Getting Rid of Goutweed

By Melissa Thornton When I asked my Master Gardener intern supervisor what I could possibly do about

getting rid of goutweed, he thought a moment and then said: “sell the real estate”. I gulped, because it had invaded 6 of my 12 gardens and I love my property! He then explained that people generally write off the garden plants near goutweed (since its rhizomes descend as far as eighteen inches and then spread out), tarp over the area for up to two years…and then start over again.

Why get rid of goutweed, when it does such a good job of keeping out other weeds and has a cute little white flower later in summer? Goutweed is included on the invasive species lists for several U.S. states.

Most of goutweed’s threat is due to its ability to form a dense mat and crowd out ALL other plant species. It’s on the invasive list because its aggressive growth displaces native plants and reduces biodiversity. It has a detrimental effect on the microbial content of soil, and discourages conifer replenishment and the regeneration of native understory trees. That’s why.

Here are the four ‘tried-and-true’ methods my research kicked up.

Dig it up…self explanatory…but you need to dig down 18 inches, pull out ALL the rhizomes and replace the soil!

Smother it…as in the tarp method mentioned earlier

Mow it Down…weedwhack or mow the plants twice a week for a few years

Burn it with a weed torch…twice a week for a couple of seasons

My research led me to several helpful articles, including this one with more details about the threat and the solutions.

And here is what I’m doing. I am a typical Taurus…generally driven…and sometimes stubborn.😊 So I decided to use a couple of methods and generate a ‘hybrid’ of my own. Below is what it looked like when the goutweed was rampant. Then I weedwhacked (to the ground) all the areas between beloved plants where goutweed had invaded, then painstakingly covered all the weedwhacked areas with cardboard. I cut up and shaped about 200 boxes and cartons I had saved for the purpose. Thanks Amazon!

Then I covered the cardboard with a dense coating of mulch.

Next, I pulled the goutweed that had grown within the plants I cared about…time and time again. Other gardeners use Round-up type weedkillers to ‘paint’ the goutweed leaves, but I kept pulling. I just ordered an organic weedkiller called Burn Out and I will paint that onto the leaves of the goutweed still hiding amidst my good plants. Fingers crossed.

I liked the outcome so well, I used the cardboard and mulch on annoying areas that didn’t have goutweed, like over my septic tanks!

All research warns that this is a long term/several year process, but I have committed and am on my way. Wish me luck!