Battle of the Buckthorn: The Final Chapter

Twenty-seven years with this yard, as of August 18. I have never used weed killers on my property, and I fired the landscaper who sprayed God knows what cancer-causing crap all over the place a few years ago, without asking me first. Instead, each year I have been going out in the spring with loppers, a small chain saw, and a shovel, and digging out or hacking back buckthorn. I usually made it about half way around the backyard before the real heat of summer hit and I just couldn’t do it anymore. Then I’d try again in the fall, but all that did was spread the berries all over the place so they could grow into even more buckthorn the following spring.

Not this year. This year I had a plan. Just cutting it back is wildly ineffective. It just comes back, maybe stronger than before. I needed a way to conquer that invasive evil once and for all, without hiring someone licensed to come apply the kind of herbicide that kills it. I decided I would either dig it out completely if I could, or “buckthorn bag” it (with black plastic t-shirt bags rather than the official “buckthorn baggie“), all before the berries appeared. The weather had mercy on me this year: torrential rains through April had softened the earth enough to make digging those bastards up much easier than it has ever been before. A serrated shovel helped. I made it completely around the perimeter of my back yard.

Now, for the first time I can remember, I can see and identify trees and shrubs I didn’t even know were growing along the old farm fence (which I partially destroyed with wire cutters last year to be able to chain saw some of the larger buckthorn shrubs that had grown into trees) at the back of my yard. My plant identification app tells me I’ve got European Lindens back there, along with the “volunteer” Buckeyes and Maple Leaf Viburnum that just showed up a few years ago.

But I harbor no illusions. The buckthorn will come back. Some of it will pierce right through the flimsy black plastic bags I used. Some of it will regenerate underground, no matter how deeply I cut its roots, and rear its ugly, thorny head again. But I’ll be vigilant: I’ll get it before it grows out of control.

The one thing I won’t do is use a chainsaw anymore. Last year I switched to canola oil as a lubricant, and was very pleased with myself for not dripping toxic bar and chain oil everywhere. But I neglected to properly clean my chain saw before leaving it in the garage over the winter. The inner workings are now covered in a gooey mess of canola oil and wood chips, encrusted not just on the bar and chain but on the sprocket that makes them go. Eeeeewwww. I’m not inclined to try to clean that mess up.

Plus, I concede: I’m getting too old for this. Loppers and shovels I can still handle, but a chain saw is probably beyond what I should risk at my age.

So, if my improvised buckthorn bags fail, my last resort will be to buy some of the official buckthorn baggies, and try them. And if that doesn’t work, well, I’ll lop and I’ll shovel, and I’ll do the best I can with my daily exercise in futility, until I drop or sell, whichever comes first (I intend that to be the former, unless dire financial straits require the latter).

Now, among those visible trees and shrubs along my back fence, there is a large Honeysuckle. My plant identification app says it’s non-native and invasive “Tartarian Honeysuckle” (sheesh, sounds like something from Game of Thrones!). It’s the Borg of the shrubbery world (“Resistance is futile. You shall be assimilated.”) It propagates itself easily, with the help of birds who enjoy the berries it produces. It’s illegal to propagate this plant in my state (hey! wasn’t me! It was here when I got here!) It wouldn’t surprise me if my plant app is correct, because my neighbors told me that the former owner of this house used to plant buckthorn, deliberately. I suppose it’s good for perimeter defense, because those thorns are sharp and they really hurt, but not as much as trying to eradicate the damn things. If I lived a town over, I’d be fined for even having it on my property. Hey, I’m trying!

Google reveals that the way to get rid of Tartarian Honeysuckle is — you guessed it: chain saw and poison.

Shee-it. Maybe I can lop most of it off, and make a giant black bag out of a tarp, or something…

Plotting next spring’s Sisyphean battle, I remain,

your trying-to-avoid-poisons-by-getting-her-hands-dirty-fighting-never-ending-skirmishes-with-shrubbery,

Ridiculouswoman