This Kikuyu is completely tangled under the roots of this tree, so I'm having trouble pulling it out. Any ideas?
by plantbubby
This Kikuyu is completely tangled under the roots of this tree, so I'm having trouble pulling it out. Any ideas?
by plantbubby
11 Comments
If you’re open to using herbicide, there’s one called fusilade that only targets grasses.
😭
You could even use good ol glyphosate if you make sure you don’t get it on the foliage of the shrub.
Using a butter knife, scrape the bases of the kikuyu runners and apply neat glyphosate. Cut off extra foliage and put it in the bin not the compost. Retreat in 6 months. By only applying the herbicide on the scraped runners, it will be impossible for the tree to absorb it. This has worked for me with a kikuyu runner that made its way into my raised garden bed. Retreated once and never came back.
Just pull it, the tree will be happier either way
Easier way is to just water the plant really well & then yank it up by hand. Wear riggers gloves from bunnings, pull it up like a zipper until you get to the root, twist it clock wise in a bunch & pull. It SHOULD just come up, but sometimes you have dig at the root ball with a small trowel.
Boiling water works as well, as long as you dont get too much on the tree you should be good. Hope it helps.
The grass roots are very shallow. Just pull it hard after watering it well
Sacrifice tree. Then napalm.
Pull the fuckin thing out
Glyphosate (roundup). Don’t get any on the leaves of the tree/shrub. If you do, just clip them off right away. You can get it on the grey bark and it won’t do anything. It’s neutralised on contact with the soil, and will not affect anything that wants to grow there in future. It’s only effective on green plant parts. It then translocates into the roots and kills the entire plant.
If that pinkish/purplish bitt is part of something you want keep, put some cardboard or a drop sheet over it when you spray. You can remove it a minute later after any possible spray drift has fallen out of the air.
Don’t try to poison it! I would give the soil a good watering to make the soil soft, and then manually pull it all out. With the soil being wet and soft it should come out fairly easily – as a grass, the roots should be fairly shallow. Lastly, keep an eye in it and pull out any newbies that emerge.