Large Scale Central

What the heck is this plant/weed???

I am sure its a weed of some sort, grows damn fast, resembles a fern but the stalks are hollow. Looks nice but it will take over the railway in a weeks time. Didnt have this much of it last year, but it has overtaken the place this year. Mike

Here you can see the hollow stalk where I have trimmed it away from the bridge.

Dang! Probably something that someone thought was cute and planted as an accent. I’ve never seen the like.

Wild carrot ??

If its carrot, its not making any of those under ground when I dig out the whole plant. I cut down about 3 arm loads this morning between rain showers. It does give one end of the railway a nice overgrown canopy of foilage though. I am trying to go for the dense and green look of Austria, just want to make sure its nothing poison that will cause issues. The stalks remind me of celery out of the garden when I cut and thin this thing out. Wild celery maybe? Whatever it is, it came with the fill dirt we got from the gravel pit when we raised the railway up 2 foot higher. Mike

Roundup… judiciously applied, a little on a few leaves so it doesn’t get applied to other plants. Probably the best way to eradicate it.

Go to the Garden Railways site and ask the plant lady. Bet she would know.

N

Does it grow in sun or shade?

I’ll send you $1.00 for a single bit of leaf and root! and a self-addressed envelope as well.

I’ve got some areas I need something for fill-in… (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)

Round here certain weeds like dandelion and them prickly things get killed of pretty quickly. Anything else gets pruned and if it behaves it can stay. That weed looks like to could make a nice background canopy, it just needs to be actively controlled.

No, I don’t know what it is neither.

One thought over on MLS was wild parsnip, which can cause burns if the juice on the skin gets exposed to sunlight. But when comparing it to pics on google, it doesnt look like parsnip to me and it never has had the yellow blooms/buds that I saw in the pics on google. Its definatly a fast grower, needing weekly if not daily trimming to keep the right of way clear. Very invasive. I trimmed all of it out around my depot, couldnt even see the cable cars anymore. Mike

Your Agricultural Extension Service should be able to identify it for you…,or look it up in Exotica at the library.

Mutant kudzu…:slight_smile:

I am no botanist but I think the celery idea I think is close. We have a plant that we planted on purpose called lovage which is a celery. It has a similiar (not same) leaf and the round hollow stalk. Parsnip is also a celery. The lovage is growing rampant and needs active control. But it is good in salad or in steamed greens like Swiss Chard, but I digress; I believe it is some sort of celery.

Edit: Never mind I got the wrong plant. It was bugging me and I showed my wife and she said it is this other plant we have growing that is taking over everything and we don’t know what it is. I knew I knew the plant just got the wrong one. I know what you mean. One plant grew last year now its all over.

What color are the floweres if they are white its probably wild carrot. You wont really get a carrot when you dig it up. We call it Queen Anns Lace around here. If it has a more yellowish flower its wild parsnip. The first year you wont get a flower but by the second year you will. They are common to see along roadways and fields.

You can boil the entire plant and make a dye and parts of it can be used as a tea. The best way toget rid of it is removing the plants before they get flowers. They have a deep root system.

I’m trying a broad spectrum plant killer of one gallon of household vinegar, mixed with 2 cups of Epsom salts and a squirt of original Blue Dawn dish soap. Something in the Blue Dawn makes it special. Spray it only on what you want gone. Supposed to work like roundup, but not be toxic. Dunno. Film at eleven.

Less expensive, fer sher.

Steve, I saw at Lowe’s, in the cleaning department, vinegar for cleaning. Its a bit stronger then the food grade stuff. Vinegar is supposed to strip the protective film from the leaves, and without that film, the pant desiccates (dries out) in the warm summer air and sunshine.

Personally I like Spectracide. Quite a bit cheaper than roundup. Works just as well. I use about 5 gallons of the stuff round here each season.

The dish soap makes it stick, like napalm. My buddy uses diesel fuel, dawn dish soap and road salt (for melting ice).
T

Daktah John, yea, but I don’t use chemicals in my backyard. I don’t want to risk contaminating the pond, and killing my fish, or harming my furry little weirdo (A.K.A. dog).

The weeds I can train, I train and use. The small weeds that I don’t want, I pull. The larger or more stubborn weeds get a long drink of boiling water, on a hot, dry day.

One thing to consider when using round up or other is that you can paint it on the leaves instead of spraying. Maybe tedious but it only kills what you want to kill. I works well on deep rooted things like dandelions and milk weed

We cleared an area of about 20 X 40 to make a rock garden for the RR to pass through. For about three years, it looked great, as the ground cover spread to soften the rocks. Unbeknownst to us, the invasive native grasses spread by rhizomes, sneaking back in, underground. I finally gave up, and the once beautiful ground cover, that was supposed to choke out the odd, errant grass, has itself been choked out by the grass. I pulled the rocks out last year. Its time to fight back.