Mulching miseries
 

Hi all,
Here's my problem. I have two Chinese Elms in my yard and some of my
neighbours have some too. These damned trees spread their seeds all over my
yard every spring.I spend most of June on my knees scooping seeds out of my
veggie garden and flower beds trying to keep the seedlings from growing(
which they will, given any water and some medium to grow in). Thousands of
the buggers have to be pulled all summer.I'd love to cut the trees down but
can't. The issue I'm facing is that I need to mulch, but don't know with
what. Bark mulch would be preferable, but the seeds would have a wonderful
medium to grow in and be almost impossible to remove except as seedlings.
Gravel may be ok but get too hot. The summers here get to be 40 degees
celcius( somewhere around 100 farenhight).
Help!
--
Jayel

Mulching miseries
 

On Tue, 12 Aug 2003 07:03:55 GMT, "J. Lane"
wrote:

Hi all,
Here's my problem. I have two Chinese Elms in my yard and some of my
neighbours have some too. These damned trees spread their seeds all over my
yard every spring.I spend most of June on my knees scooping seeds out of my
veggie garden and flower beds trying to keep the seedlings from growing(
which they will, given any water and some medium to grow in). Thousands of
the buggers have to be pulled all summer.I'd love to cut the trees down but
can't. The issue I'm facing is that I need to mulch, but don't know with
what. Bark mulch would be preferable, but the seeds would have a wonderful
medium to grow in and be almost impossible to remove except as seedlings.
Gravel may be ok but get too hot. The summers here get to be 40 degees
celcius( somewhere around 100 farenhight).

It sounds to me that any organic mulch makes your problem worse, not
better.

Why can you not cut the sucker down?

John

Mulching miseries
 

If you EVER find anything to kill these miserable trees, please post it.
Nursery recommendations did not work, and were costly.

J. Lane wrote:
Hi all,
Here's my problem. I have two Chinese Elms in my yard and some of my
neighbours have some too. These damned trees spread their seeds all over my
yard every spring.I spend most of June on my knees scooping seeds out of my
veggie garden and flower beds trying to keep the seedlings from growing(
which they will, given any water and some medium to grow in). Thousands of
the buggers have to be pulled all summer.I'd love to cut the trees down but
can't.

Mulching miseries
 

I can't cut the beasts down because I'm renting the property. I have begged
and pleaded with my landlord to take a chainsaw to them. He thinks they make
great shade trees and would be too costly to remove. They're 60 or more feet
high. I've even contemplated drilling holes in them and filling the holes
with root rot, but the dammned things would fall on the house!
As to what kills them: nothing short of root rot or dynamite!
--
Jayel
"J. Lane" wrote in message
. ca...
Hi all,
Here's my problem. I have two Chinese Elms in my yard and some of my
neighbours have some too. These damned trees spread their seeds all over
my
yard every spring.I spend most of June on my knees scooping seeds out of
my
veggie garden and flower beds trying to keep the seedlings from growing(
which they will, given any water and some medium to grow in). Thousands of
the buggers have to be pulled all summer.I'd love to cut the trees down
but
can't. The issue I'm facing is that I need to mulch, but don't know with
what. Bark mulch would be preferable, but the seeds would have a wonderful
medium to grow in and be almost impossible to remove except as seedlings.
Gravel may be ok but get too hot. The summers here get to be 40 degees
celcius( somewhere around 100 farenhight).
Help!
--
Jayel

Mulching miseries
 

"J. Lane" wrote:

Hi all,
Here's my problem. I have two Chinese Elms in my yard and some of my
neighbours have some too. These damned trees spread their seeds all over my
yard every spring.I spend most of June on my knees scooping seeds out of my
veggie garden and flower beds trying to keep the seedlings from growing(
which they will, given any water and some medium to grow in). Thousands of
the buggers have to be pulled all summer.I'd love to cut the trees down but
can't. The issue I'm facing is that I need to mulch, but don't know with
what. Bark mulch would be preferable, but the seeds would have a wonderful
medium to grow in and be almost impossible to remove except as seedlings.
Gravel may be ok but get too hot. The summers here get to be 40 degees
celcius( somewhere around 100 farenhight).
Help!
--
Jayel

How about one of the synthetic mulch sheets? Or, light-colored
gravel? We have that in the dog yard, and across the front of
the house; it actually stays cooler than ambient. The only other
thing I can recommend is diligent hand-removal of seedlings as
they appear. Within wind-drift distance of our house are maples,
cottonwoods, sycamores, sumacs, ashes, lindens, pines, spruces,
and locusts. Every year we do several rounds of
seedling-removal. If you get them early enough, you can kill
them off by just riffling the mulch or lightly raking the gravel.

Chris Owens


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Mulching miseries
 

On Tue, 12 Aug 2003 10:12:41 -0600, Grandpa
wrote:

If you EVER find anything to kill these miserable trees, please post it.
Nursery recommendations did not work, and were costly.

J. Lane wrote:

Here's my problem. I have two Chinese Elms in my yard and some of my
neighbours have some too. These damned trees spread their seeds all over my
yard every spring.I spend most of June on my knees scooping seeds out of my
veggie garden and flower beds trying to keep the seedlings from growing(
which they will, given any water and some medium to grow in). Thousands of
the buggers have to be pulled all summer.I'd love to cut the trees down but
can't.

