Species of plant or tree that are a pain

[WhitePineJunky]

Post wildfire dealing with a lot of scotch broom invasion. Luckily I planted immediately after the fire with pines, so I shouldn't half to battle them too much before long. One of the most hardy bushes it seems cut them flush and they come right back.


Anyone have any other species they hate? Or dealt with scotch broom themselves.  Think of spraying some of them.


What a nasty nasty plant. it's up there with hawthorn IMO

[Texas Ranger]

Texas has every thing with thorns, stickers, horse killers, etc, but for me the worse is a plumb thicket, particularly cutting a line through them, next is bull nettles that sneaks up on you when you have your eye on a compass.  Followed by fire ants.  Good thing I loved my job.

[SawyerTed]

Dogfennel !;$&@:;()(!?,/~€%}{!!!

I hate dogfennel!  It is a native plant and grows prolifically in cattle pastures.   It's hard to get rid of without spraying a herbicide of some type.   I have used crossbow and 2-4-d at different times but it's been several years.  

[NE Woodburner]

Japanese Knotwood and Oriental Bittersweet are some of the worst around here.

[SwampDonkey]

Bedstraw on field you want to reforest is pretty bad. Never used to have that, don't know where it came from. There is a native kind but it does not take over fields. Also I hate red osier dogwoods, they will cover a place, lots of times abandoned fields that should be reforested. And herbicide won't kill it. At least I have never seen any that were effective on dogwood.

[sprucebunny]

I'm heading into my fifth year in my battle w/. Japanese knotweed.

Cut it July first, spray it end of September with something that claims to kill the root.

Ya, right.

But I'm sort of winning. It gets thinner every year.

[SwampDonkey]

Around here you can tell where someone once lived, the house might have burnt down but that Japanese knotweed lives on. 

[Rhodemont]

If bull briar had any value I would be a billionaire.  It cuts me, trips me, invades trails and just all around sucks.

[beenthere]

So far just a bullbriarnaire

[SwampDonkey]

When I lived on the west coast you either had an understory of devil's club or salal vines in more open canopy, never cared much for either one.  I think the best over all forest to walk in out there were on Haida Gwai, the mainland had a lot of weeds under the trees. :D

[Ianab]

Post wildfire dealing with a lot of scotch broom invasion. Luckily I planted immediately after the fire with pines, so I shouldn't half to battle them too much before long. One of the most hardy bushes it seems cut them flush and they come right back.

We have Broom here in NZ, it's a bit of a weed, but not as bad as Gorse. From a forest perspective, neither are really a serious long term problem as they won't grow under an established canopy. Once native trees (that are shade tolerant) start growing up through it they stop it regenerating. So one method of regenerating native forest on gorse covered land is simply "do nothing". Native trees will eventually grow up through the gorse or broom. It's more of a pain if you want farmland of course. 

Manuka is a small native tree that has the some ecological niche, first coloniser. It grows in open ground, but only lives for 20-30 years. But it provides shelter for other trees and ferns for the 2nd stage. 

More of a pain is "Old Mans Beard", a clematis vine from Europe. It will form a dense matt in the forest, up to ~60 feet up in trees, and smother pretty much everything else. Seeds are spread by the wind, so it's on the "kill on sight" list. I believe it's also a pest in parts of the USA.

For your broom you can probably get away with knocking it down with a clearing saw around each pine. As long as you create a patch of light, the pines will soon over-top the broom, and eventually smother it. 

[SwampDonkey]

We have a wild clematis here but it only grows on rich soil of semi wetland and mainly in alder groves. Old man's beard up here is a lichen that grows on old fir branches and used by northern parula warblers for nesting and also eaten by deer from blow down snags.

[Ianab]

Yeah, the native clematis vine here is mostly harmless, and quite pretty. The introduced one is murder 

[SwampDonkey]

I've had cultivated ones here on trellis, but they never left the yard as far as seeding in the wild.

But a bad one is Virginia creeper vines. It produces berries and birds spread it far and wide. I've not see it be a problem in forest, but in yard trees and telephone poles, that is another matter. :D

[WV Sawmiller]

Multi-flora rose and autumn olive here.

[WhitePineJunky]

Japanese knotweed around here too but none on or close to my land. Doesn't seem as invasive as the broom. I think it comes down to the acidic soil favouring scotch broom.

There is a area on the land that had fill and gravel moved around to make a woods road, some top soil scalped too, probably 60 years ago or so, the broom originated in that disturbed area, you can actually tell to where the equipment scaled the top soil off because the stuff grows there the thickest, even though the disturbance was 60 year ago

[Machinebuilder]

bradford pear, autumn olive, honeysuckle, privet, saw briar

the first 4 are invasive and take over if you let them.

Saw Briar has torn me up several times, its like a barbed wire vine

[Jeff]

Canary Grass!

[JD Guy]

Kudzu

[beenthere]

Buckthorn, garlic mustard, multiflora rose (encroaching from neighbor)

[mike dee]

Buckthorn, scotch pine, norway maple, Phragmites

[WhitePineJunky]

Buckthorn, scotch pine, norway maple, Phragmites

Got scotch pines around here only as yard trees though. Ugly crocked things typically but when they grow straight make a decent looking tree. 

Sycamore maple is another "invasive" but I like them as yard trees. They are all over around town they drop a ton of seeds each year 

[newoodguy78]

Multi flora rose and bittersweet around hedgerows are infested with it. Got some bittersweet you could just about make firewood out of. Multi flora rose is the only carnivorous plant we have around here. 

Have some get caught on your left hand by the time you reach to remove it the other end is grabbing you by the right ear get that removed and it's stuck on your left cheek. Miserable stuff. 

I have heard several times Cornell University introduced it as a living fence for livestock. If it's true what a mistake that was

[SawyerTed]

Kudzu and multi floral rose were promoted by the extension service.  

Kudzu was supposed to be erosion control and cattle feed.   Multi floral rose was supposed to be natural cattle fence. 

My dad remembers the extension service providing seedlings.   My grandpa planted some of both.  Dad and I both had to use dozers to remove the stuff.  

Fortunately, my FIL and his father didn't go for either.  

Any multi floral rose we have is volunteer plants.  Nothing a bush hog and glyphosate won't deal with.

What we do have is wisteria !  Ugh! 

[Chuck White]

The worse in this area as far as I'm concerned is PRICKLY ASH.

It's thorns resemble those of the rose.

This plant is AKA the TOOTHACHE TREE, due to it's medicinal properties.  Research says people can get some relief from toothache by chewing a twig, or a piece of the plant.