How to kill plants in a narrow space?

 

Both my neighbor and mine had erected a fence along our property.

They had a vinyl fence, and since code specified a fence cannot be directly
built on the property line but must be set 6" back minimum, their fence was
about 8" back.  I hated the look of a vinyl fence so I built a wood fence,
also about 8" from the property line.

This leaves a sliver of space about 16" wide between our two fences.

Mysteriously things started to grow inside this sliver, shrubs,  and a few
papaya trees shot up and now is about 9' tall with the trunk diameter 3" in
size.  Some of the shrubs are starting to shoot up to already taller than
the 6' fence, some things are bulging against my wood fence, nothing serious
yet but if I ignore them it will be serious in a few years.

Obviously we don't have access from the side, but only from the top.  The
area is about 110' long.

Is there something I can sprinkle down this space and kill off what's in
between?  I cannot use RoundUp because my understanding is RoundUp you need
to spray to the root area and I only have access from the top side.

Thanks,

MC

 

On Sat, 12 Sep 2009 21:17:07 -0400, against all advice, something


Rock salt?  I think you can get big bags of it for water
softeners pretty cheap.


--

Don't worry about people stealing an idea. If it's original, you will
have to ram it down their throats.
  - Howard Aiken

 



We are losing top soil, and you want to kill more? Definite case of
under think.
--
"When you give food to the poor, they call you a saint. When you ask why the
poor have no food, they call you a communist."
-Archbishop Helder Camara

http://tinyurl.com/o63ruj
http://countercurrents.org/roberts020709.htm

 

MiamiCuse wrote:

A strange use of resources.  It must be a difficult neighbourhood where you
cannot negotiate a fence that you can both tolerate and share the cost.


What sort of wooden fence is it?  Can't you take off a couple of planks to
get in or get somebody slender to climb in from the top?


Roundup (glyphosate) is absorbed by the leaves not the roots, there is no
point in spraying on the soil or the root zone.  It works best when the
plants are growing strongly, ie late spring. But any new seeds that blow
into the space will grow and you will have to spray again and again.  There
are chemical treatments that are supposed to inhibit seed germination but I
don't know how effective they are or how long they persist.  You would also
need to keep back any nearby plants that creep on the ground or that have
running root systems.

If you want a long term solution I would weed it and then cover the
offending area with something solid and opaque to prevent seeds from
starting and discourage runners - like black plastic under crushed rock.
This may be more effort but you only have to do it once.  Are there any
children available to press into working in the confined space without being
arrested for breach of child labour laws?

David

 



No not at all, it's simply not done here typically.  The vinyl fence was
already in place when I moved in and I wanted something more natural, and I
installed over 300 linear feet of fence bordering three neighbors, this part
is the only part that overlaps.

This is precisely why the county require fence to be placed at least 6" back
from the property line, so that there is no dispute as to whose fence it is.
There have been too many dispute when two property owner shared the cost to
build a fence and then one property is sold and the new owner inherit may
not have the same idea as the old owner and whatever "negotiated" come into
question.  So, doesn't matter who paid for what and what was negotiated, all
fences must be set back from the property line, if you pay for part of a
fence that is inside someone's property line, then it's that person's fence.
He/she may paint, remove, do whatever to it.

In my case, the owner was out of town a person I never met, she rented the
property to someone and the property went into foreclosure, sat abandoned
for over 1 year, it was difficult to find the right person to talk to, and I
doubt they would want to remove 100' of vinyl fence in perfectly good
condition where every 4' there is a concrete post sat 18" deep into the
ground.


It is very densely grown I doubt anyone would fit in that space and have
room to move, or manuveur.


Yes I can, but then only 2 or three feet the stuff is getting so thick I
would have to remove all 100' of it to access all of it.  The property was
abandoned when it went into foreclosure and I saw plants shooting up from
their side, I thought it was from their property until I looked closer the
other day, it wasn't from their property it was stuff grown inside this
sliver.

I guess I was always under the assumption that the space between the two
fences would have so little light nothing would grown, was I wrong!