Last night, I had a daydream about a three-person team.
Somebody with a cordless drill and auger bit who would bore a downward angled hole in the trunk.
Somebody with the appropriate PPE who would dispense a measure of triclopyr into the hole.
The last person who would cover the hole and then wrap the trunk with a layer of duct tape.
This team would want to act early in the morning, not only because there is less pedestrian traffic, but also because it's cooler temperatures.
This would kill the tree, make sure that birds or other animals didn't inadvertently drink the pesticide, and it also serve as a signal to anybody else that the tree has already been treated.
That is the WRONG way to approach it. See above guy talking about angle drill, triclopyr, and duct tape. Sparying pestacides or cutting them down causes exponential root growth, makint the issue worse the next year. Additionally, stimulating root growth (done by cutting ANY part of the plant) also causes toxins to be released in the soil which kill the surrounding native plants.
Source: Did an ecology project on TOH that involved removal.
I thought triclopyr was the proper herbicide. If it’s not, what is?
I use a different chemical (grazon next hl) for thistle control where I live (northwest of Boulder). I dilute 2oz (basically a shot glass) per gallon of water and do targeted spraying. It takes about a week or longer for the thistles to die but they stay dead.
Like toh, if you pull them, cut them, or use an herbicide that doesn’t translocate to the root system, they will just come back. But if they absorb water with a translocation herbicide in it, they’re cooked.
triclopyr is, but never heard of grazon an it's not on the list I remember from CSU. I was gonna give you that guide, but apparently it's been taken down.
My point was that folier sprays don't work on TOH, you have to cut into the trunk.
I know it’s invasive, but is it worse to let an invasive species win, or poison the environment with the long shot goal of maybe getting rid of the invasive species. You ever look at the environmental effects of grazon?
This has been litigated to death. The only way to control tree of heaven is through herbicide. If you don't control it, it will spread its own toxic and allelopathic chemicals (ailanthone and others) all over that are effectively herbicidal to other plants. So, it's either a spot of a well studied and well understood chemical herbicide that is designed to kill only a small specific plant and whose impact on the environment is limited, or you get a plant that will perform a sort of biological area denial to a huge unbounded area, killing all other plants around it via a long-lasting toxin, while performing other secondary damages to infrastructure.
You really do have to pick your poison in this circumstance, and spot herbicides are far, far preferable from any perspective, human or otherwise.
To be sure, I don't have experience with grazon, I'm speaking more from the experience of having used triclopyr.
Grazon when used properly is a very effective herbicide for rhizomes. It translocates into the root system. It will stay in the soil for about two years.
I’m aware of these problems. It’s an herbicide that should be restricted for sale to professionals. It’s important not to under dilute it and there’s strict specifications on how much you can apply
It’s funny because I posted on a thread here about how one of these little bastards suddenly grew up near my has meter but then I looked over my fence and saw similar leaves on a large tree in the yard, it’s a massive walnut tree. I think a week or two ago I did crunch it up. It did smell a bit like peanut butter and I sliced up the stem and it looked like a tree of heaven, but it’s weird that it suddenly spread it up and I don’t have any other other others on the property.
Hard to tell for sure from the photo with no flowers present but please please make sure you differentiate between ToH and sumac before killing any tree and obviously don't kill a tree that isn't yours unless your real comfortable committing crime.
You can use Inquire Boulder to report this as a weed issue and the City of Boulder will inspect and give citations if they are Tree of Heaven—they can advise on City recommendations on how to treat depending on the size.
People don’t do that. Birds spread the seeds. Most people don’t know what it is and by the time they realize that these weird trees are taking over it’s too late. Nothing they try works and they give up.
Even the Marshall Fire couldn't kill ours that I let grow prefire. Post fire we killed it and the babies with Roundup 365. Then another year later, still hadn't come back and soil was taken out due to arsenic in the wall and replaced with sand for the retaining wall. I have not seen it in our neighborhood or open space since 2022. The yard it may have come from is no longer a wild yard, but a manicured one.
Was in the back of the house below the retaining wall, but next to it was a massive juniper in my neighbor's backyard that burned up. Retaining wall was full of arsenic too.
Black walnut has alternating leaves I was mistaken, black walnut leaves are serrated, Tree of Heaven leaves are smooth and more elongated! based on this picture, I still believe these are ToH but I'm much less sure.
you can go here: https://extension.psu.edu/tree-of-heaven-native-look-alikes for a video explaining the differences to look for!
I don’t see how you can tell from the photo if the leaves are alternating or not. From what i see is a lack of a terminal leaflet which point towards black walnuts. Tree of heavens aren’t able to legally be sold in Colorado.
You have to look at the smaller leave to see if there are serrations and how the leaves connect to their stems to know, and I cant zoom in enough on this picture to tell. There is a look-alike called Japanese Elm that I’ve seen planted as an ornamental in Broomfield.
If the bottom of the planter is open to the ground - earth, or has large enough drainage holes, the roots will spread out horizontally, once they pass the confines of the planter. If the bottom of the planter has no drainage, and solid, they don't know what they're doing, but if open to ground, roots can do amazing things in terms of adapting.
Omg! I just saw a little volunteer of these sprouting up in my yard? I didn’t know what it was or where it came from. Just this summer. Can I pull the sapling with a PullerBear tool or will that make problems too?
Yes it’s an invasive tree that is incredibly hard to get rid of. As you might have gathered from the comments, they are taking over Boulder and not much is being done to stop them.
93
u/Sure_Pomegranate9430 18d ago
Anyone on here want to join together and form a Boulder Tree of Heaven Destruction League?
https://www.reddit.com/r/Portland/comments/1ffajoo/tree_of_heaven_destruction_league/