#electroCulture. Combined with what you already do will equal your best harvests you’ve ever seen. Cost? Next to nothing. Knowledge base?? A five minute video and an open mind is even enough.
Just needed some copper wire. After the two world wars somehow this vital knowledge was nearly lost. If you have access or interest you’ll find all sorts of incredible information about electro culture. Please have an open mind as the results are amazing and there’s so many additional techniques one can and will surely want to learn after seeing the successes with the most basic simple technique. Everyone I’ve seen utilized it has been successful. Right off the bat with sprouting seeds i saw the difference I love seeing this knowledge spread and spread it does as nothing works better than seeing the results.
Excellent information for someone like myself who is at the starting point of rewilding my yard. I look forward to updates on how you deal with your invasives, I’m dealing with some myself. Best of luck to you!
Thank you for watching. I ended up pulling as much mugwart and snipped the bloomed flowers on GR. I then quarantined the area, and used a selective herbicide on the mugwort. Fingers crossed!!!🤞 was mind racking!
The strategic application of herbicides can be an important tool in your arsenal. Also, at least cutting back the invasive plants when they’re in flower and before they go to seed will be important. Your local conservation district should have some helpful recourses in putting all the pieces together to tackle this problem. Good luck!
Thank you so much, to be quite honest that’s exactly what I just did. I removed all the seed heads of the mugwart and the Canadian golden rod, took me a long time, but I did it. I also used a selective herbicide called imazapic. When I set up my native meadow, I used a custom imazapic tolerant selection of native wildflowers. That was kind of my plan to establish the meadow, and I’m learning that it is also a way to continue when the invasive shiw up. Thank you so much for your comment and thank you so much for watching, your comment really gave me confidence and hope. 🙏🙏🙏
If you do research into it you'll find that many herbicides are not as environmentally problematic as some will lead you to believe. The real problem with them is the extreme overuse in farming and for "ornamental" reasons. Glyphosate is actually very benign to most things that aren't plants, it doesn't persist for very long, and it doesn't move through soil so it's a good one to use for general purposes. But it's good to look into the specific plants you're trying to control and see what methods/herbicides have been found to be successful.
Yes, for sure that’s the way. I understand it as well, I got lucky. My neighbor is a scientist and he pretty much understands how these are besides work and how they break down. So that’s an excellent point you make. Thank you so much for watching I really do appreciate the support. Have a great day!
Consider reaching out to a National Wildlife Refuge near you. They probably spray or they will understand your situation and offer good advice. Perhaps there are Annuals like squash or peas followed by a native grass or bush that can compete better with help. The point being that this weed will be can be controlled, eventually, without spray once you figure out what lesson the weed is teaching you. This weed has a story to tell…it’s telling you to add sand …or straw or rocks…or drainage or several small ponds or a fountain/stream bed or mushrooms or stumps or maybe remove something…. maybe it’s spoiled rotten on wood chips? You can do this! Learning what This weed has to teach will create a far better meadow than what you originally planned…and that’s as it must be. The plan got you started …good start! This weed is a mocking critic of your plan, but fear not, the right plant allies will help you given the opportunity.
I love Canada goldenrod, especially in a nearby park that hosts too many invasive plants. It’s a fighter! In our garden I cut it back, pull it out easily and watch it reappear here and there. It’s a dance and so beautiful, especially this fall time of year. Several warbler species hang out in patches of this attractive plant during migration and of course those pollinators put on a show on this stage!
I agree the Canadian Goldenrod steals show, and the pollinators absolutely love it. I have been pulling some out myself, when you pull yours out, does it come back thicker or does it control? Thank you so much for watching! 🙏☮️ I really do appreciate the support!
Mugwort is super aggressive where I am in Maine but I love the goldenrod here and it seems to be appreciated by pollinators when not much else is flowering. It's native where I am.
Thanks so much for the support and the comments. GREAT ANALYSIS, That seems to be exactly the same down here, I really think disturbing the mugwart stimulated in more though, ughhhh. It’s seems thicker now, so I’ll have to make some sort of plan. Fingers crossed! Would love to be Maine though, I’ve never been! Thank you so much for watching! ☮️🙏☮️🙏☮️
It looks really awesome. Very cool project. I veiw 'weedy'' plants as sympotoms of some underlying syndome. Golden rod is an early suscession plant that thrives on poor soils, remove it and you will still have poor soil, so it will soon be thriving once again. With time it will improve the soil (by increasing organic matter) and biodiversity will increase. You could accellerate this by adding amendments. Golden rod is tall and late flowering so can give the illusion of being more dominant than it really is, but obviously you are in the best position to assess whats happening on your site.