I think I remember Chinese Elms from my Albuq. childhood. The seeds
are packaged in sort of papery discs about 1/2" in diameter with a
small seed in the middle? Bezillions all over the place? I remember
making doll food with them.

Thoughts: we *all* have freely-seeding trees and weeds of one sort or
another. Mowing keeps most of them from taking over the lawn, and
while it's annoying, weeding a garden is part of the drill. If it
weren't elms, it might be wild cherry or maple or oak or ragweed. If,
as you say, your neighbors also have these trees, killing the ones in
your own yard wouldn't help a lot, and killing all in the neighborhood
would be actionable.

Mulching, extensively discussed here, is not a permanent solution
unless the mulch is asphalt. I'm sure people here can recommend mulch
materials that are slow to break down. For a veg garden, plastic
sheeting may be suitable.

Mulching miseries
 

The fact is that deep mulching will make your pulling the seedlings far
easier! I don't have any oak trees but my neighbors do. They also have
maples. I pull several thousand sprouted acorns out of my garden each year,
and several hundred maple seedlings. It's just part of living on planet
earth!

"J. Lane" wrote in message
. ca...
Hi all,
Here's my problem. I have two Chinese Elms in my yard and some of my
neighbours have some too. These damned trees spread their seeds all over
my
yard every spring.I spend most of June on my knees scooping seeds out of
my
veggie garden and flower beds trying to keep the seedlings from growing(
which they will, given any water and some medium to grow in). Thousands of
the buggers have to be pulled all summer.I'd love to cut the trees down
but
can't. The issue I'm facing is that I need to mulch, but don't know with
what. Bark mulch would be preferable, but the seeds would have a wonderful
medium to grow in and be almost impossible to remove except as seedlings.
Gravel may be ok but get too hot. The summers here get to be 40 degees
celcius( somewhere around 100 farenhight).
Help!
--
Jayel

Mulching miseries
 

Here's my problem. I have two Chinese Elms in my yard and some of my
neighbours have some too. These damned trees spread their seeds all over
my
yard every spring.I spend most of June on my knees scooping seeds out of
my
veggie garden and flower beds trying to keep the seedlings from growing(
which they will, given any water and some medium to grow in). Thousands of
the buggers have to be pulled all summer.I'd love to cut the trees down
but
can't. The issue I'm facing is that I need to mulch, but don't know with
what. Bark mulch would be preferable, but the seeds would have a wonderful
medium to grow in and be almost impossible to remove except as seedlings.
Gravel may be ok but get too hot. The summers here get to be 40 degees
celcius( somewhere around 100 farenhight).

Mulch heavily -- at least that way it won't be so hard to pull the seedlings
that crop up. You'd be surprised just how easily they come out when they
start in mulch. ;) You may also want to purchase a leaf blower -- during
the heavier seeding periods, use the leaf blower to blow the seeds out of
your beds. This will help reduce the amount of seedlings you end up
pulling.

James

Mulching miseries
 

Thanks for all the input people. The gravel mulch sounds like my best bet. I
inherited a shopvac from a friend and will use that to get the seeds in open
areas and around my perennials. It will cut my job in half. BTW Frogleg, my
yard is 1/3 of an acre with 7 flower beds and a 50x30 foot veggie garden.
I'm not adverse to weeding but find myself working 8 hours a day every day
for three weeks trying to pick up the mess left by the trees.That's on top
of regular weeding which is ongoing, of course. Come August I'm still
finding the seedlings. Agriculture Canada has banned from sale and are
coming close to banning the trees too. They are considered a weed tree.
--
Jayel
"J. Lane" wrote in message
. ca...
Hi all,
Here's my problem. I have two Chinese Elms in my yard and some of my
neighbours have some too. These damned trees spread their seeds all over
my
yard every spring.I spend most of June on my knees scooping seeds out of
my
veggie garden and flower beds trying to keep the seedlings from growing(
which they will, given any water and some medium to grow in). Thousands of
the buggers have to be pulled all summer.I'd love to cut the trees down
but
can't. The issue I'm facing is that I need to mulch, but don't know with
what. Bark mulch would be preferable, but the seeds would have a wonderful
medium to grow in and be almost impossible to remove except as seedlings.
Gravel may be ok but get too hot. The summers here get to be 40 degees
celcius( somewhere around 100 farenhight).
Help!
--
Jayel

Mulching miseries
 

On Thu, 14 Aug 2003 07:07:43 GMT, "J. Lane"
wrote:

Thanks for all the input people. The gravel mulch sounds like my best bet. I
inherited a shopvac from a friend and will use that to get the seeds in open
areas and around my perennials. It will cut my job in half. BTW Frogleg, my
yard is 1/3 of an acre with 7 flower beds and a 50x30 foot veggie garden.
I'm not adverse to weeding but find myself working 8 hours a day every day
for three weeks trying to pick up the mess left by the trees.That's on top
of regular weeding which is ongoing, of course. Come August I'm still
finding the seedlings. Agriculture Canada has banned from sale and are
coming close to banning the trees too. They are considered a weed tree.

I didn't mean to say they weren't a nuisance, just that with
gardening, if it isn't one thing, it's another. :-) 50'x30' is a
large space to keep up with, indeed. Still, if the only weeds you have
are elm seedlings, you're lucky. (I doubt that's the case.) Hope you
find a satisfactory solution.