Unwanted plant control

[The Snark]

Got an undesirable plant or overgrowing plant in your enclosure and don't want to dig up everything? The truly bananas approach that works great. Providing you are patient.

Mix up that Roundup <TM> according to manufacturers recommendations. Now a little Zen meditation is in order. Grab that fine artists paint brush. Just like you were working on a painting and just as meticulous, very sparingly paint some of the individual leaves of the plant you want removed. Be extremely careful and do just a few leaves at a time. After 4 or 5 days observe which plants are dying. Reapply more herbicide as required.

The entire plant and it's roots will eventually die then decay into nothing. The herbicide, since you are using such tiny amounts, will degrade in a couple of weeks and affect no other plants.

 

[rally]

Wait, why not just clip it?

 

[shining]

Wait, why not just clip it?

That would be too easy.

 

[The Snark]

Wait, why not just clip it?

It is if you want to remove the plant entirely. You cannot just cause some damage or die back with the herbicide. All or nothing.
For example, I have a dwarf grafted bougainvillea that was laced with invasive vines. Just a huge tangle. Rip the vine stems they just regrow in days. So I painted about 20 leaves. A week later I painted another 15. All vines gone now.

 

[rally]

I have yet to meet a plant that won't die after several repeated cutting back of all green material..eventually the root will die. I'm not knocking the technique you're using--just pondering the necessity of it.
Lord knows we eat too much Round Up residue to warrant bringing that concern up, but I do wonder how safe it is to use around inverts, specifically arachnids. I know I've read some things that state amphibians/aquatic life are easily killed with it.
Anyway, did you cut back the vines at the roots several times? Just curious; the use of herbicide in a hobby like this is new to me.

 

[The Snark]

I have yet to meet a plant that won't die after several repeated cutting back of all green material..eventually the root will die.

I read that then told myself I agree. I'm now thinking tropics which is a whole different ball of dirt.

Then my brain wakes up a little bit more and WHOA. Wait a minute. Poison Oak/Ivy can be cut back forever. Waking a little more and any plant that commonly propagates by rooting actually thrives from being cut back. And almost awake I got to wondering what plants would be found in a controlled synthetic environment of that nature?

Then I go full circle, not necessarily a terrarium but potted plants are often victims of invasives that just won't die back with repeated cut backs. Hey, English Ivy. Wandering Jew. Quite a few of them.

Anyway, Glyphosate is nobody's friend in the long run in my book. I offset that by, in the case of the bougainvillea I rescued required all of 2cc of glyphosate and 20cc of water. Not exactly the great deadly threat to the environment. Note the extremely powerful 1 in 10 concentration.

 

[rally]

Those hydra type vines are fun, huh? Cut off one head, five more grow in its place. Keep that plant away from my greenhouse if it's as bad as you say.. can't spray there, the fish wouldn't like it.
Did you try clipping it back to the roots and not letting it grow for any length of time? Like--not letting it gather any energy at all, assaulting it back-to-back-to-back any time you saw green?

 

[The Snark]

Did you try clipping it back to the roots and not letting it grow for any length of time? Like--not letting it gather any energy at all, assaulting it back-to-back-to-back any time you saw green?

Clip it back? I've tried digging them out or watering the ground and slowly pulling it out. With the invasive vines we have here... unreal how fast they grow in the tropics. Certain ones can grow 6 inches every 24 hours. Stealth too. Just a non-descript hard to notice stem without leaves for the first 5 feet or so. Seems it only takes a hair root to grow a new vine.
Also have a new problem. We have a new batch of Ts all over in that area. I don't want the area cut down and them disturbed. Just found a new burrow yesterday, smack in a patch of Wandering Jew.

Probably the worst invasives I've seen are the mulberry tree and the passion fruit vine. One that comes close to this is Rhus Diversaloba. Common poison oak. Beneficial as a front line of defense after a fire for erosion control. Diverse as it grows as a low spindly shrub in arid climes and a vine up to 100 feet tall up trees on the temperate rainforest. The ground can be scorched, completely fried by fire and it grows right back.