Right on! When the home was built, they stripped all the topsoil and left us with hard clay with no organic matter. Thx for watching and taking the time to leave a nice comment. 🙏
Nice video and love the realism involved in this. I feel like many of the lawn -> wildflower videos are all fairy tale endings so it's nice to see someone discuss about some of the hardships. We have a 3 acre meadow as well and all we do is mow over it with a brush hog once a year and then maintain walking trails with our zero turn. There are plenty of invasive (autumn olive, Japanese honeysuckle, Bradford pear, teasel, multiflora rose to name a few). Our meadow is farther from the house so ultimately we decided to just let it go, mow it once a year to keep the woody plants from taking over and see what happens. We get a decent amount of natives flowers (goldenrod is native in our range in Ohio). I think you hit the nail on the head and have 3 options: 1) know your meadow is not going to look how you envisioned and come to terms with it 2) spend likely an unreasonable and never ending fight hand pulling invasive plants or 3) use chemicals. Not an easy decision!
I’m not sure if that last comment I sent went through, so I’ll try again. Your meadow sounds amazing, I wish I could see it, I’m sure 3 acres is tough to maintain. But it seems like you’ve got the right attitude and a great formula. Ours is a little bit smaller, so it’s definitely more manageable. But I really do appreciate you taking the time to leave a comment, as well as watching the video. Thank you so much and I hope you have a great day.❤️☮️
This is a really great video, give some insight into kind of seeing something other than the bells and whistles and the roses, and gives an opportunity to look for and to expect the unexpected. Thank you so much. Great job!
Very Well Written and Highly Informative. I have learned so much. Is this the first video of an educational series. Your Passion is Obvious.Thank you for this.
Yes, we have a playlist of me development some just cinematic area of photography others educational. At the end of the day, I just wanna say thank you so much for all your support and all your motivation that pushes me each and every day.
Great stuff and will continue to follow and support your channel. I love your asters. As for mugwort, I just keep pulling it up with the aid of a hori hori knife. After 3 years of disciplined attention, I'm down to just a few recurring plants. (Just like everything.) My nemesis has been goutweed but again, same approach. And as you discuss in your point #3, I do eventually spritz on a little glyphosate on the nagging stragglers; I do not feel bad about that as the benefit of killing the residual rhizomes far outweighs any semi-persistent chemistry. I have a friend who has a ton of lesser celandine (Ficaria?) They are obstinate about not using herbicide. So, as this little demon produces tons of little tubers that can never be fully removed, they will never fully control their invasion. You have to choose your outcome.
I forget where I read it, but I follow the idea that invasive or not each plant is giving and taking from the earth, if one species grows relentlessly there is a deviation in the soil composition in the earth, and observation will be the only real way to figure out the puzzle. Good luck
Yes, for sure, we try and let things naturalize as much as possible. But this is headed towards a monoculture and that’s not gonna be good for anything. So our idea is to keep some diversity and let nature do what it’s going to do. Thank you so much for watching and leaving a comment. I really appreciate it.🙏☮️
Depending on the size of your meadow, I feel like persistence can kill invasive. I removed a ton of honeysuckle from the woods in my backyard. Every spring I just go out there multiple times and cut all the new sprouts but I also weed wack the stumps because they get shoots too. I'm also in the process of converting my yard to natives. I go out there every couple of days and use a shovel or pick axe to scrape out all the weed sprouts. If you don't let them establish it really takes no time at all.
Ain’t that the truth. I’ve been pretty diligent with this mugwart, and anything I do it seems like it actually comes back stronger. The Goldenrod issue is new. I feel like I can just pull that stuff out, and I don’t want to pull it all, but I’m going to give it a shot. Thank you for watching. Good luck with your yard.🙏☮️
Just keep pulling up the invasives each year before they seed themselves or even before they grow very big in spring. It might be tough work, but if you keep pulling them up each year there should eventually be less and less of them. Gardening and nature resturation work don't have to happen quickly. Be patient. You don't have to eradicate the invasives in one or two years. Just keep at it slowly.
@@AumsAcre I'm not sure if this is what they meant, but you can cut and let the plant wilt 2 or 3 times per season. So essentially just cutting the plant before it can reproduce and preferably often enough that the roots will just die back eventually because they lack the resources to sustain themselves. This has the benefit of being relatively easy as you don't have to worry about cut quality and just go for it and you also don't have to worry about spreading the plant roots or seeds that haven't germinated to other areas in the meadow if you dig them up. The negatives are that it takes years and it may not be very aesthetically pleasing, though I do think after the plant has fully wilted you can compost it regularly. You can also cut the flowers off so they are unable to make seed and put them in a bowl or give to someone and the flowers are quite beautiful. But yeah, just make sure it can't go to seed to prevent further spreading and keep killing the green parts a few times per growing season and eventually it just tires out and dies.
