Every project site is tracked for visit dates, hours of work, re-growth rates on target species, and quantities pulled or stump-cut. Many years of data helps guide future work in the interest of precision and efficiency. So in 2018, totaling all complete pulls from all 28 “danger plant” sites, I end up with 41,946; that’s for wild chervil, wild parsnip, and giant hogweed. Partial pulls or break-offs don’t count, not on this team.
Moving to the shrubs, the buckthorns in particular, I totaled 15,371 pulls on four sample properties (approx. 250 acres). Stump-cutting or girdling of larger shrubs added another 1413 to the total. The final piece in the effort equation is stripping of re-growth wherever a shrub has tried to re-sprout; that figure is much more difficult to track over a workday since one may address multiple species and varying degrees of re-sprout. I’ve learned that I’ll typically strip a couple hundred shrubs in a typical day of pulling. Potato forks, Felco pruning saws, good loppers, and a good stretch routine…
Got Weeds? 