We moved into my house in May 2023 and transformed a large portion of our place .25 acre property into native, no dig garden. The area behind our fence we cut back about 2 bajilllion privets, ripped our wisteria and multifloral rose, layered down card board and almost died lugging 20 yds of mulch by hand in carts to spread over it. The result it great.
Pictures 4-7 show another, more slopped area that is full of kudzu and bad shit. We cut it all back, and tried to rip out the crowns but to no avail. It all came back despite heavy seeding with ground cover and was too much to keep up with. The ground is almost entirely comprised of thick vines / runners from the bad plants, that it would be impossible to dig them all out without an insane amount of soil disturbance, which would just open up the soil for most invasive seeds to sprout.
The area is too big, sloped, and uneven to use card board and mulch; we’d never be able to cover it with just two people’s man power. I hate using herbacides, but I don’t think we have much of a choice?
How would you guys attack this space? I was to replace it with a micro prairie of blue stem, switch grass, milk weed, and pollinator flower.
by Material-Drawing3676
9 Comments
contact your local dnr for ideas, but it will inevitably involve chemicals and alot of work. Not only do you need to kill the kudzu, you gotta kill the seedbank and everything else in the ground.
I use herbicide. It’s ok to use it in applications like this. It needs to be said. Crop dusting massive amounts of herbicides over millions of acres of fields is the unsustainable practice.
In the process of changing an infested, decimated ecosystem back into a healthy, life supporting, biodiverse one it’s perfectly acceptable to use an herbicide. Ask for professional help from your local university. Research and understand the herbicide that you will use. Apply only the amount necessary to get the job done.
I use the cut stump treatment method with invasive honeysuckle and buckthorn where I live. I apply it with an eye dropper at full strength in the fall so the honeysuckle pulls the herbicide into the roots. I only apply it to the phloem, and not the xylem. A couple of drops kills the entire shrub. One treatment and done. Then I replace the honeysuckle with a similar native shrub like juneberry or chokecherry for example.
Herbicides. Careful, targeted application. I’m in asheville too. We have to stop the kudzu!!!
In my experience, the threat of new invasives getting established in the disturbed soil isn’t all that significant. More often, I’ve seen the natives in the seedbank jump at the chance to re-emerge. May just be the nature of the area I’m working in, your mileage may vary.
Once you tackle the Kudzu and are ready for planting, I would definitely recommend plugs over seeding the area! They’ll establish quicker and *hopefully* outcompete any invasive that might be in the seed bank.
There is no help. There is only Zuul
Goats. They’ll eat everything constantly until it finally dies.
Everyone has great ideas. I just wanted to mention only 3 pictures made it to the post that I can see. 4-7 would help to have for more detailed advice
Question I live very far away from kudzu and never had to deal with it, do prescribed burns help eliminate kudzu?