Hi Aum, sorry to hear about your conundrum. Nature surely prevails. Canada Goldenrod (both altissima and canadensis) are not remotely "invasive." But they're super-aggressive natives for sure. Mugwort is invasive AF and spreads with those nasty runners. Have you considered a full, prescribed burn of the entire meadow (as opposed to spot-burning)? If so, maybe reach out to Kyle Lybarger at Native Habitat Project. He mostly deals with much larger areas, but perhaps he will offer ideas.
Hi Mark, thank you so much for watching and reaching out, the mugwart is absolute beast - when I burned it before it seemed like it got thicker, that’s the scary part around this. It’s now a fine tough mat since I mow it down. So I think I’m going to use a selective herbicide and quarantine the pockets of areas that are affected. As for thegoldenrod, yes, it’s such a beautiful native plan, and you’re right it is super aggressive. My local ecologist warned me about it when he saw my yard, at a time, I told him it was part of the seed mix that I planted, because I thought it was that GR grey species, but it turned out to be Canadian. Anyways, thank you so much for checking out the video and leaving a comment and I really appreciate your suggestion to reach out to Kyle. Have a great day!☀️☮️
Idea. For goldenrod, get large contractor trash bag, cut flowers off and discard them before they can reseed. Cut plants near base and burn. Weed eat to the ground. I am unfamiliar with Mugwort.
Good idea! And thx for the support. I think that the rhizomes would still be in tact, even with burning. That’s eggar did with Mideast and it came back thicker. I pulling out now. So hopefully that will work. IDK. 🤷
Canadian goldenrod is a prairie plant so if you burn it, itll come back stronger, as all prairie plants evolved with fire and need fire to stimulate best growth. Youve literally been doing the thing that helps it grow best lol. You can kill a rose or hydrangea by burning, but not fire evolved plants. I think people should learn about what conditions create meadows and prairies before adopting them into their landscape. Because those plants shouldnt get maintained (or eradicated) with the same methods used for garden store ornamentals.
@@kareharpies hey there. Thx for the heads up. The only thing is I haven’t tried burning the natives, especially the goldenrod. The plant I’ve been burning is mugwort, and it seems they come back stronger too.
@@AumsAcre im not surprised mugwort found your meadow. It loves low nitrogen soil, which is unfortunately the same conditions wildflower meadows and prairies create and thrive in. Hmm, it does hate acidic soils and wet soils so maybe thats a starting point for some creative solution building? I would dig out as much as I could by hand and then dump a bag of soil acidifier over the particular area and see if it persists in spring. If it doesnt, you've now prepped the ground for a beautiful blueberry bush 😅! I hope you figure something out but I think this might be a multi year approach.
Isn't goldenrod native? It is also very important for specialist pollinators, there are bees that are adapted to just use goldenrod pollen. Maybe you could mow or burn sub-sections of it. Or possibly succession will bring something else after goldenrod -- some plants thrive on disturbance and if you keep taking them out, they'll just keep starting the colonizing process over. What about more native grasses? Good luck with the mugwort, that sounds rough.
Yes, definitely golden rod is a native, the Canadian goldenrod is a little bit more invasive though than others in my yard, and yes, so important this time of the year, it’s a magnet! I’m still learning more about it, so I’m starting to pull it out right now. My ecologist warned me about Canadian Goldenrod, which is why I’m concerned. Thank you so much for the support and the suggestions are awesome!!! 🙏☮️
Also, in the battle of the goutweed - some portions of the garden I simply covered and solarized (3 years, mind you.) I built some "quarantine" beds to relocate plants I wanted to save before laying down the heavy garden cloth and mulch. With a bastard like goutweed - even a little tiny piece of root is enough to sprout new growth - so the quarantine bed is important to give visibility to any missed bits. Also, waiting until the plants are "dormant" in winter will not be very effective - as if you want a foliar spray to do its job, the plant needs to be pre-dormant in the fall, where any sugars produced by photosynthesis are traveling down into the roots... along with the herbicide. Alternately, I use a re-purposed Windex spray bottle with a little herbicide to spray very early emerging plants in spring. Don't let them get too big so they can start producing a lot of sugars for summer growth. And I do tend to prefer glyphosate as it combines quickly and strongly with the clay of the soil around a root of the target plant, so does not travel between plant's root systems as quickly as other herbicides. If anyone suggests you use 2,4-D, be sure you are NOT applying the ester form (e.g. butoxyethyl ester) as it has a seriously long half-life in the soil and can really impact waterways.
