This plant is trying to be all over my garden (Cape May NJ Z7). It is aggressive as all get out! The roots tunnel at an astonishing speed. Their habit is to send up a shoot every foot or so as they tunnel towards sources of nutrition, my beds, where they form dense, suffocating root mats. Can someone tell me what it is and how to stifle it? Many thanks
Try comparing it with White Poplar - Populus alba. I have seen that species behave like that around the Fraser Valley BC. We don't have a lot of them that I have seen. They have the cute habit of unexpectedly dropping their large trunks in our wet climate. The growth habit of the local ones is to send large branches sideways giving a "cup shaped" branch arrangment. Not a comfortable tree to have to close to houses or gardens, in my opinion. Just a thought. gb.
Thanks GB, White Poplar seems correct. The wiki page mentions suckers, extensive roots and salt water tolerance. Those characteristics match and the picture looks very similar.
Then you're in business. Dynamite, according to Lorax in Ecuador, is popular in these kind of situations in that country...not sure about NJ. Cutting, painting the stump with neat Roundup, stump grinding, mowing. You may also want to consider goats & llamas :) ...Persistence & sharp tools are often my solution, in the end. Keeps a guy fit & trim. gb.
GB Thanks for the suggestions. In this community they are serious about removing ANYTHING even poison ivy. So I'd need a stealthy approach to take out the big ones. I am persistent with the runners and suckers but tearing them out is tough on the lawn.
Point out to your community committee that it is listed as an invasive alien, so it is their legal duty to remove it. It is also a high risk species for causing damage to the foundations of buildings.
You could dynamite the white poplars, but they'd just sprout up wherever the root fragments landed, which would make your problem worse. As mentioned above, cutting them down and then stump-rotting them is probably the best way to make them leave. I know it's the only thing that worked for me when I lived in Alberta, where they're quite popular (pun intended) as reforestation trees in the pulp and paper industry. The dratted things spread like nobody's business.
Sort of the reverse of Rome. Mind you I think you guys exterminated the wolves in NJ a century or so ago, otherwise...who know what you might have founded?. I quite understand the problem with sentimentality about vermin though. In BC the City of Kelowna is currently looking at being forced into trapping & housing a subtantial & growing (of course) population of escaped domestic rabbits in a rabbit retirement home till they expire! Perhaps you could spare some hungry feral cats? Wait a minute...perhaps you could take their rabbits to eat your poplars? gb
Nature takes unexpected twists especially human nature. The coyote population seems to be expanding so maybe there is some relief in sight (from the cats). But the poplars are amazingly resilient. It's true that a little fragment of root will grow a tree in no time at all with just a little water and sunlight.
They are about the only tree that I really don't care for - I can find a soft spot in my heart for Manitoba Maples, but the White Poplars have got to go!
White Poplars do have a place where they are very nice and the right thing to grow . . . but it's in central Asia, not Pennsylvania!
When we built our home we planted Lombardy Poplars along the roadway because we wanted a quick break between us and the traffic... and we got it. Several years later we cut the trees down but they didn't want to stay dead. For the next several summers new growth would pop up along the root system, all over the lawn. Weekly I would pull out the handful of leaves (usually just before my husband cut the grass) and spray the spot with Wipe Out. I did this for two summers and they have never come back. It was quite a process at the time but it didn't involve blowing anything up or causing the city council to banish us. Good Luck!
