If you mix a large bucket or trash can of Round Up, then feed canes and leaves of the plant into it to soak, the plant will suck up the herbicide like siphoning gas from a gas tank, or wicking it like an oil lamp. It can take two weeks to entirely kill the multiflora, so you will have two weeks or more of a dead thing sitting there. The more leaf area you can expose to the herbicide, the faster the absorption and the better the kill. Once into the plant, it breaks down into harmless elements and can kill the thing to the root. Then, your only issue is where to get rid of any left over Round Up mixture. I've done this with great success with the terrible Prickly Cucumber and it works quite well for Poison Oak and Poison Ivy. Algerian Ivy can also be killed using this method.

As long as nothing but the targeted plant is put into the liquid, no other plants are affected. You'll want to put the trash can of mixture somewhere the kids won't disturb it and probably cover it with a garbage bag or tarp tied around the top to control evaporation and anything getting in it.

I know, you hate the idea of week killers in your environment. I do, too. But, some things require intervention because you can't get all the roots, no matter how extensively you excavate. Kim

Thanks for the step by step Kim. I never use Roundup but am willing to in this particular instance. I want to spend the summer killing it so I can plant something new in the fall.

We don't really have much in the way of RRD here, though.
So, I don't think I'd remove it for THAT reason.

Jeri

Oh, that's good to know, so I don't have to be quite so precise about killing each root fiber.

But... errr, ummm, yeah. We don't need to tell the DH that. It's a great excuse to get my DH on board with pulling it and planting a repeat bloomer of my, errr, "our" choosing.

;-)

Now, THAT approach, I can endorse heartily!

Have you decided on a replacement?

Jeri

No, you don't need to get every root fiber due to RRD, but you DO want to get them all because any atom of the bloody thing you leave in the soil WILL regenerate. It will root at every bud on a cane laying on the soil. "Dead leaves root in fire!" It's worse than Bermuda Grass, no joke. If you want this puppy GONE, it's going to take Round Up, and probably repeated applications to get all of its babies. Kim

Well... just as an update. I decided to remove it, not for fear of RRD but because I wanted to put something that would rebloom and be prettier and more manageable. So I asked my landscaper to remove as much of it to the stump. But part of the stump is sitting under a concrete footing of a deck. Wouldn't you know it, there are literally a half a dozen little sprouts coming out of that stump.

The landscaper said we could drill a bunch of holes into the stump and fill those holes with straight Roundup, so I'm going to do that *and* apply a steady stream of Roundup to the leaves emerging.

Then I think I'm going to dig around the stump myself (I asked him to do it but I don't think he did it all the way) and make sure there are no remnants of roots coming from the stump.

Jeri, you asked what I have planned there? Well, Grandma's Hat, of course. :-)

If there's any room after GHat gets established, I'm planning to put another rose, perhaps Ulrich Brunner Fils, or something smaller. But GHat goes in first, after I know I've eradicated the multiflora.

Thanks!
-k

When it grows up a bit, we want to see her. :-)

Jeri

Me too. I bought a small band from the Heritage Rose folks outside the Celebration last year... she hasn't yet bloomed. Right now, her first big buds are starting to fatten up and I'm hoping to see her for the first time any day now. I'm so excited! So far, I love the color of the bud.

I don't think much of your "landscaper." Drilling holes into a stump and pouring in Roundup is not the way to go. It's not a stumpkiller, it works on green, growing growth, translocating to the roots. I have so-called "landscapers" on the Sheriff's crew in the cemetery garden, and they think they are so smart when they actually don't know a thing. I had one of them absolutely refuse to dig out roots - he would just lop a plant at the soil level, look me in the eye, and say "it's gone." Ha, HE was the one who was gone - the crew are convicted of minor crimes and are working in the cemetery in lieu of jail - I told the Sheriff he wouldn't do what I asked him to do and he was rolled up. Wouldn't it be nice if you could threaten ALL of your helpers in the garden with jail if they didn't do what you told them to do?

But I digress. Roseseek (Kim) is exactly right about letting canes soak up Roundup, although I would cut off the tips of them before inserting them into the mixture to make sure of maximum absorption. Painting straight Roundup onto the foliage would work, too, and you may need a second application a couple of weeks later.

I rarely use herbicide but think that I would in this case.
Anita

Round Up can work as a stump killer but there are others out there which work better/faster. RU absorbs into tissues and destroys chlorophyll. It's most effective applied to soft tissue, but has an effect allowed to absorb into the holes in a stump. If you were killing Algerian Ivy, spraying it on wouldn't work due to the waxy cuticle on the leaves and stems. Wounding it as Anita suggested to create tissue which doesn't have the waxy skin so the stuff soaks in, works very well. Using those stems/canes as "straws" or "wicks" to draw the solution out of a container full of the preparation works wonders! It's actually part of the instructions on the super concentrate (as opposed to the garden use concentrate) for use on woody vines, ivy, poison oak/ivy, etc. I've used it on very mature, enormous Prickly Cucumber that way with great results. Spraying them worked, too, but required four applications. If it will knock this stuff down, it will work on anything! Applying it with a hose end sprayer, I've killed the regrowth from a huge California Pepper (three foot trunk) we couldn't have removed from the hill due to the steep slope and too loose soil. Nasty stuff but it kills many EVIL plants. Kim

Here is a link that might be useful: Prickly Cucumber

Kim, now you've given me some hope for another trouble area in my yard that is far worse than any multiflora ever was. We have a whole hillside (which can be terraced for more roses) that is currently covered with Ivy. It's that horrible waxy leaf ivy that was used as landcover and little shrubs decades ago, and we have just been waiting until we have the money to get to that section of the yard. It creeps into the lawn, into my garden, and up other shrubs. You've given me some hope. If we strategically douse and soak it with roundup before pulling out the stumps maybe we'll have a better chance of killing it. That's on the docket for next year.