Thank you for the advice, great point about the dormancy, after I threw the video out there I realized when I watched it back that I’m gonna need those sugars. Thank you for the reminder. I really do appreciate you taking the time to write some thoughts down and to connect in. Hopefully I’ll be able to eradicate this, my neighbor and I are going to be probably applying some herbicide in the next couple weeks. Fingers crossed.!
I think your management strategy needs to be dictated by your end goals. If the goal is just to avoid using chemicals, then you may just have to live with the invasives. If the goal is to provide maximum long term biodiversity, using chemicals to control the invasive species may be the best option. Its more harmful in the short term, but choosing the right chemicals, applying at the right time, and replanting native species as needed seems like the best way to have long term biodiversity. Do more good than harm, and you'll be doing better than most people with yards.
Now thats some great advice! Great POV!!! Thank you watching and commenting. For me, it’s long term. I have a “decent” grasp on chemicals, and my neighbor is a scientist, so he has a diverse understanding. Together, we may have a chance. I definitely want to have a long-term diverse meadow, four season meadow, so I think I know the answer, because right now I’m headed towards the monoculture. Thank you so much again. I really do appreciate you and everyone else taking the time to offer some insight. 🙏☮️🙏☮️🙏☮️
@AumsAcre no problem. I've spent quite a bit of time thinking about some of these things as I figure out how to manage my own land. My land needs to be generating income for me, so I'm focusing on growing things that I can sell, but the way I grow those things needs to promote biodiversity, both in the plants I grow, and in the wildlife that are impacted by my management. I don't like using synthetic chemicals, but I'll gladly do it if the long term benefits outweigh the short term cost.
@AumsAcre yeah, it's not much just yet, but my wife and I bought a neglected piece of land a bit over a year ago and we've been working on cleaning it up and getting it functional again. About 20 acres of it has been cultivated for at least 5 or 6 years with nothing allowed to grow on it until last year, and our biggest challenge right now with land management is figuring out how to restore the soil health while still making the land profitable. We had it seeded to a mix of grasses and legumes for hay last year, but this year we really only had a few species of weeds that came back. The plan for next year is to allow everything to germinate, and then spray glyphosate to kill it off before interseeding a cereal crop with a diverse forage mix. Hopefully after that, we can go at least 5 years with no tillage and no chemicals, and alternate between cutting hay and using the land to graze livestock.
@@percussionof12 oh wow that sounds absolutely amazing. That would be really cool if you can document it and share your story, I love personally watching stuff like that and how people develop their land and what people do with the things that they grow on it, it’s absolutely amazing to me. That sounds like a lot of work too. 20 acres is a ton of land, wow that is just incredible. I wish you the best of luck. I hope you stay in touch. Would love to see how things go for you.🍀🍀🍀🍀
Personally, I wouldn't use chemicals. If there's a patch of an invasive, I literally pull each plant one by one, but I don't have as big an area as you. I'd go in there with an electric string trimmer, level each patch of invasives, and lay down cardboard. I was actually sitting down yanking buckthorn one by one. Canada goldenrod is the king of your garden and supports more species. To keep it from spreading I snip it off at the base. This keeps it in line. I'd start at the house and work outward and across back and forth. Rome wasn't built in a day !
@@AumsAcre I had an area of periwinkle, so I threw a bunch of common milkweed seeds over it and the milkweed won the battle. The periwinkle is probably still there but you can't see it, and the milkweed is doing great. Much less work than digging and pruning forever.
@@AumsAcre I also had Japanese knotweed. I actually like the plant but to deal with it, snipped it off every week diligently, and then planted zig zag goldenrood, and it's winning as well.
Entire Meadow Playlist - th-cam.com/play/PLS7Zg94bwhEKU2sZsm_NqOI3lbEwTQF1b.html&si=HNxNAzjQsuw0bTL8
#electroCulture. Combined with what you already do will equal your best harvests you’ve ever seen. Cost? Next to nothing. Knowledge base?? A five minute video and an open mind is even enough.
Just needed some copper wire. After the two world wars somehow this vital knowledge was nearly lost. If you have access or interest you’ll find all sorts of incredible information about electro culture.
Please have an open mind as the results are amazing and there’s so many additional techniques one can and will surely want to learn after seeing the successes with the most basic simple technique.
Everyone I’ve seen utilized it has been successful.
Right off the bat with sprouting seeds i saw the difference
I love seeing this knowledge spread and spread it does as nothing works better than seeing the results.
