11-19-2012, 11:00 AM
Albezia seeds are light & fly all over everything (think hyper dandelions) Itsy seedlings are not hard to kill, but they are very prolific & everywhere, and older trees will copice & I have heard tales of cut branches rooting (heck, know that people have used other branches as fence posts & such & they do root...)
The really bad/good thing about the albezia is that they are nitrogen fixers, which would seem to be really good in a nitrogen limited soil like Hawaii island... but the bad thing is that native plants are not as nitrogen dependent as most of the weeds that come in, so albezia also encourage weed growth...
I used to not like to use much in the way of chemicals (back in Illinois, winter stopped the growth for a few months, here, no stopping, just growth & hyper-growth), there is a need to work on your whole property weekly during the "growing season " (ie, it rained that week - which is most weeks), or use chemicals, if the native forest has been ripped....(For a good reference, think May & early June all year 'round)
Cinders are a good medium, as they allow water to drain (very important on the wet side) & provide root support & many nutrients (but not nitrogen). Red & black cinders are sold in Iowa as lava mulch....here they only retard growth until the seeds land in them or the old roots sprout forth anew!
As to grass, many just mow what is growing... most grasses here are not native & other things end up growing with them..
The fire ants here are the Little Fire Ants (LFA) which are also hyper compared to the larger fire ants!!!
Added: to give you a slight idea, we have a very small city lot, with a small orchard & I have been trying to remove the "grass" & plant things....just trimming & keeping things in check, we usually fill 3-5 large mortar bins with green waste (about the same size as the plastic tobagans we used in IL) every 2 weeks.
Ah, Paradise!!
The really bad/good thing about the albezia is that they are nitrogen fixers, which would seem to be really good in a nitrogen limited soil like Hawaii island... but the bad thing is that native plants are not as nitrogen dependent as most of the weeds that come in, so albezia also encourage weed growth...
I used to not like to use much in the way of chemicals (back in Illinois, winter stopped the growth for a few months, here, no stopping, just growth & hyper-growth), there is a need to work on your whole property weekly during the "growing season " (ie, it rained that week - which is most weeks), or use chemicals, if the native forest has been ripped....(For a good reference, think May & early June all year 'round)
Cinders are a good medium, as they allow water to drain (very important on the wet side) & provide root support & many nutrients (but not nitrogen). Red & black cinders are sold in Iowa as lava mulch....here they only retard growth until the seeds land in them or the old roots sprout forth anew!
As to grass, many just mow what is growing... most grasses here are not native & other things end up growing with them..
The fire ants here are the Little Fire Ants (LFA) which are also hyper compared to the larger fire ants!!!
Added: to give you a slight idea, we have a very small city lot, with a small orchard & I have been trying to remove the "grass" & plant things....just trimming & keeping things in check, we usually fill 3-5 large mortar bins with green waste (about the same size as the plastic tobagans we used in IL) every 2 weeks.
Ah, Paradise!!