Pattyw5 said:Ann, I thought walnuts were dangerous. No thanks on coconuts.

And whatever you do don't park your car beneath one! Even the little baby nuts fall off & are as damaging as a walnut would be. I used to worry about the dog getting konked on the head when she was out in the yard. But that's why when you visit climes that have coconut palms in/edging parking lots, places like hotels & restaurants keep the nuts trimmed off otherwise cars (& people) would get bombed all the time. Just stuff one doesn't think about unless one lives with it.

Snakes. Everything else in my garden I can deal with. Even the killer ant that bit me last year and sent me to the medical center 3 days later. OK well maybe killer ants too.

Oooooo that sounds bad.

ge1836 said:I think a choice of three is too short but I dont want to be a spoil-sport so I need to trade Dandilion for whatever this weed is.

I realize your post is from 8 years ago, so you probably already know by now. This looks like Virginia Creeper.

Hi Ken.
It is a wild Strawberry vine that wont quit.

Wild Morning Glory
Creeping Charlie
Daylily Destroyers, otherwise known as DEER

That would have to be the Nandina 'Heavenly Bamboo' planted by previous owners of the house we bought 6 years ago. All are too well established to remove without killing everything around them. They send out thousands of suckers off their roots that seem to even run underneath the cemented pathways in my garden out back. I've given up removing then and just shape the 4-5 larger ones to confine their size and weed whack all the suckers off to ground cover level as needed. It's all I really CAN do.

Those before me here also planted out some ground ivy I'm quickly growing to hate. Love it inside the defined bed it was clearly planted in, but starting to have trouble keeping it INSIDE the bed. The bed is bordered with 5-7" large irregularly-shaped river rocks. May have to change out the rock edge for a low wall of pavers in future. I pull runners that jump the rocks up and lay back inward in the bed to redirect, b ut occasionally it creeps out underground and wants to move into my BACK yard! Cannot have that!

Same here Peggy, the Nandina planted by the previous owners. As a matter of fact, they put hedges surrounding the entire house and not a single one is a native plant.

Nandina was the new and upcoming landscape plant when I was in school in the late 60s!

I find Nandina THE most invasive plant I have ever encountered in my entire 72 year life. If I were given one as a gift I'd throw it in the trash can, as I wouldn't want someone else to plant it and leave it to some poor soul to deal wiwth. Had I known it was that invasive, I'd have never bought the house! The one and only nandina at the house I had before this one (my only exposure/knowledge of them) never EVER sent out suckers in the rock bed it was planted (not my me) in.

It is easier to move than get rid of establishments of some plants if one doesn't happen to have access to a bulldozer or other major equipment.

My main back garden is quite small, so to have planted any of these there (and by a Master Gardener I might add) was dumb beyond words. She planted 3 or more of them along every side of this garden and they are now sending their runners underneath the paved walkway WE installed over her poorly graveled dirt path and now trying to take over the center 'island' bed.
Here's an older photo of this garden before we moved & buried the downspout drain pipe (after I slipped on her wet, dirt path on a rainy day & broke a wrist).

These next 3 photos were taken today, and you can see how many she planted and how it's taking over one entire end of the 'island' bed in the center I had other plans for.

The Nandina sux but I like everything else! Especially the curvy paths and rock edging.

Against the wall, those Nandinas look like good candidates to be killed by boiling water. I would start @ 1 end and as often as I feel like it, keep heading the other way, pouring lobster pots as safe as full as I can safely carry, right on those suckers until they show no more signs of growing. Cutting @ soil level just before doing it should enable the BW to cause fatal damage to those trunks more easily, more deeply toward and into the roots. I've never tried to kill Nandina in particular this way, but everything I have tried to kill this way is now dead, a pretty good list of plants that had to go. Few plants can survive being heated (or should I say treated) to such a high temp. Just make sure there are no good plants close enough to be affected. Digging a little moat around the crown, &/or using a long screwdriver or dandelion fork to poke as many holes as close to the crown as possible in preparation can also increase the effectiveness.

Then the stumps can be removed, theoretically. Seems like the kind of thing you could convince a strong young person to do for a reasonable amount of dollars, or donuts, ...or plants.

Before doing any of this, call "Call before you dig" if you haven't done that already while there and remember for sure that there's no utilities buried over there. I don't know how any buried utilities react to sudden high heat. Even though somebody obviously dug there before, making the mistake of not calling first in case there's something newer than the Nandinas buried there is too expensive to risk. ...but it would be interesting if anyone recognized, hey, you melted this with boiling water.

Ants, mosquitoes, blackflies and all other biting insects.

purpleinopp said:The Nandina sux but I like everything else! Especially the curvy paths and rock edging.

Against the wall, those Nandinas look like good candidates to be killed by boiling water. I would start @ 1 end and as often as I feel like it, keep heading the other way, pouring lobster pots as safe as full as I can safely carry, right on those suckers until they show no more signs of growing. Cutting @ soil level just before doing it should enable the BW to cause fatal damage to those trunks more easily, more deeply toward and into the roots. I've never tried to kill Nandina in particular this way, but everything I have tried to kill this way is now dead, a pretty good list of plants that had to go. Few plants can survive being heated (or should I say treated) to such a high temp. Just make sure there are no good plants close enough to be affected. Digging a little moat around the crown, &/or using a long screwdriver or dandelion fork to poke as many holes as close to the crown as possible in preparation can also increase the effectiveness.

Then the stumps can be removed, theoretically. Seems like the kind of thing you could convince a strong young person to do for a reasonable amount of dollars, or donuts, ...or plants.

Before doing any of this, call "Call before you dig" if you haven't done that already while there and remember for sure that there's no utilities buried over there. I don't know how any buried utilities react to sudden high heat. Even though somebody obviously dug there before, making the mistake of not calling first in case there's something newer than the Nandinas buried there is too expensive to risk. ...but it would be interesting if anyone recognized, hey, you melted this with boiling water.

Thanks Tiffany. We really like the pathways, too. Never get muddy walking around out there now. We already had the stone edging and just had the pebble mix poured in between them where they lay.

When I read somewhere in another thread about the boiling water method to kill plants, I figured woody nandina roots would be too woody for the hot water treatment to be effective. But it's worth a try, after a ring to "call before you dig", of course. Can't hurt a thing to give it a try. Thanks for the suggestion, Tiffany.

My pleasure!