Wow Carol! You feel like coming to help me tackle the same sort of mess jsut past my back yard?

But seriously, what sort of protective gear did you wear? It seems even when I have on long sleeves, A denim jacket, heavy jeans, boots and eye protection I still end up looking like I was trying to tame tigers for Seigfried and Roy. Also, did you just wade in and start hacking? Did you paint the cut ends with round-up? I think multiflora suckers something fierce when it is cut......

If you have a game plan, I would love to hear it because I can't stand that stuff near my yard!

Alexa

It's always such a feeling of accomplishment when a huge garden task is completed. It also opens up the area for new and improved plantings. Pace yourself Carol. Lots of days ahead to get out there and organize. I bet you will be at the local nursery this weekend getting new ideas and purchasing some items. I don't know if you would like these groundcovers but I have good luck with vinca and lamium as ground covers under pines. Lamium is a favorite of mine because of their green and white leaves and they have pink, purple or white flowers. They also pull right out of the ground easily if they become a bit too aggresive.

I like that lamium idea, hmmm. I wonder if deer eat it. It would be nice if some native plants appeared by themselves, now that the competing vegetation is gone.

Caliloo, here's what I wore:

safety glasses
thick gloves with leather palms
knee-high rubber boots
a heavy old quilted canvas coat
a knit hat
corduroy pants, worn OVER the boots to keep thorns out

Tools were:
Hand-held Felco pruner
Large long-handled pruner

"Technique":
I'd back in to the plants, pressing the canes away with my body until I could see the base of the shrub. Then I'd lean over to clip the small stems close to the ground, switch to the large pruner for the thick stems, then I'd back out again, grasping the cut stems and ripping them out of the trees as I went. It was tedious ugly work but not really all that hard.

Dragging the stickers away to pile them up was almost as much work as clipping them down.

I'm at it again today... found some more big stickery clumps in other areas.

Music to my ears Carol....hooray for you! I wish more homeowners would do this. So depressing to see all the properties with a mess of invasives growing just off their mowed lawns.

The rose will return though won't it? How about herbicide painted or pointedly sprayed on the stems left after the cutting.

Oh, I'm sure the roses will return. They will out-live me for sure. It's a never-ending battle.

I try not to use chemicals in the garden, but if the stumps start leafing out I might spray them with Roundup over the summer.

Deer don't like Lamium or Vinca. I've never had any problems with either. That being said though deer will taste lots of things and if they don't like it spit it out. They are ignorant buggers. Too bad they don't like your sticker bushes but that would be too much to hope for. SIGH!

Hello Carol, you and I are in the same zone area, but I see you live somewhat North of me. I'm in the South Hills area. I was reading your post and decided to do the same thing with the wooded lot area next to my house. It's been a mess for years, so Hubby and I decided to start clearing it out. There were about 3 dead trees in the lot, and somekind of vine growing everywhere,(which killed the trees in the first place). There is a bush that has very sharp dagger like spikes coming from it. Hubby cut down all the dead trees and I started cleaning out the rest of the mess. YOu are right, it's a job that will take many days to accomplish. No one uses the property. I would like to roto-till some of it, and plant some wild flowers in the area. But Carol, it's so much fun, taking an area that was a mess and turning it into something nice to look at! Be good and Happy Gardening! Karen

Hi sweet....be careful of that 'somekind of vine growing everywhere', could be dormant poison ivy. If you're allergic, it is still lethal at this time of year if you come into contact with the roots.

One of these days I have to re-attack our front roadside bank. Trouble is it's so steep, and I'm getting old. I have the oriental bittersweet infested, and Ailanthus continually sprouting there.

The older roots of climbing poison ivy often have centipede-like rootlets lining the lower portions of the vines--helps to identify them.

Now that it's sticker-bush free, I've been planting my new woodland garden with extra plants from the main part of the garden... valerian, tansy, winter aconite, and lemon balm so far this week.

The scale of the space is so big, my little transplants seem like they'll never have any impact!

Sweet_blooms, I would be very careful about rototilling in the woods. If you have a small area that you can carefully garden in, then it should be OK, but if you till a larger area, you'll be giving invasives an even easier time taking over than they already have had. I have had much better luck thickly mulching areas where I have removed invasives, and tilling (I use a shovel) only places where I an going to plant. You'll still have to watch carfully for invasives coming up in the mulch, but it will be a lot less, and each year you'll see fewer.