hey folks it's amy from colorado
mountain living and today i'm going to
be taking care of a problem on our
property one of the things that can
creep up on you are invasive weeds
especially in colorado there's a lot of
invasive weeds that have taken over
natural habitat natural species for
other wildflowers and plants and part of
our responsibility as property owners is
to actually take care of these it's not
uncommon to get our letter from the
Extension Office to request that you go
ahead and take care of these weeds I can
be unlawful to ignore them and let them
proliferate and take over natural
natural land up here so after the this
morning after I hit the gym right next
door luckily is the Cooperative
Extension Office and they have a program
where you can rent out sprayers at no
cost so I this morning I'll show you
portable weed sprayer and the the
herbicide that is recommended for this
use is called milestone it's actually
one of the more mild and less toxic
chemicals that can be used for
controlling weeds and you only need like
a few milliliters per gallon so it's
really not you're not really using that
much and when I stopped by the office
they give me a whole list of things that
it can be used for mostly we're going to
be working on Canada thistle I've got a
little bit of Mullen but Canada thistle
is the primary weed that's all over the
property mostly along the driveway so
I'm going to mix up a batch and get to
work luckily I've got it over the long
holiday weekend and I can be really
thorough I probably go ahead and do our
neighbor's yard as well since he's been
so helpful for us and getting our
framing finished with the beams and all
of that
it's definitely spreading in this area
and we want to do what we can to control
it because they can tank a sprayer gonna
hunt the wild canada thistle who's
really trying to find an alternative to
roundup this is the chemical that's no
to cause problems to honeybees
specifically they contain neonicotinoids
and it's a chemical that really messes
up the bees function and they think it's
related to colony collapse disorder and
that's where bees just die off in mass
amounts so I was really trying to find a
substitute so I was happy to come across
the milestone so where I first saw them
growing up was the side of the driveway
so I'm gonna look really carefully I did
cut down a few that were up here so I'm
gonna try to see if I can find any new
growth and take care of those weeks ago
I had chopped down all this thistle that
I saw because it was starting to turn
into a flower and I didn't want to seed
but luckily I found out that that's
actually preferred if you cut the seed
and then it comes back and then you
spray it you actually have a better
chance at killing off all of the weeds
so the first crop up of my nose right in
the middle of the driveway here the sort
of a strip between the tires there's a
big patch right here so I'm gonna aim
and then squeeze the sprayer so you know
you don't really have to soak them just
kind of wait till the wind dies down
first of all I'm going all over your
legs you want you do want to get the
most of the leaves most of the
vegetation these are small plants so you
want to kind of cover the leaf with it a
little coating here's a bunch on the
hillside here on the side of the
driveway driveway is about 600 feet long
so I probably in total mixed up two and
a half gallons of solution at the top of
the driveway these are very small plants
it's more along the bottom of the
driveway the first 200 feet is where I
have three foot tall four foot tall
thistle plants so that's really where
the most of my application was I
probably used up to half a gallon before
I got down to that level and needed two
more gallons to finish the job so it
this is definitely a project that's
gonna take me a while it's gonna take me
a good hour to hunt them all down and
spray em I might have to make up a
second batch of juice I'm actually gonna
also offer to do our neighbor's yard
because I know he's got a lot going on
and he's helped us out
so much for the house so here we go here
we go time to get the job done oh the
reason why the Canada thistle is an
invasive lead is that it's really hard
to get rid of if you cut it and chop it
off or dig it out it doesn't destroy the
root system so the root system is very
vigorous and you have to have the plant
absorb the chemical in order to destroy
the root system is if if you just chop
it off at the top it's basically like
giving it a haircut and it'll just come
back stronger next year so basically it
grows it's very Hardy it crowds out
other plants and other species of wild
flowers and native plants so that's why
it creeps in and it just takes over and
it's hard to get rid of so that's why we
want to control it you control the
spread and I'm definitely happy I'm not
using something that's really poisonous
to animals or gonna poison the
groundwater at first when my neighbor
told me that the thistle was a problem
we had to get rid of it I was kind of
wary and resistant about you know using
an herbicide to get rid of them because
I really didn't want to do anything that
was gonna impact you know the
pollinators or the bees or anything like
that but this is the thistle about
almost two weeks later and effective
treatment you're seeing the leaves kind
of brownish grayish and dead and I
either missed those next to it or did
not have enough of a spray maybe you
just got a sprinkle but it looks like I
got the section missed those let's get
the clump of grass and really got these
guys pretty good right below so and then
a little bit further down the driveway
there's another clump here along with
all the tall stuff that's on the side
not up here but on the lower side of the
driveway but definitely a very effective
treatment probably have to hit these up
next year maybe I can dig them out right
now but so yeah definitely pleased with
the way that the treatment turned out
and happy that it's not like one of
those extremely toxic pesticides or
herbicides that you can use that's
really threatening to the environment so
definitely recommend it it's required in
Colorado if you have these noxious weeds
on your property it's actually against
the law not to take action and get rid
of them so it's kind of interesting they
definitely take the environment
seriously here so
anyway try at milestone if that's
something that you are looking for an
option for something that's a little bit
safer for the environment and not quite
as toxic toxic as roundup
so try milestone first and see if that
works for you but I'm obviously happy
that I found sort of a happy medium in
using the milestone treatment for the
Canadian thistle so I hope you guys
learn something if so give me a thumbs
up on the video and leave a comment if
you have any questions I'm happy to
answer anything else if I can and let's
get rid of those noxious weeds so we can
preserve they're really nice wildflowers
and other native plants in this area
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