What I see here a lot, and I mean a lot, are home owners of new construction that say their liriope has escaped the beds and is popping up in the lawn. Not so.

What has happened is that a small amount of topsoil was spread over a bad subsoil and then sod put down. The sprinkler system is then over used to keep the grass a perfect green on this shallow soil. The top 2 inches never dries out and it is the perfect condition for nutgrass. Yep, to homeowners that nutgrass looks like baby liriope.

This is not a sedge,it's lirope. There is no central ridge in the leaf, and the leaves arise left and right- not spiral around the center. It is also a darker green and the leaf tip is not as pointed as a sedge.

I know it sounds funny.....

I have alot of requests regarding liriope.
There are the people that had a house built and landscaped it themselves 8-10 years ago and now they have a lil spending cash and have learned to hate lirope. They need to have it removed so we can do some real landscaping.

I also have the customers that called me for my opinion and want to landscape the yard themselves (to save money). Many have specifically requested lirope due to it's EVERYTHING tolerant nature and creeping habit.
I write down the names/numbers of people who want lirope. (and yes I actually give them the talk about this plant, and tell them it is a mean obnoxious thing).
I basically tell them I can get them a good deal on lirope but it'll be barerooted and it will be available on very short notice as I'll be digging it out of someones yard.

thats right, I'll dig it out of one persons yard, make a few calls on the cell phone, and if you are home, for $50 you get a pickuptruck load (approximatly 2,500lbs) of lirope.

I guess, customer A is happy, customer B is happy, and I made $50 instead of using the lirope to fill in potholes on my farm.

Drew

Good tip, Drew. Why not make it into a profitable venture, if the owners are fine with you taking the unwanted plants away?

Creatrix, I just had a similar challenge, only with lily-of-the-valley. The rhizomes are just bears to remove. Worse than liriope (which here in Massachusetts doesn't get as rampant as in the South, though it does get its shots in). The homeowners really wanted to get rid of it - it was popping up in the sea of creeping phlox and other established plantings.

In the open areas where there were no other perennials, I used a spade to cut beneath the deepest reaches of the rhizomes, and removed the soil as though it were a piece of turf. I worked small sections - not huge areas - since soil is heavy...

Then I extracted rhizome from the chunks of soil, and replaced the now-loose soil back into its original spot, and tamped down.

In the phlox it wasn't as easy, as it was necessary to take a weeding tool and cutting out rhizome from between the phlox (I like using a Japanese hori-hori for that chore). It was impossible not to cut phlox rhizomes along with them, so I had to make a "combover" of the longer phlox strands to cover the bare spots. With rain and time new growth will fill in. Before I did that, I spoke with the homeowners to make sure they were okay with the possibility of temporary bald patches. They were fine with it -- just wanted the l-o-t-v gone. Actually, it didn't look bad.

However, I know I didn't get all the rhizomes. Some spots broke off and I couldn't find their remnants. But, with an ongoing client account I know I will just do continual removal as new shoots pop up, and eventually eradicate the errant rhizomes.

I believe that if you have to work amid close plantings of desireable plants to remove a lot of liriope, it will be difficult if not impossible to take out all of it in one swoop. More like it will be a multiple-step process where you get more of it with each maintenance visit.

I'm sure anybody watching me knows I'm nuts as I do a small dance when I get a good chunk of bayberry root pulled up!

I dug up l-o-t-v in my yard- looked good for two years- now I've got sprouts coming up again!

My question is- if you were replacing bayberry and/or liriope, how would you go about it? Cut-spray-cut-spray dig then plant?

i prefer:
dig, wait two weeks, spray whatever stragglers pop up, wait two weeks, dig any left overs.

after that just spray heavy the 2-3 times a year you make your rounds to that property