The prior owners of my house planted 8 of these cursed bushes. In the past two days I’ve fully dug up the five small ones, and have sheared two bigger ones down to the roots (the last one is a monster and I’ll tackle this weekend…)
Anyone have experience with how aggressively these will spring back from the roots? Can I keep cutting them back and eventually they’ll die? I’m hesitant to use herbicides in at least one of these places because there’s a sweet native shrub next to it that I’m hoping I can coax into being the main attraction.
Also: tips for shade loving mid-Atlantic shrubs to replace? I’ve been eyeing sweetspire.
Mid-Atlantic (zone 7a)
by Tricky-Iron-2866
2 Comments
Mine didn’t sprout from roots. Got out all the crown and it was gone for good. The way to rejuvenate them is to cut to the ground so definitely dlg them out! You may have some stray seedlings though. I just pulled a little one out a year after the last of mine were removed.
I have had luck with the chop & bucket method. Let it keep expending energy to regrow and it’ll die eventually.
But also a good reason to invest in a mattock and dig those suckers out.