#And I'm a 3rd generation gardener and agriculture practitioner

[sassypotatoe1]

Amazing work everyone we can pack up and go home nothing will ever beat this post. Anyway for anyone who is curious about how to eradicate invasive plants like this colloseum without using herbicides that will kill all plant life, it's not a short process. It may be tempting to just poison the fuck out of everything and then treat the soil to prepare it to plant natives, but it's better for everything in the local ecology to take the long route.

What you wanna do is something that takes two steps and multiple seasons. You want to 1, remove all the invasive plants you can. Rip em up by the roots, then till the ground well and 2, sow a bunch of native flora densely. You want to choke out the invasive plants. You'll notice in the next growth season (usually spring or early autumn) that the invasives came back. That's gonna happen, they're invasive because they're persistent as fuck, and you dumped a fuck ton of their seeds in the ground when you weeded the previous season. Do not panic, do not give up.

Learn exactly what seedlings of the invasives you're dealing with looks like, because you want to weed them as they come up before they can flower and drop seeds. Some seeds can remain dormant in the soil for years, so you will be doing this every growth season for at least 3 years, depending on what you're dealing with. All the while keep sowing native flora densely to choke them out, it'll make sure less of the invasive seeds sprout and over time the unsprouted seeds will rot.

There are some management strategies employed by municipal services aimed at quickly dealing with invasive plants. These include controlled bush fires in the winter and the dreaded herbicides. I personally haven't seen them use any other method. The problem with both of these is that it's only a temporary fix, and they both have larger devastating effects on the local ecology.

Herbicides take out all plant life in one go, and even fuck with microorganisms and mycelial networks which are both incredibly important for healthy soil. They end up killing all the wormies and good bacteria and fungus that make sure soil is nutrient dense and well balanced, and they eliminate food sources for critters for that entire season as all the plants die, and they can even make the critters themselves sick. The nuisance effects are there too if you're the kind of person who cares about it, because if all the plants in the field behind your house die rodents will seek shelter and food in your house instead.

Fires are also bad, as they have much of the same effect as herbicides. Food source and shelter elimination with added rodent chasing powers, as they will all run into the houses to get away from the fire at once instead of a few at a time as plants die. Microorganisms in the topsoil die from the heat and moisture evaporation caused by the fires. And worst of all, it's not even as effective, as fires leave behind intact seeds that will just sprout again next growing season.

If you want to effectively deal with an invasive infestation, you have to take the long route. It's better for everyone and everything involved. If something is really invasive in your area, don't plant it ever. "but I put it in a pot" it will spread. "But it's an indoor only plant" it will spread. "but I'll be careful" it. Will. Spread. Birds and rodents spread seeds, seeds can get caught on your clothes, there's a million different ways invasive plants can spread, so if it's an unmanageable ecological disaster in your area just don't contribute to the problem.

this redditor has the fucking battle royale of invasive plants (in the US) happening in their yard jesus christ. sentences of hate and destruction