Leatherleaf mahonia & English ivy tests (herbicide and machete)

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1 On 05/07/ :17 PM, wrote: This is our message to Marshall Rogers and the Converse Heights neighborhood about Trees Coalition work in their area. Sent: 5/7/2015 5:10:39 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time Subj: Leatherleaf mahonia & English ivy tests (herbicide and machete) Marshall, for info, we started a test yesterday on your property and I wanted to let you know. The Leatherleaf mahonia is absolutely running wild in and around the corner of Crystal Drive and South Pine Street. A person who hasn't seen it would not believe how this non-native invasive has spread. We've cut down more than a hundred but the thousand that remain are flush with berries as we speak. Yesterday our team sprayed the equivalent of Round Up around the base of about 100 cherry trees along South Pine. This is an annual task to knock back the weeds and does not damage the tree roots. While we had the herbicide mixed, we decided to find out if it is effective on the mahonia. In this test we sprayed five Leatherleaf mahonia plants about half way between the first of your trees and the most westerly trees. We marked each of the five with an orange tape. 1 of 6 07/06/ :05 PM

2 The four above are tall stringy plants as we see deep into the woods where the sun is limited. The fifth is more typical.as shown below. My purpose here is to let you know about the test and why these orange identification flags are now present in your woods. Moving to ivy, thank you again for starting the attack on the English ivy toward South Pine Street. I admire the fact that you began before the Trees Coalition happened along. Horizontal Ivy: We can now see the results of a test with Joel Cox, who uses a strong herbicide to kill English ivy. As you know, we at the Trees Coaliton are not experts on dispatching ivy by this method. Sometimes we "paint" the cut vines to test whether that method is better than digging the ivy roots out or not. But we do not spray ivy foliage. 2 of 6 07/06/ :05 PM

3 At our request, Joel sprayed a small test area about five yards wide by 20 yards long.in the flat area we have been working for over a month, which we call "Patrick's Plateau" in recognition of the hours Patrick Meyers has worked there. Here is the result. Joel's spray clearly killed the horizontal ivy. If anyone is interested in contacting Joel for the purpose of spraying ivy on the ground, his telephone number is I hasten to add that the chemical that he is using is potentially harmful to trees if it gets onto the bark. For this reason, I am not here recommending that we use Joel's herbicidal approach--merely reporting the results. It does kill English ivy and most people I talk to have had very little success using normal herbicides on English ivy. Joel is conscious of the potential danger to trees and is very careful in his application. For us at this site, my thought is that we wait and see how William Gee's goats handle the ivy this summer. 3 of 6 07/06/ :05 PM

4 Vertical ivy: Now to our protocol for removing old, heavy ivy from the tree trunks. Here is Patrick standing with a sheath of ivy which he removed from a tree. 4 of 6 07/06/ :05 PM

5 This is a very difficult task. During April we developed a new way to remove thickly encrusted, old ivy from tree trunks. The new process uses a machete and does it in such a fashion as to not penetrate the tree bark. Perhaps difficult to see clearly below, after initial angled strikes (angled is the important technique because the blade does not penetrate the bark), the worker places his hands at the ends of the machete and "carves" the ivy off of the tree. This method is a bit faster (an ivy situation like this requires more than an hour), and the important difference is that we don't penetrate the tree bark. 5 of 6 07/06/ :05 PM

6 Now to the actual Ivy removal results, as the trees leaf out, it covers up the ivy. Our progress is disappearing under the leaves. Here is a May 2 photo showing a few trees whose stems are no longer encrusted within decades of ivy growth. We still have a dozen or so untouched examples of trees still under full ivy attack. I regret that progress is slow but we are still at it. Thank you again for getting this started. More importantly, the trees appreciate it. newt 6 of 6 07/06/ :05 PM