It's right up there with Bermuda and kudzu.

Your number 1 mistake was in not spraying it thoroughly with glyphosate before you cut it down ... they have massive tuberous root systems they resprout from

1 - Dig out that bed, remove the tubers and rake out as many of the other roots as you can.

2 - Water the bed well to encourage any remaining roots to sprout so you can KILL them.

3 - When you see a sprout, let it get well-leafed out, spray it with glyphosate, and when it dies, dig it and it's associated root out as best you can.

It may take a couple of years, depending on how big that root system got.

marymcp -
I had to chuckle at your post (NOT at your misfortune!) because I had asked a month or so back about planting cat's claw in some big holes in my patio to have it vine up my porch supports and lazygardens (I think) replied immediately that I shouldn't plant it anywhere near anything I cared about (like my patio roof).

Reading your post, I'm SO glad that: 1) I took the advice and paved over the planter holes and,
2) I belong to this forum!

I wish you luck with your CC eradication!!

marymcp, what part of town are you in?

Thanks for the advice lazy and treelover. I'll post a pictre of where the CC is planted. I think it's been in the ground 30 or40 years,the age of the house. It may be impossible at this point to eradicate it completely. Maybe I should follow zzini and just concrete over the holes....there's 8 of them. The patio walls would look so cool with some other, less invasive vine. something pretty like clematis is what I would like to put in. Is there any hope???

plantaddict, I live in NW Phx,43rd Ave and Peoria. Why? You have a backhoe you can bring?? :~)
{{gwi:406193}}

Here is an overview of the patio so you can see the placement of the planting sites, there's actually only 5 of them to deal with, not 8 at the base of each arch. Instead of concrete, would it work if I seal the dirt section completely with landscape cloth so that no light and no water gets in? How many millenium will it take to kill the CC that way?

{{gwi:406194}}

I wanted some more cats claw so I was going to offer help in digging some up. Im at 35th and Greenway

Well thanks ppa, if I thought it would help eradicate them I would happily let you at it, but methinks I need to just pour some cement over the holes. Darn it.

I have a trick that seems to work for getting rid of any plant, maybe it will work on the Cats Claw too!
I cut down the plant, leaving a foot of the main stem. Then I soak cotton balls with vegitation killer. I rap the cotton balls around the cut, cover it with plastic baggy and rubber band it in place. The plant sucks up the vegitation killer, getting rid of roots and all. Im new to Az. but this has worked for getting rid of Ivy in Washington state. Good Luck:)

I don't know who allowed my neighbor to plant this or how long ago but it is highly invasive! It's all over ever fenceline, climbing up walls, and choking/strangling the china berry tree in my yard and I find it snaking its way underground and popping up all over the place. I'm surprised the electric company doesn't seem to care that it's completely covering some wires and has climbed all the way up the pole and is starting to snake across the lines up there now. Will Round-up really kill this off? I want this gone!

Re-reading this thread is informative, I started it June 2010. Here we are slightly more than a year later. We used a tow strap attached to the back of our truck to remove the root ball from three of the sections where they were planted. Two have remained cat-claw-free but one, the one I've been watering because other plants have been inserted, the CC is coming back. Shoulda done what lulu2 suggested and wrap gauze soaked vegatation killer rags around the stump. Ugh. I hate this stuff - with the same vehemenous as bermuda. Never lived with kudzu, don't wanna.

Well, here it is two years later and I am still dealing with this nasty CC. Unless I can get into the neighbor's yard and kill this thing where she planted it I am fighting a losing battle. All I can do is keep cutting it back. I've ripped it away from my building where it is wanting to climb up like it is doing on two of the neighbor's buildings. I am in an apartment. You would think the homeowner next to me would not want that nasty thing separating their roof from the rest of the house. I can see where they would like for it to keep the sun off the house thus keeping it cooler but I can think of better ways of doing this and not the destructive, invasive CC.

When we bought our house here at South of Tucson in 2018 the cat's claw was growing everywhere, up the walls of the house and popping up in the yard. After spending hours and a lot of sweat digging and pulling, I decided to try salt. I used salt around the base of the house and in areas where nothing else was growing or would be effected. The result has been amazing, and every time I would see a leaf popping up I would pour a little salt on it. Now the only place it grows is in the middle of my desert Willow which has to be watered anyway. I used 40 lb bags of cool salt which I got from Walmart. Again it works great, but it has to be where you're not going to plant anything else or where nothing you have growing will be affected.