For the past several weeks I've made a concerted effort to get rid of the four sumac plants that I was foolish enough to have planted in Fall 2018. There are three segments of planting bed beside our driveway into which I had planted one sumac each. The fourth sumac was planted just outside our dining room windows, in the foundation planting area. I had had a sumac plant at our previous house, and we had one for the first few years that we lived here - neither of which had been a problem. In fact, each of them eventually died without sending out descendants. Little did I realize how different the experience would be with the four new plants. I soon learned that sumac plants send out a myriad of roots in all directions, interweaving as they go. It will take a couple of years (at least) for me to totally eradicate the plants/roots since I don't believe in using poisons, but I'm working on it
Fortunately for me, most of the roots are not all that deep but they are so tangled and widespread that they are hard to dig/pull up. The weather that we've been having lately has made conditions nearly ideal for me to work on those roots. As I pull up the roots, by hand, I also turn over the soil. (A great tillage scheme were that what I was going for!) I'll show you the progress that I've made.
The first photo is from last Fall, showing all three of the plants/descendants along the driveway - numbered 1 through 3 (not readable unless enlarged), starting with the sumac closest to the street.
Today, the area that is nearest the street looks like this (below). Until I took the photo, I had thought that there were no above-ground indications of sumac ever having resided there. As the photo clearly shows, a sumac is coming up from a root that remains. (I'll get it out, tomorrow - I'm through working in the mud for the day.) As you might guess, the sumac loves to come up within a bunch of daylily (or the burning bush plants that are to the right, unseen in the photo) where it cannot easily be seen. It took me a long time to root out all of the little plants and the roots that had sent them up.
This morning, I finished up (for the moment) working on Area 2 (below). There are no above-ground indications of sumac presence. I can guarantee that such absence of indications won't last long. It took me but one week to reach this point. I've learned how to pull up plants and roots more efficiently - plus, the mud is soupier.
Having made such great progress in Area 2, I started on Area 3 this morning. Well...technically, I had cut a bunch of the above-ground stuff away, yesterday. I didn't work at it long, today, but worked the above-ground branches back-and-forth to loosen the main plant/roots up for better progress tomorrow.
I've not yet really worked on total removal of the sumac in front of the dining room - only trimmed off a branch that encroached on the sidewalk and a branch that brushed the windows and removed a couple of large roots that shot out from the plant's trunk and turned vertically downward along the foundation - which I found in pulling up multiple smaller sumac plants that were hiding among the non-sumac plants. The photo, below, shows the sumac last fall. I didn't bother to take a photo of it this morning.
BTW: See the bush that I had trimmed back to renew last fall - between the sumac and the small green bush at the bottom right corner of the photo? It gave me my comeuppance the other day when I was pulling up one of the large sumac roots that shot downward along the foundation at the house corner shown to the right in the photo. Over-winter, the trimmed bush died, so a bunch of dead, stubby branches remained. The root suddenly gave way as I was pulling it upward and outward - sitting me down, hard, on those dead, stubby branches. Ouch! I now have a hideous bruise on my left, upper thigh - too large to be covered by one of my hands. Fortunately for me, the dead, stubby branches mostly broke off at ground level rather than skewering me. You can bet that I removed the rest of those branches to prevent future such happenings!
ADDITION OF 6/11/2022 8:30AM
This (photo, below) is what I dug/pulled up this morning to remove that little green sprig that was showing above-ground yesterday. One can tell that I did not get it all. There are three reasons for that: 1) It is too hot for me to be working out there (and it is now in the sun), 2) I am dizzy this morning (blood pressure medication), and 3) It is a never-ending task. I could be removing roots to the end of the earth!
The cart (photo, below) is full of much of the roots/pieces that I had dug/pulled up yesterday. The rest were in the (larger) trash cart that had been emptied by the trash pickup people yesterday. (The green cart is not "one of theirs", so they won't pick it up. I'll transfer from our 50-year-old green cart into their blue cart once the muddy root clumps have had a chance to dry out. Right now, the cart is too heavy for me to lift to make the transfer - even after cutting up and transferring the lighter stuff that is on top.)
Ouchie - dead stubs of branches are the worst to land on with any body part!
Even if it will be a multi-year project, it looks like you are making good progress with those sumac.
Posted by: bogie | June 12, 2022 at 04:59 AM
What rich looking soil. M
Posted by: Joared | June 13, 2022 at 06:45 PM
Joared--We are in a hard pan clay area. The area between our driveway and the neighbor's yard was a natural swale where soil aeration was minimal, and vegetation had rotted there over the years. During our 22 years here, that soil has been much improved by constant cultivation - with many plants refusing to grow in that area. The aeration has been vastly improved by the bushes that have agreed to grow there and, to give credit where credit is due, the sumac has really helped in that respect.
Posted by: Cop Car | June 14, 2022 at 05:58 AM
Some roots are horrendous, aren't they? You have given me the kick I needed to go back and tackle some roots I'd abandoned as being hopeless to even try to remove.
Posted by: Liz Hinds | June 25, 2022 at 03:11 AM
Liz--There are roots and then there are roots. If the roots just stay there and die, no biggie, but if they keep propagating more plants, that is horrendous. I'm thinking that you attack roots with much more vigor than do I, given our generational differences. *smiling*
Posted by: Cop Car | June 25, 2022 at 08:20 AM
For some things it is more effective (and easier) to smother roots. Of course that assumes you can stand to see a bare spot there - or just plain mulch on top of the smothering medium (I've used broken down cardboard boxes as well as plastic bags from my heating pellets to smother a poison ivy patch that is now my roadside garden). It also isn't very helpful if the roots have gotten entwined in plants you want to keep.
Posted by: bogie | June 26, 2022 at 04:17 AM