Kill Wisteria

Discussion in 'Vines and Climbers' started by mtaylor, Sep 15, 2006.

  1. mtaylor

    mtaylor Member

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    Does anyone have a method for killing out of control wisteria? It has taken over several yards in the neighborhood and killed some pine trees. Help!!
    Milton
     
  2. Laurie

    Laurie Active Member Maple Society 10 Years

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    Check out this link for some references on eradication of wisteria.
     
  3. mtaylor

    mtaylor Member

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    Thank you. I will try what the link suggests.
    MTaylor
     
  4. Newt

    Newt Well-Known Member 10 Years

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  5. jimweed

    jimweed Active Member 10 Years

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    If I can make a suggestion, it sounds like you will likely want to remove all the Wisteria regardless of it being dead or alive. For the least amount of herbicide used and likely the most effective control, it is a good idea to remove all the Wisteria first and treat the trunk near the stump. Make sure to leave at least a foot high at the trunk. Then scrape the bark off slightly all the way around the stock, and paint on your herbicide. Round up is not really the best product for this, but rather your common lawn weed control, as it should contain 3 active ingredients, 2,4-D, Mecoprop, and Dicamba. Dicamba is what will do the real work in this type of control. And if you do start to get some shoots pop up do treat them with this same product, 2,4-D is a broadleaf weed control and won't hurt your grasses if they pop up in the lawns. Round up is more of a grassy weed killer. Originally manufactured for control of quack and other grass weeds in farmers fields, and is not always that effective on well established broadleaf weeds.
    It is very important to mix your herbicides at label rates, it is much harder for a plant to absorb a straight concentration, it takes water to diffuse the chemical to lower concentration in your solution for proper intake towards the plant. Although when applying to the trunk, double the label mixing rate can be more effective. That is my suggestion anyway. Jim
     
  6. mtaylor

    mtaylor Member

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  7. Newt

    Newt Well-Known Member 10 Years

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    Milton, you are very welcome!

    Good luck and keep at it.
    Newt
     
  8. jake

    jake Member

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    I truly believe that someone made a pact with Satan and wisteria was bourne out of that! I was "grubbing" out some serious overgrowth around a huge, gorgeous wild rose bush on our property when I noticed that the wisteria shoots under all of that were dying - that's when it hit me - above all, wisteria NEEDS SUN. I am currently covering this entire back hill with carpenters' plastic. You can buy it a Lowe's, Home Depot, etc. Thus far, it seems to be working. I will write again at the end of summer, that's how long I intend to leave on the plastic, and hopefully tell of my great success :)
     
  9. Newt

    Newt Well-Known Member 10 Years

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    Jake, I'd love to know what you discover.

    Good luck!
    Newt
     
  10. Dave-Florida

    Dave-Florida Active Member

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    For what it's worth, the native Wisteria in the SE US is a tame, tractable vine!
     
  11. ahooper

    ahooper Member

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    We have wisteria all over the place in the house we just moved in to. I have allready used a whole bottle or roudup and this has had little effect on the plant. I decided to dig up the roots and found that the plant was HUGE and as a result there was no way to remove the entire root system so i pulled what I could out.

    In hinjd sight this may have been a bad move as now i have many vines popping up from the left over roots.

    Again I cut the thing back and dosed the ends of the roots with some old motor oil, I can imagine what feedback im going to get for that in regards to poisoning the enviroment but before you do read on then have a real good crack at me.

    Weeks later the vine was back again allbeit prety stressed out as the leaves were red. so back to the Roundup. this killed the leaves and the vine for a while however 3 to 4 weeks later its back and even more so than before.

    Now this is where things get desperate...
    As a hobby I do copper etching using cupric acid, I know that copper oxyde is known to kill plats fast and ti so happend that I had an excess of solution. I made up a solution and applied it to the leaves of the plant. I think it may have been way to strong as within a day they were showing signs of turning brown.

    I also applied the stuff to soe deadly nightshade that has taken over our back yard and that shrivelled back within several days and has not regrown at all.

    The wisteria hoever has slowly started to sprout back and is not looking as stong as it once was so I have again applied cupric acid however used a very diluted solution. I am also contemplating taken the end's of the vines and placing them in a bucket with some of the solution.

    Now i suspect there are going to be a few people jumpin up and down about using cupric acid to try and get this stuff under controll and painting the ends with oil however keep in mind that this was done in a reasonable contollable manner and in a way so as not to destroy or damage the surrounding trees and grass.
     
  12. Daniel Mosquin

    Daniel Mosquin Paragon of Plants UBC Botanical Garden Forums Administrator Forums Moderator 10 Years

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    Yes, a number of bad ideas there.

    Cupric acetate MSDS:

    By a reasonable controlled manner, I assume you excavated all of the contaminated soil and sent it to a hazardous-waste facility, or followed up your treatment with bioremediation products?
     
  13. ahooper

    ahooper Member

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    Cleaning up was a matter of removing the vines as this was only applied to the leaf and not to the soil or root. The leaves and foliage was burnt after collecting as im not running the risk of it regrowing.

    Usually in order to dispose of this stuff I add as much ALU to the mix then mix with potash, evapoare and send to the local chemical waste place.

    I remember when we were on a farm my grandfather nailing copper nails in to a tree that he wanted gone. I wonder if something similar would happen with the rood system of wisteria.

    Sureley there has to be an alternative natural way to deal with this stuff with something that will break down over time.
     
  14. maf

    maf Generous Contributor Maple Society 10 Years

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    One possible option that will not leave any toxic residue is [WIKI]Ammonium sulfamate[/WIKI] (or Ammonium sulphamate). It degrades over a period of approx 3 months to Ammonium sulphate which is a plant fertilizer, in other words there is no long lasting toxic residue. In the EU, due to red tape, it is no longer licensed as a herbicide but can legally be purchased as a compost accelerator; it is my understanding that many people use it to compost woody weeds in situ rather than in the compost heap. Hopefully it is available in New Zealand.

    In this situation you could drill holes in the stumps of the Wisteria, just inside the bark layer, and fill with crystals of Ammonium sulfamate. Can also be sprayed (in solution) on foliage of the target plant. Be careful though, if you spray it on the ground it will affect all plants with roots in that area - fine if you want to clear the whole area but not to be used around plants you wish to keep.
     
  15. Weekend Gardener

    Weekend Gardener Active Member 10 Years

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    The only effective way that I know of is to remove all living woody materials, including those buried underground. But why is it that folks have monster wisterias, whereas I am loosing mind. I used to have 7 in our property but lost two in the past year, one of them with 5 inch diameter trunk. Still can't figure what hit it. I doubt that the roots will produce shoots, but there will be plenty of underground canes and these can travel quite a long distance before emerging.
     
  16. Lee in SC

    Lee in SC New Member

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    Hello, I was searching for the best way to kill wisteria. I'm in SC and it has taken over and is destroying crepe myrtle trees, my border fence and akuba shrubs (sorry for any misspellings!)
    Newt wrote in 2006 with a reference to a site on the use of round up solution involving putting leaves of the vine into a jar or something... the link is no longer available. Can someone tell me what this method involves? It seems my only hope.
    Many many thanks!
     

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