@@CoincidenceTheorist would love to know more. Please send video if you have one.
@@CoincidenceTheorist sounds awesome!
Excellent information for someone like myself who is at the starting point of rewilding my yard. I look forward to updates on how you deal with your invasives, I’m dealing with some myself. Best of luck to you!
Thank you for watching. I ended up pulling as much mugwart and snipped the bloomed flowers on GR. I then quarantined the area, and used a selective herbicide on the mugwort. Fingers crossed!!!🤞 was mind racking!
The strategic application of herbicides can be an important tool in your arsenal. Also, at least cutting back the invasive plants when they’re in flower and before they go to seed will be important. Your local conservation district should have some helpful recourses in putting all the pieces together to tackle this problem. Good luck!
Thank you so much, to be quite honest that’s exactly what I just did. I removed all the seed heads of the mugwart and the Canadian golden rod, took me a long time, but I did it. I also used a selective herbicide called imazapic. When I set up my native meadow, I used a custom imazapic tolerant selection of native wildflowers. That was kind of my plan to establish the meadow, and I’m learning that it is also a way to continue when the invasive shiw up.
Thank you so much for your comment and thank you so much for watching, your comment really gave me confidence and hope. 🙏🙏🙏
If you do research into it you'll find that many herbicides are not as environmentally problematic as some will lead you to believe. The real problem with them is the extreme overuse in farming and for "ornamental" reasons. Glyphosate is actually very benign to most things that aren't plants, it doesn't persist for very long, and it doesn't move through soil so it's a good one to use for general purposes. But it's good to look into the specific plants you're trying to control and see what methods/herbicides have been found to be successful.
Yes, for sure that’s the way. I understand it as well, I got lucky. My neighbor is a scientist and he pretty much understands how these are besides work and how they break down. So that’s an excellent point you make. Thank you so much for watching I really do appreciate the support. Have a great day!
Consider reaching out to a National Wildlife Refuge near you.
They probably spray or they will understand your situation and offer good advice.
Perhaps there are Annuals like squash or peas followed by a native grass or bush that can compete better with help.
The point being that this weed will be can be controlled, eventually, without spray once you figure out what lesson the weed is teaching you.
This weed has a story to tell…it’s telling you to add sand …or straw or rocks…or drainage or several small ponds or a fountain/stream bed or mushrooms or stumps or maybe remove something….
maybe it’s spoiled rotten on wood chips?
You can do this! Learning what This weed has to teach will create a far better meadow than what you originally planned…and that’s as it must be.
The plan got you started …good start!
This weed is a mocking critic of your plan,
but fear not,
the right plant allies will help you given the opportunity.
I love Canada goldenrod, especially in a nearby park that hosts too many invasive plants. It’s a fighter! In our garden I cut it back, pull it out easily and watch it reappear here and there. It’s a dance and so beautiful, especially this fall time of year. Several warbler species hang out in patches of this attractive plant during migration and of course those pollinators put on a show on this stage!
I agree the Canadian Goldenrod steals show, and the pollinators absolutely love it.
I have been pulling some out myself, when you pull yours out, does it come back thicker or does it control?
Thank you so much for watching! 🙏☮️ I really do appreciate the support!
Mugwort is super aggressive where I am in Maine but I love the goldenrod here and it seems to be appreciated by pollinators when not much else is flowering. It's native where I am.
Thanks so much for the support and the comments. GREAT ANALYSIS, That seems to be exactly the same down here, I really think disturbing the mugwart stimulated in more though, ughhhh. It’s seems thicker now, so I’ll have to make some sort of plan. Fingers crossed! Would love to be Maine though, I’ve never been!
Thank you so much for watching! ☮️🙏☮️🙏☮️
It looks really awesome. Very cool project. I veiw 'weedy'' plants as sympotoms of some underlying syndome. Golden rod is an early suscession plant that thrives on poor soils, remove it and you will still have poor soil, so it will soon be thriving once again. With time it will improve the soil (by increasing organic matter) and biodiversity will increase. You could accellerate this by adding amendments. Golden rod is tall and late flowering so can give the illusion of being more dominant than it really is, but obviously you are in the best position to assess whats happening on your site.
Right on! When the home was built, they stripped all the topsoil and left us with hard clay with no organic matter.
