It's February 9 2022 - continue cutting down ONE wild, overgrown Privet Hedgerow plant over 20 ft tall

We see immaculateely pruned privet hedges all over Long Island. This is an invasive plant to the U.S. known as Ligustrum Ovalifolium.  I never planted this shrub.  It came up probably from birds dropping seeds around 1999.  It has turned into a monster.  I need to remove it.  I'm getting too old at almost 72 years old for the constant work on my property removing wild invasives. Now there is an invasion of English Ivy underneath the privet and growing up on it.  The area has become a thicket. And now there's Black Locust with killer thorns surrounding the privet. Multiflora rose and Mulberry have also invaded the wild hedgerow. I've been tackling the removal of long, thick, tree-like trunks from a shrub all Winter.  Removing the cut off pieces is slow.  I've filled so many 100's of giant cans with cut up pieces it's endless - I'm talking years of work to cart away in small batches. The Village Sanitation is helping me with larger pieces now as they see me struggling with the chain saw, and loping shears to put it out on the curb for pick up. 

The long 10 foot pole is just half the length of a stem turned into a trunk and this is very heavy.  The top of it is multi branched and bushy like.  

 

The privet develops shoots off the main trunk that grow quickly.  Or they come out of the ground off of roots to grow new plants.  

My plan is to finish topping off the 20 ft hedgerow shrub and place a thick steel chain around it and have a truck rip it out of the ground, and then cut it up into smaller pieces to lift into a garbage truck on lawn rubbish day.  I'll have a crater of a hole left to fill in. Then begins hand ripping out English Ivy and rakng the area clean to begin planting Native plants.  

Half of the Privet was cut down by Feb. 6th 2022, and you can see how massive this plant still is and how long the trunks are, but how bushy the top growth is. Winter is the time to cut it down while the birds are not nesting in the surrounding forsythias - another nightmare non-native plant that is spreading into thickets along the front property.  The Forsythia has to go, too. 

January 25 2022 this is how much was still on the privet after removing a trunk full of cut down branches/trunks. 

December 30 2021 the cutting down of the privet has been ongoing and endless work for me. 

In the above picture, on the last few days of 2021,  I'm using battery operated chain saw and long handled loping shears. 

 Privet can come back again strongly after being cut to ground level. Make sure you remove all traces that you cut back out of the garden or burn it all, don't compost it so as not to re-infect again.  Privet grows particularly well in riparian forests, which are found throughout the SE U.S. Although tolerant of varying soil and light conditions, including a tolerance for shade, privet survives best in mesic soil with abundant sunlight.

When privet is an invasive species, the cost of controlling and removing privet is economically detrimental, something that is problematic for conservation efforts.  

The Moral of this story is DO NOT PLANT a PRIVET HEDGE.  

 Do privet shrubs have deep roots? 

Root depth really depends upon soil type and moisture conditions. Under reasonable growing conditions you can expect to find privet roots in the top 6"-8" of soil, extending out about one and one-half times the diameter of the plant. The roots are not generally thought of as being invasive.  But I disagree.