I need help in removing these cattails. I bought this property, looking at satellite photos, the cattails creeped in 100 feet in 10 years. My sump discharge well was well overrun.
I've been cutting them in half with a hedge trimmer, and then slowly going over with my riding mower.
I need a better solution. Would a scythe work well here?
I can maybe rent something more suitable, but I don't have a truck, or tractor. It's gonna be like $600 a day for a brush trimmer.
Plant some dogwoods to chase them away. :^)
goats?
>goats?
the most profitable lawnmower you will ever own
Plant some Kudzu- that will choke them out
>cattails
Put on your maga hat because you need to drain that swamp. They don't exactly thrive where it isn't swampy.
Eat them. They are one of the highest yielding crops.
scythe works well if you have one or you can get a circular saw blade and take off the string head off a string trimmer and bolt the saw blade right to it. it will also cut small woody brush too
and your feet off
>sump discharge well was well overrun.
Stop irrigating the cattails.
This. Redirect the water with swales. Change the discharge area.
Goats? Nubian dwarfs give milk, too.
Kudzu will choke everything out.
im not planting kudzu you weebs
the entire area is low lands that floods in the spring, water discharging there is not an issue, it used to be a shallow pond 40+ years ago
>low lands
>floods in the spring
>used to be a shallow pond
Then cattails are the native vegetation. What were you expecting?
they creeped in over 100 feet based on older satellite photos. i am trying to move them back to that distance. last owners just didn't give a frick and allowed the reeds to take up over an acre of their land.
>water discharging there is not an issue
It’s probably the main reason you’re having trouble with invasives.
you've got to pull them out. buy a couple of 30 racks and get a few of your buddies out there
Flammenwerfer followed by wasserwerfer
Don't forget the judenblitzer. If you skip that step, they'll just come right back.
Maybe get a machete and start slicing like the rest of the [unironically] civilized world???
Ducks will clear that out in no time. The more the faster. Then just let the foxes and other critters get rid of them for you.
Burning is the only effective way to clear dead cattails.
Homie those are not cattails. Those are phragmites. Youll never get rid
of them. The government has prescribed burn programs annually just to maintain their encroachment. The rhizomes they spawn beneath the earth are several feet deep and can get to several inches in diameter. PO sold you the property because remediation would be in the tens of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands.
Unfortunately this. Congradulations OP, you are a phraggot.
https://seagrant.psu.edu/sites/default/files/Phragmites2013_reduced_0.pdf
Or you can google for similar fact sheets, read the wiki, etc. Educate yourself.
It's likely the invasive type, though the native and invasive species are very difficult to tell apart. As in, I worked with plant biologists doing surveys of this shit and they didn't bother IDing it themselves, they sent it out to a lab to be positive. You can send a sample to a lab for ID, consider reaching out to a local university or environmental org for help. Anyway you may want to keep it if native, but it's very likely the bad invasive stuff.
As for removal, it's fricking hard. This stuff is taking over and destroying marshes across America, with major efforts to fight it, but it's hard.
Repeated burning is marginally effective if done at the right time of year but dangerous. You can cover the area with canvas, black plastic sheeting, tarps, or landscape cloth and leave it covered for like a year to deny sunlight and kill the phrag (and all other plants) effectively, but this is hard for huge areas. And then you have to make sure they don't reseed. Planting other things helps. You can dig out the roots manually but it's hugely labor intensive, recommend doing it with heavy machinery. I am usually strongly against the use of herbicides, but this is a situation where careful application can be acceptable. Do your research, apply whatever recommended herbicide at the the recommended time of year for maximum absorption.
Good luck killing those phrags.
thanks.
so far ive been mowing over them twice a week to keep them from growing out, would that be enough to choke them out?
Im also leaving tons of mulch from the cuttings over them, but even at a foot high they still grow through.
how deep are the roots? where its wet, I can rip out the bulb by hand, other places only the stem comes out.
I have a gas cultivator, would that dig in deep enough to kill the roots?
I tried a machete, its not any easier than using a hedge trimmer.
what can I grow to out compete the phrags? right now there are bunch of young walnut trees, buckthorn, and creeping thistle. all invasive. at least some grass is returning where ive cut them down to bare dirt, half lemon grass.
if I cultivate, and spray with lawnfill, would that do anything?
even if its invasive?
>ITT: OP violates the Clean Water Act
Luckily the latest WOTUS ruling will probably give you a free pass
Keep in mind I'm neither pro-government nor pro-wetland but fully acknowledge they will bend you over a barrel with this shit if they choose to do so
Op if i were you i would keep machete slashing and mowing them back to where you want the boundary to be and then spray any new shoots that sprout up. Keep spraying the new shoots for as long as it takes for them to no longer grow past the boundary. Then you will have effectively killed the roots.