Thx for watching and taking the time to leave a nice comment. 🙏
Nice video and love the realism involved in this. I feel like many of the lawn -> wildflower videos are all fairy tale endings so it's nice to see someone discuss about some of the hardships. We have a 3 acre meadow as well and all we do is mow over it with a brush hog once a year and then maintain walking trails with our zero turn. There are plenty of invasive (autumn olive, Japanese honeysuckle, Bradford pear, teasel, multiflora rose to name a few). Our meadow is farther from the house so ultimately we decided to just let it go, mow it once a year to keep the woody plants from taking over and see what happens. We get a decent amount of natives flowers (goldenrod is native in our range in Ohio).
I think you hit the nail on the head and have 3 options: 1) know your meadow is not going to look how you envisioned and come to terms with it 2) spend likely an unreasonable and never ending fight hand pulling invasive plants or 3) use chemicals. Not an easy decision!
I’m not sure if that last comment I sent went through, so I’ll try again. Your meadow sounds amazing, I wish I could see it, I’m sure 3 acres is tough to maintain. But it seems like you’ve got the right attitude and a great formula. Ours is a little bit smaller, so it’s definitely more manageable. But I really do appreciate you taking the time to leave a comment, as well as watching the video. Thank you so much and I hope you have a great day.❤️☮️
This is a really great video, give some insight into kind of seeing something other than the bells and whistles and the roses, and gives an opportunity to look for and to expect the unexpected. Thank you so much. Great job!
thank you! Its a battle...
Very Well Written and Highly Informative. I have learned so much. Is this the first video of an educational series. Your Passion is Obvious.Thank you for this.
Yes, we have a playlist of me development some just cinematic area of photography others educational. At the end of the day, I just wanna say thank you so much for all your support and all your motivation that pushes me each and every day.
Great stuff and will continue to follow and support your channel. I love your asters. As for mugwort, I just keep pulling it up with the aid of a hori hori knife. After 3 years of disciplined attention, I'm down to just a few recurring plants. (Just like everything.) My nemesis has been goutweed but again, same approach. And as you discuss in your point #3, I do eventually spritz on a little glyphosate on the nagging stragglers; I do not feel bad about that as the benefit of killing the residual rhizomes far outweighs any semi-persistent chemistry. I have a friend who has a ton of lesser celandine (Ficaria?) They are obstinate about not using herbicide. So, as this little demon produces tons of little tubers that can never be fully removed, they will never fully control their invasion. You have to choose your outcome.
When you use the knife, what are you specifically doing? Are you going in and removing all the roots, the rhizomes?
I forget where I read it, but I follow the idea that invasive or not each plant is giving and taking from the earth, if one species grows relentlessly there is a deviation in the soil composition in the earth, and observation will be the only real way to figure out the puzzle. Good luck
Yes, for sure, we try and let things naturalize as much as possible. But this is headed towards a monoculture and that’s not gonna be good for anything. So our idea is to keep some diversity and let nature do what it’s going to do. Thank you so much for watching and leaving a comment. I really appreciate it.🙏☮️
Depending on the size of your meadow, I feel like persistence can kill invasive. I removed a ton of honeysuckle from the woods in my backyard. Every spring I just go out there multiple times and cut all the new sprouts but I also weed wack the stumps because they get shoots too. I'm also in the process of converting my yard to natives. I go out there every couple of days and use a shovel or pick axe to scrape out all the weed sprouts. If you don't let them establish it really takes no time at all.
Ain’t that the truth. I’ve been pretty diligent with this mugwart, and anything I do it seems like it actually comes back stronger. The Goldenrod issue is new. I feel like I can just pull that stuff out, and I don’t want to pull it all, but I’m going to give it a shot. Thank you for watching. Good luck with your yard.🙏☮️
Just keep pulling up the invasives each year before they seed themselves or even before they grow very big in spring. It might be tough work, but if you keep pulling them up each year there should eventually be less and less of them. Gardening and nature resturation work don't have to happen quickly. Be patient. You don't have to eradicate the invasives in one or two years. Just keep at it slowly.
Thank you, that’s some good advice, I spent better day cutting seeds of Canadian goldenrod off. So aggressive 🤯
It takes a lot of time but you can try the cut and fab method on perenial species like mugwort.
Ohhh, that’s a new one. I’ll look that up. Thank you so much for watching and for the suggestion. 👍🏼🎃☮️🙏
Can you elaborate a bit more? 🙏
@@AumsAcre I'm not sure if this is what they meant, but you can cut and let the plant wilt 2 or 3 times per season. So essentially just cutting the plant before it can reproduce and preferably often enough that the roots will just die back eventually because they lack the resources to sustain themselves. This has the benefit of being relatively easy as you don't have to worry about cut quality and just go for it and you also don't have to worry about spreading the plant roots or seeds that haven't germinated to other areas in the meadow if you dig them up. The negatives are that it takes years and it may not be very aesthetically pleasing, though I do think after the plant has fully wilted you can compost it regularly. You can also cut the flowers off so they are unable to make seed and put them in a bowl or give to someone and the flowers are quite beautiful. But yeah, just make sure it can't go to seed to prevent further spreading and keep killing the green parts a few times per growing season and eventually it just tires out and dies.
