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Dave: Hi, I am Dave Epstein this is Growing Wisdom and today we are going to be taking about the death stick. It is a kind of interesting name is it? It is something to help control invasive plants in your yard, and admitting John Bakewell and John is working on some invasive right now. Hey John! This is called what?
John: Ailanthus.
Dave: Ailanthus, its look very tropical.
John: Yes, in some Asia it is taking over a lot of need habitat and so you know the more we can suppress it the better.
Dave: You have got this contraption here, it is looks like a home made thing and you are the inventor of this right?
John: I invented the back torn death stick.
Dave: So tell me what do you do here?
John: Well, I start with the actual herbicides, it is a non-petroleum oil base herbicide made by dowel and I used the formulation called pathfinder two. It is sometimes its use as a spray application but I find that to be a little bit indiscriminate and you get a lot of over spray. When I use it in this direct wipe method a 100% on the product goes right on the trunk. I can do this adjacent to a lot of native plants without harming them at all.
Dave: Work so sensitive to chemical use and rightfully so we do not want to be using chemicals but I understand it the certain plants that we almost have to do this right?
John: If we cut this trees they will sprout, you can spend all day pulling them out and you still going to leave a lot of roots fragments so if you are going to win and protect that in a large area from invasive plants eventually you are going to have to use herbicides.
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Buy a sponge paint roller that can take oil-based paint. Attach roller to ¼” aluminum rod. Oil can/salsa jar combo prevents spillage. Apply herbicide to the sponge. Herbicide would not drip, red dye improves visibility. Cover 1 foot high area of tree trunk, remove sponge and reuse or discard and wipe down aluminum rod.
Most effective on: Norway maple, Buckthorn and autumn olive.
Dave: Well John, thank you very much. This is really helpful and what is really interesting I hope for you folks is that we are something so simple a paint roller or a piece of PBC and aluminum rod and a nice contraption that you will not spilling the chemical anywhere except where you want to treat this invasive plants. You could really help your yard and help the ecosystem alive. Come back every week for all of our tips and some helps at GrowingWisdom.com.
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