil, sprayed, waited a day or so, and then closed the flaps on the top of the box! (It kind of looked like I was trying to grow Club Crackers in my garden!!!) When I was desperately trying to get rid of the Mexican Evening Primrose, I took a large sheet of cardboard and held up against the (big) plants that were immediately next to the primrose—firmly on the ground, sprayed them, waited a couple minutes for them to dry, and pulled the cardboard out. So anything that will keep from getting the spray on the “good” plants works. I’ve heard stories where some people claim the herbicide can somehow transmigrate from the roots of the weeds you’re trying to kill into the roots of the good plants you want to save—but I’ve sure never had that happen, and as you can see, I’ve done it, literally, in the middle of a “good” plant! So it is possible, and I do it in cases where “pulling” just isn’t an option. Hope some of this helps if you ever get to the point where you feel you don’t have any other options. Skybird P.S. There IS a “Grass B Gon” that’s supposed to kill grasses but not broadleaf plants, but I’ve never tried it.

I will add, the frequent use of the word "poison" in stone's narrative suggests a less than complete understanding of what the various materials actually are, and what they do. If a specific herbicide has been compounded in such a way as to interfere with one or more enzyme pathways within green, vascular plants, is that a poison? The word poison has an actual and specific meaning. In human terms, a poison is a material which, upon being consumed, causes immediate life-threatening reactions. So, are herbicides which are designed to interfere with one or more essential enzymatic pathways within green, vascular plants poisons? Not to you and me, and not to moss (non-vascular) and not to a mature tree trunk which the material has drifted onto (No green tissue exposure). It is indeed tiring to see the same simple-minded "chemicals are bad" kind of thinking here. So, what about plants which exude allelopathic materials from their root tips? Must they be banished so as not to be poisoning the environment? This is just way too beginner for me. And in support of TR's comments above, you, stone, are putting lots of words in our mouths here. No, you're not the only person on this forum-if you can believe it-that would first seek out the desirable plants in a scenario such as above, for saving before proceeding to do any other work. It must be hard to live your life, knowing as you do that everyone else is an idiot who doesn't know what they're doing. +oM