@@Heheikki thanks, great insight!!!
Hi Aum, sorry to hear about your conundrum. Nature surely prevails. Canada Goldenrod (both altissima and canadensis) are not remotely "invasive." But they're super-aggressive natives for sure. Mugwort is invasive AF and spreads with those nasty runners. Have you considered a full, prescribed burn of the entire meadow (as opposed to spot-burning)? If so, maybe reach out to Kyle Lybarger at Native Habitat Project. He mostly deals with much larger areas, but perhaps he will offer ideas.
Hi Mark, thank you so much for watching and reaching out, the mugwart is absolute beast - when I burned it before it seemed like it got thicker, that’s the scary part around this. It’s now a fine tough mat since I mow it down. So I think I’m going to use a selective herbicide and quarantine the pockets of areas that are affected. As for thegoldenrod, yes, it’s such a beautiful native plan, and you’re right it is super aggressive. My local ecologist warned me about it when he saw my yard, at a time, I told him it was part of the seed mix that I planted, because I thought it was that GR grey species, but it turned out to be Canadian. Anyways, thank you so much for checking out the video and leaving a comment and I really appreciate your suggestion to reach out to Kyle. Have a great day!☀️☮️
Idea. For goldenrod, get large contractor trash bag, cut flowers off and discard them before they can reseed. Cut plants near base and burn. Weed eat to the ground. I am unfamiliar with Mugwort.
Good idea! And thx for the support. I think that the rhizomes would still be in tact, even with burning. That’s eggar did with Mideast and it came back thicker.
I pulling out now. So hopefully that will work. IDK. 🤷
Canadian goldenrod is a prairie plant so if you burn it, itll come back stronger, as all prairie plants evolved with fire and need fire to stimulate best growth. Youve literally been doing the thing that helps it grow best lol. You can kill a rose or hydrangea by burning, but not fire evolved plants. I think people should learn about what conditions create meadows and prairies before adopting them into their landscape. Because those plants shouldnt get maintained (or eradicated) with the same methods used for garden store ornamentals.
@@kareharpies hey there. Thx for the heads up. The only thing is I haven’t tried burning the natives, especially the goldenrod. The plant I’ve been burning is mugwort, and it seems they come back stronger too.
@@AumsAcre im not surprised mugwort found your meadow. It loves low nitrogen soil, which is unfortunately the same conditions wildflower meadows and prairies create and thrive in. Hmm, it does hate acidic soils and wet soils so maybe thats a starting point for some creative solution building? I would dig out as much as I could by hand and then dump a bag of soil acidifier over the particular area and see if it persists in spring. If it doesnt, you've now prepped the ground for a beautiful blueberry bush 😅! I hope you figure something out but I think this might be a multi year approach.
@@kareharpies no that’s a great suggestion!!! Thank you!🙏
Isn't goldenrod native? It is also very important for specialist pollinators, there are bees that are adapted to just use goldenrod pollen. Maybe you could mow or burn sub-sections of it. Or possibly succession will bring something else after goldenrod -- some plants thrive on disturbance and if you keep taking them out, they'll just keep starting the colonizing process over. What about more native grasses? Good luck with the mugwort, that sounds rough.
Yes, definitely golden rod is a native, the Canadian goldenrod is a little bit more invasive though than others in my yard, and yes, so important this time of the year, it’s a magnet! I’m still learning more about it, so I’m starting to pull it out right now. My ecologist warned me about Canadian Goldenrod, which is why I’m concerned.
Thank you so much for the support and the suggestions are awesome!!! 🙏☮️
Also, in the battle of the goutweed - some portions of the garden I simply covered and solarized (3 years, mind you.) I built some "quarantine" beds to relocate plants I wanted to save before laying down the heavy garden cloth and mulch. With a bastard like goutweed - even a little tiny piece of root is enough to sprout new growth - so the quarantine bed is important to give visibility to any missed bits. Also, waiting until the plants are "dormant" in winter will not be very effective - as if you want a foliar spray to do its job, the plant needs to be pre-dormant in the fall, where any sugars produced by photosynthesis are traveling down into the roots... along with the herbicide. Alternately, I use a re-purposed Windex spray bottle with a little herbicide to spray very early emerging plants in spring. Don't let them get too big so they can start producing a lot of sugars for summer growth. And I do tend to prefer glyphosate as it combines quickly and strongly with the clay of the soil around a root of the target plant, so does not travel between plant's root systems as quickly as other herbicides. If anyone suggests you use 2,4-D, be sure you are NOT applying the ester form (e.g. butoxyethyl ester) as it has a seriously long half-life in the soil and can really impact waterways.
