Re: CULT: toxic Canada thistles?

Hi Laurie,
They are destructive to everything in their path. Almost impossible to get rid of. And a real nuisance. They are bad enough in a small yard but you should see what devastating effect they can have on a pasture or field. That is where mine come from and I fight them every year with little effect except to keep them from going across the highway into another pasture. I use gallons of roundup concentrate just to have them come back with a vengence in about a month blooming almost as they clear the ground. At a nickle a head I payed a teenager $50 last spring to spray and remove heads. I counted them with a pair of plyers and a leather glove. This is one of the largest drawbacks to living in the country and one that really has me frustrated.

Wendy Zone 5 KS
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: laurief 
  To: iris-talk@yahoogroups.com 
  Sent: Saturday, September 29, 2001 12:23 PM
  Subject: [iris-talk] CULT: toxic Canada thistles?


  Hello All,

  I have noticed something in my iris beds that I haven't seen mentioned on 
  the list in the last year or so I've been reading, so I thought I'd see 
  if anyone else has made a similar observation in their own gardens.  My 
  farm is overrun in spots with Canada thistle, and it seeds everywhere it 
  can find a spot.  Then, of course, it quickly establishes large stands by 
  very fragile underground runners. I have managed to keep it out of my 
  iris beds for the most part, but it did start to invade one end of one of 
  the rebloomer beds.  Being too busy this summer to dig it all out, I 
  relied on hoeing to keep its growth in check.  Unfortunately, all that 
  did was make it angrier and even more aggressive in its regrowth.  It 
  made its way into a several TB clumps and eventually pretty much 
  destroyed them.  I finally painted the thistles with RoundUp several 
  weeks ago, and the poor assaulted TBs are now making a valiant effort to 
  send up tiny increases where they had remained entirely stagnant while 
  the thistles were viable.  And so my question is this - has anyone else 
  noticed that Canada thistle seems to have a toxic/stagnating effect on 
  bearded irises?

  Just curious,

  Laurie


  -----------------
  laurief@paulbunyan.net
  http://www.geocities.com/lfandjg/
  zone 3b northern MN - clay soil


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