Let me comment on the original post, even though it is a dead issue.

So far as is known, multiflora is no more susceptible to RRD than the typical garden roses. The reason it's a factor in RRD is that it is by far the most successful wild rose species in the US. Dense populations of multiflora in farms, woods, and vacant lots provide a bridge across which RRD travels and a reservoir of infection from which mites can float into our gardens. If Cl Peace were as common as multiflora, it would be the bridge and reservoir.

In heavily fertilized soils, the Round-Up can leave the roots of a treated plant, pass into/through the soil, and be picked up by the roots of nearby rose bushes (and possibly new roses planted in the same spot if the old soil is not removed).

See the 2 links below for Round-up spread:

(page 19 and 20 of first link)
http://www.agron.iastate.edu/news/events/2011staniforth_sm.pdf

AND

http://www.springerlink.com/content/t7h6601566432076/

Here is a link that might be useful: first link

Believe me, I'm loathe to use roundup anywhere in my garden, and only a few feet from my veggies. I don't even use it on the weeds out on the street, much to my husband's dismay. But I don't think there's really much choice I have for eradicating a 50-year old multiflora that, over the years, had developed such an enormous stump. (And I can't even imagine how I'm going to deal with the ivy.) If I ever want to plant *anything* there... it's gonna have to go.

I can't tell from the link how long RU stays active in the soil (granted I only skimmed it) but it mentions a 10-35 day germination period. My intention is to not plant anything else there for at least a month or two after application, allowing it a chance to dissipate. I'm also planning to remove as much of the stump as possible before drilling.

Thanks.

We avoid Roundup, and haven't used it in decades.

But since the County declines to do anything about rapidly-spreading prickly cucumber on a derelict property here, DH is planning to do down and use Roundup there.

Someone has to do SOMETHING.

Jere

A month is probably a good minimum especially if you replace the immediate contaminated soil with fresh soil; as without replacement the glyphosate could remain bound for much longer time periods. Then, when you add fertilizer with P; the glyphosate could be released.

"Glyphosate [(N-(phosphonomethyl)glycine)] is a widely used herbicide and it is known to compete for the same sorption sites in soil as phosphorus. Persistence and losses of glyphosate were monitored in a field with low phosphorus status and possible correlation between glyphosate and phosphorus leaching losses was studied. Glyphosate and its metabolite AMPA (aminomethyl phosphonic acid) residues in soil samples were analysed after a single application in autumn. Twenty months after the application the residues of glyphosate and AMPA in the topsoil (0�25 cm) corresponded to 19% and 48%, respectively, of the applied amount of glyphosate, and traces of glyphosate and AMPA residues were detected in deeper soil layers (below 35 cm). These results indicate rather long persistence for glyphosate in boreal soils."

Here is a link that might be useful: 2009 abstract with above quote

There are stumps and there are stumps. I was thinking of a large stump consisting of mostly heartwood when I said, much too broadly, that Roundup is not a stumpkiller. It certainly is effective if it's applied to the cambium layer of an actively growing plant soon after it is cut, while the sap is still moving. Heartwood is inert, so drilling holes into it and pouring Roundup into them just seems to me to be a waste.

I was told that a good way to use Roundup against ivy is to whack it with a weedeater first in order to damage the waxy leaves and expose cut stemss.

I have some training but am no expert, so should probably keep my mouth shut on this subject! I'm smart enough, at least, to stay out of the debate about what residues it leaves in the soil, and whether they are harmful.
Anita

I cannot believe the chestbeating going on about RoundUp. At my horticultural college, the reps used to actually drink it to demonstrate its relative lack of toxicity. Before the bleating starts, please note the use of the word 'relative'. Nope, it is not like pouring pure glacier water around, but it is not Agent Orange either. Just use it. Frankly, the stuff openly available in the US is enough to make the average home gardener in the UK have a minor heart attack. Of course, if you are a 'professional', you can get some lethal stuff here too, but at least you have to produce some qualifications to actually buy it. As a working gardener, I usually offer customers the choice between handweeding or Roundup - nearly everyone professes horror and gets us to handweed.....for a couple of weeks. During this time, we have invariably come across an arsenal of nasty stuff in their sheds so we NEVER smirk knowingly when the mention of spraying comes up ....and it always does, sooner or later. I know of no really good gardens, unless there are a million volunteers, which are fully organic, and working on a public allotment, with slackers less than 2 feet away, I am certainly not.