Thank you for the advice, great point about the dormancy, after I threw the video out there I realized when I watched it back that I’m gonna need those sugars. Thank you for the reminder. I really do appreciate you taking the time to write some thoughts down and to connect in. Hopefully I’ll be able to eradicate this, my neighbor and I are going to be probably applying some herbicide in the next couple weeks. Fingers crossed.!
Don't let the invasive plants win!!
Thx for the motivation! Made me smile!!!! 🙏☮️🙏☮️😄
No Chemicals Bro.
Oh woow
"invasive species", says an European in North America.
Love your sense of irony.
Haha, not following you?
@@jirik2435 I believe you’re missing the point. And that’s borderline offensive.
I think your management strategy needs to be dictated by your end goals. If the goal is just to avoid using chemicals, then you may just have to live with the invasives. If the goal is to provide maximum long term biodiversity, using chemicals to control the invasive species may be the best option. Its more harmful in the short term, but choosing the right chemicals, applying at the right time, and replanting native species as needed seems like the best way to have long term biodiversity.
Do more good than harm, and you'll be doing better than most people with yards.
Now thats some great advice! Great POV!!! Thank you watching and commenting.
For me, it’s long term. I have a “decent” grasp on chemicals, and my neighbor is a scientist, so he has a diverse understanding. Together, we may have a chance.
I definitely want to have a long-term diverse meadow, four season meadow, so I think I know the answer, because right now I’m headed towards the monoculture.
Thank you so much again. I really do appreciate you and everyone else taking the time to offer some insight. 🙏☮️🙏☮️🙏☮️
@AumsAcre no problem. I've spent quite a bit of time thinking about some of these things as I figure out how to manage my own land. My land needs to be generating income for me, so I'm focusing on growing things that I can sell, but the way I grow those things needs to promote biodiversity, both in the plants I grow, and in the wildlife that are impacted by my management.
I don't like using synthetic chemicals, but I'll gladly do it if the long term benefits outweigh the short term cost.
@@percussionof12 oh thats so cool, you have a farm?
@AumsAcre yeah, it's not much just yet, but my wife and I bought a neglected piece of land a bit over a year ago and we've been working on cleaning it up and getting it functional again. About 20 acres of it has been cultivated for at least 5 or 6 years with nothing allowed to grow on it until last year, and our biggest challenge right now with land management is figuring out how to restore the soil health while still making the land profitable. We had it seeded to a mix of grasses and legumes for hay last year, but this year we really only had a few species of weeds that came back. The plan for next year is to allow everything to germinate, and then spray glyphosate to kill it off before interseeding a cereal crop with a diverse forage mix. Hopefully after that, we can go at least 5 years with no tillage and no chemicals, and alternate between cutting hay and using the land to graze livestock.
@@percussionof12 oh wow that sounds absolutely amazing. That would be really cool if you can document it and share your story, I love personally watching stuff like that and how people develop their land and what people do with the things that they grow on it, it’s absolutely amazing to me.
That sounds like a lot of work too. 20 acres is a ton of land, wow that is just incredible. I wish you the best of luck. I hope you stay in touch. Would love to see how things go for you.🍀🍀🍀🍀
Personally, I wouldn't use chemicals. If there's a patch of an invasive, I literally pull each plant one by one, but I don't have as big an area as you. I'd go in there with an electric string trimmer, level each patch of invasives, and lay down cardboard. I was actually sitting down yanking buckthorn one by one. Canada goldenrod is the king of your garden and supports more species. To keep it from spreading I snip it off at the base. This keeps it in line. I'd start at the house and work outward and across back and forth. Rome wasn't built in a day !
I’m so torn! Everything that I have done with the mugwart has made it come back stronger and thicker.
@@AumsAcre I had an area of periwinkle, so I threw a bunch of common milkweed seeds over it and the milkweed won the battle. The periwinkle is probably still there but you can't see it, and the milkweed is doing great. Much less work than digging and pruning forever.
@@AumsAcre I also had Japanese knotweed. I actually like the plant but to deal with it, snipped it off every week diligently, and then planted zig zag goldenrood, and it's winning as well.
@@joanfrellburg4901 now that’s an awesome success story!
@@joanfrellburg4901 actually that’s a real success story because that Japanese knotweed is pretty tough!