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Pacific Northwest ExchangeTreesGarden Clinic
leeward_of_the_cascades

Help with invasion from neighbor's garden!

6 years ago
last modified: 6 years ago

First time poster here. I have a major problem in our back yard: Our neighbor's trees and plants have come under/over/through our fence and have completely taken over our garden space. I learned the hard way that cutting it down just makes them spread. Now one of the trees has gone under our house and has come up in my front rose bed! This has been getting worse and worse for five years now, but I decided that this is the year I get it under control. The trouble is I can't just spray Round-up on them since these plants don't belong to me. Any advice is greatly appreciated.






Featured Answer
  • 6 years ago

    Re: the trumpet vine....this one is going to be hard to control. In its current state, RoundUp or anything else is going to have a minimal impact on the entire plant. Which is what it is....one large plant, with the main vine trunk on your neighbor's property (?) and everything on your side, either vining branches or root shoots....but all connected You can prune whatever or as much as you want or need from your side of the fence (the branches) but what is growing up from the ground - root shoots - will need to be dealt with differently.

    Just cutting these off and spraying or painting with an herbicide is not going to work. These are connected to the primary root system and you just can't deliver enough herbicide in this manner to halt the growth. They will just come back. As will a bunch more, from anywhere the main plants root's extend into your property. This is trumpet vine's primary means of expansion :-)

    To permanently keep it from reappearing, you have to get rid of the roots that are on your property. And really the only way to do that is to manually severe them at the fence line. And then insert a root barrier of some sort along the fenceline to prevent future infiltration. Once severed, you can leave the roots in place to decay but that will be a slow process and they can continue to generate new shoots for a long time. If it were my property, I would excavate as much of the roots as you can now and continue to monitor for new growth going forward.

    Re: the Class B Noxious Weed. This refers to our state's listing of invasive species/noxious weeds. This listing is broken into 3 categories: Class A - Eradication Required; Class B - Control Required or Strongly Encouraged (determined at county level) and Class C - weeds that are very widespread throughout the state or of concern to agriculture. Control, if any, is determined at the county level.

    This link will explain how you should be dealing with the knotweed. There is no legal requirement to remove it but no one in their right mind would leave it there unchecked. It would consume the entire garden in no time!

    I suspect the earlier, "single white flowering vine" was bindweed, which also abounds here and is a listed Class C noxious weed. But it is no match for the knotweed.

    Comments (14)

    • 6 years ago

      Good grief. Is that your fence behind all the growth? You are a far more tolerant person than I. Cut everything down and spray round up on any stems or stumps in your yard. It's your property, after all. Can't imagine what it looks like on the other side of the fence!

    • 6 years ago

      If they are growing in your garden, - as in roots in the ground - then they belong to you! You can deal with them however you see fit.

      The photos lack some detail to confirm ID's but the second looks like some sort of knotweed, which can be hugely aggressive, even invasive depending on species, and would be something that I'd remove ASAP!!

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    • 6 years ago

      Knotweed and Trumpet Vine...good luck.


      You most certainly can treat with Round-Up on your side of the fence. There are some caveats which are unlikely to apply here (#1, it doesn't kill the plants in the neighboring yard). For both, treating the freshly cut stems with a concentrated Round-Up is going to work much better than spraying the foliage.

      Leeward of the Cascades thanked Smivies (Ontario - 5b)
    • 6 years ago

      i thought i saw trumpet in the third pic also ...


      what does the neighbor say about it ... i dont suppose they are willing to attack it from their side???


      ken

    • 6 years ago

      btw: .... SPRAYING round up probably wont be very effective .. often because of the dilution.. all you will do is burn the leaves off.. and then it will releaf ... and you do it again.. etc ... eventually you win.. or move.. lol ...


      your best bet it so cut things back to ground level.. and apply 100% glycophosphate to the cut ...


      i used to use this type of handy applicator ...


      https://www.google.com/search?q=plochmans+mustard&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=XQTcUYCCC_OFyQGCg4DAAg&biw=1154&bih=805&sei=XwTcUbmZHZK4yAHD0oDYDw


      hard to lose due to color..


      closable ...


      and minimal use and


      minimal exposure ...


      cut at ground level.. apply a few drops to the cambian layer ...


      https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffcm&q=cambian+layer&iax=images&ia=images


      ken



    • 6 years ago
      last modified: 6 years ago

      Check local regulations. Here it's an offence to allow knotweed to spread off your own property.

      Leeward of the Cascades thanked floral_uk z.8/9 SW UK
    • 6 years ago
      last modified: 6 years ago

      You are correct about the second being orange trumpet vine. It also grows up the fence and I cut it back above head level. But now it is also growing on the ground. I want to keep the portion growing on the fence. Will using Round-up on the ground bits kill the whole plant?

      I was wondering if the first was honeysuckle, but it does look like a lot like the knotweed (which I see after a quick Google search). Before it was this big it had a single white flowering vine that would come through the fence. How do I tell which it is? I had actually never heard of knotwood before. I looked it up and it is a "Class B Noxious Weed" in my county. What does that mean?

    • 6 years ago
      last modified: 6 years ago

      It is definitely Japanese knotweed. It's never a vine at any stage in its development so if you saw a vine it was something else.

      Leeward of the Cascades thanked floral_uk z.8/9 SW UK
    • 6 years ago

      Ugh, I just learned about Japanese Knotweed. Apparently it’s a huge deal in England and must be disclosed on property sales as it can grow through the foundation. It was also the cause of a murder/suicide. Yikes! It’s now been added to my nightmares.


    • 6 years ago

      Not only a problem in England but throughout the U.K. and Ireland. It's particularly bad in Wales.

    • 6 years ago

      So this was a 2-weekend project.


      I woke up and planned to start to work on uprooting both the trumpet vine and the knotwood... and MIRACLE OF MIRACLES I found that the neighbor had cut down his side of the trumpet vine! And my side was already starting to die. I spent the day cutting down the vine and digging out the roots. Then I went to work on the knotwood, cutting that down and uprooting it. I actually found the main stump growing under the fence and entirely through a cinderblock! I finished the job this weekend. I was happy to see that none of what I had uprooted had grown back, and by yesterday I had the entire section pulled up.


      The flower bed is now level. And I was able to do this without having to spray any Roundup. Thank you very much for all the advice!

    • 6 years ago

      I don't want to rain on your parade but I've got a horrible feeling you have not seen the last of the knotweed. It won't grow back in just a few days but grow back it almost certainly will. I would not plant anything long term in that flowerbed because you are likely to be digging it up again.

    • 6 years ago

      I will second floral's opinion

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