We have these horrible plants in our backyard, I've tried to get rid of them were they crop up and grow to large shrubbery size, and they're impossible to kill completely. I kept cutting them back but they resprout from these runners beneath the ground. They have an EXTENSIVE root system. We ended up digging up some today after hours of back breaking work, and we found 10-12 foot long root runners going horizontally across the lawn that led to a central node/trunk. 40 lb dog for scale:
There's tiny sprouts coming up from these plants polka-dotting our entire property and we have dogs, as well as fruit trees, so we can't exactly KILL EVERYTHING. I've worked hard to get ANY grass to grow here too - we're in the socal desert. I am CURSING whoever planted these. I believe they CAN grow to tree-sized. They start as tiny sprouts, many feet away from the node below ground. They are taking over my tomato plant bed, even though i can't find their roots!
I don't mind killing everything with weed killer under the pool footprint, plus or minus a few feet perimeter, but these runners probably span the entire yard, we got to one node that was like a tree trunk - it would need heavy equipment to dig out - but it was about a foot below ground.
The rub: Does anybody have any idea what I would have to put under the pool to keep these out? That is AFFORDABLE? I got the pool because it was on sale for under $200 and this is turning into a pain but I don't want to ruin my investment and I do really want the pool! We have no AC and it's almost summer. The plan right now was to get a lot of weed killer, dump it everywhere i can within the 16 foot diameter footprint we dig out - when i can keep my dogs away from it for a day, then do the leveling with clean dirt and a sand layer before putting the pool up. Now I'm not so sure we could keep these out from under the pool - every where within 10 foot perimeter of the pool these plants still exist though smaller. Other than that, the soil is sandy and not rocky. I'm not sure how deep they go from the ground level, perhaps not deeper than 1 foot.
To add, we don't have a lot of money, but I do want this pool to last and not have to blow another $200 on that, so that's pretty much the long term care budget. We may eventually upgrade, but >$200 is a lot to us right now.
There's tiny sprouts coming up from these plants polka-dotting our entire property and we have dogs, as well as fruit trees, so we can't exactly KILL EVERYTHING. I've worked hard to get ANY grass to grow here too - we're in the socal desert. I am CURSING whoever planted these. I believe they CAN grow to tree-sized. They start as tiny sprouts, many feet away from the node below ground. They are taking over my tomato plant bed, even though i can't find their roots!
I don't mind killing everything with weed killer under the pool footprint, plus or minus a few feet perimeter, but these runners probably span the entire yard, we got to one node that was like a tree trunk - it would need heavy equipment to dig out - but it was about a foot below ground.
The rub: Does anybody have any idea what I would have to put under the pool to keep these out? That is AFFORDABLE? I got the pool because it was on sale for under $200 and this is turning into a pain but I don't want to ruin my investment and I do really want the pool! We have no AC and it's almost summer. The plan right now was to get a lot of weed killer, dump it everywhere i can within the 16 foot diameter footprint we dig out - when i can keep my dogs away from it for a day, then do the leveling with clean dirt and a sand layer before putting the pool up. Now I'm not so sure we could keep these out from under the pool - every where within 10 foot perimeter of the pool these plants still exist though smaller. Other than that, the soil is sandy and not rocky. I'm not sure how deep they go from the ground level, perhaps not deeper than 1 foot.
To add, we don't have a lot of money, but I do want this pool to last and not have to blow another $200 on that, so that's pretty much the long term care budget. We may eventually upgrade, but >$200 is a lot to us right now.
Even if I did I'm not train in using one, bit scary to me.