From: songbird@anthive.com   
      
   T wrote:   
   ...smothering...   
   > I tried that on some little trees I am truing to get rid   
   > of.  First I cut them back to the ground.  Then I placed   
   > a big old piece of cardboard on top of them with a big   
   > old rock to keep it in place.  The SOB's just grew out   
   > around the cardboard.  These were 2' x 2' pieces   
   > of cardboard!!!!   
   >   
   > AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   
      
     little trees coming back from seeds or coming up   
   from roots or what?  is it a bush?  do you know what   
   it is?   
      
     cardboard is cheap enough and it can always be   
   put down in bigger pieces and a few layers and   
   overlap the seams so light doesn't get through.   
      
     one thing nice about it though is that it is   
   also an organic material which will eventually   
   end up as worm/plant food.  in your rocky soil   
   you might have a hard time burying what bits of   
   it are left, but to keep them from blowing away   
   ...   
      
     in one low spot here what i did was cover the   
   cardboard with chunks of bark that a friend gave   
   me from his firewood splitting.  so it just looked   
   like a layer of bark being used as a mulch.  after   
   the 2nd season i had to refresh the cardboard so   
   i did that, but that gave me four years of weed   
   free coverage for an area that was otherwise always   
   a lot of work to keep after all the weeds that   
   would sprout there.  as a low spot any seeds from   
   the surrounding areas would get washed into there   
   or blown there.   
      
     recently we came into 550 engineering bricks so   
   we've covered the entire low area there with   
   landscape weed barrier and then put the bricks   
   down so i won't have to redo the cardboard any   
   more and we have a brick path from and to nowhere   
   but it is a good temporary spot to store and use   
   the bricks until we decide to do something else   
   with them.   
      
      
   > Next attempt, I am going to try to girdling the branches.   
      
     if you're going through all that just cut them   
   off with some loppers.  they work really well and   
   are not that expensive.  i have a pair that i can   
   use to chop off branches up to three inches thick   
   and they don't need any electric power or anything   
   do use them, just a little muscle power.  :)  i   
   use them to keep any sprouting trees out of the   
   north hedge and to trim branches or to cut up   
   brush into smaller pieces.  very handy.  i use   
   them quite often as we have a lot of honeysuckle   
   bushes that can use trimming.   
      
      
   > I really, really, really do not want to use round up on them.   
   >   
   > Oh and they are completely immune to cussing at them!   
      
     what you could be doing with them is letting   
   them grow and then cut them off and using that   
   organic matter as a top mulch to hold in moisture.   
   eventually they well break down and turn into   
   humus (in an arid climate that's going to take a   
   lot longer than here so you should get a few years   
   out of them).   
      
     around here pieces of wood laying on the ground   
   last several years.  where they are weeds aren't -   
   ok, well weeds will grow around or through them in   
   places.  i still like them left as larger pieces   
   instead of going through the effort of chipping   
   them (some people buy wood chippers to deal with   
   brush and leaves, but i want the organic materials   
   here to last as long as possible so i never have   
   chipped anything and don't want the added expense   
   and maintenance of yet another machine to deal   
   with).   
      
      
     songbird   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)