Several days ago I noticed an ailanto growing between the planks of the deck. I told the landlord, who says he’ll come by sometime this week to get rid of it. There is, I’m guessing, 2-3 decimeters of space between the deck and the ground underneath. How should he get rid of it?
Is it a shot from a nearby tree or a seedling? In the first case, you have to tackle the tree first. A seedling might be killed by pulling it (try to wrap a noose around it as low as possible). If you can’t pull it out, destroying the assimilating above-ground parts again and again will hopefully cause it to starve.
It’s at least 13 meters from anywhere there could be another ailanto, so I think it’s a seedling. The closest tree of any sort is an Albizia growing inside what I think is a juniper at the corner of the deck. There are lots of Albiziae and redbuds, and I’ve observed what I think are oak catkins (there’s an oak nearby), maple seeds (there’s a small maple, but I don’t know where the tall one is), and plane tree seeds (don’t know where the tree is). I haven’t seen another ailanto here, but it could be nearby in the woods.
Just pull it out.
I think I see the problem. It’s just a leaf sticking through, nothing sturdy enough to pull it out by.
Perhaps your landlord is planing to pour herbicide on it through the crack.
The only mechanical options I can see are to either slide something flat like a piece of plywood or scrap steel roofing under the deck from the side, in order to smother it (which is probably what I would do) or else pry up a deck board or two in order to grab the base and pull it.
I just checked the depth with a flag stem. It’s at least 53 cm at the sapling, and there’s a hollow space under the deck where he could crawl under it to get at it. It’s less deep at the edges of the deck near the sapling.
Could one reach under the deck with a shovel without climbing under? Many landlords don’t like shimmying under decks.
No. The sapling is closest to the west end (upper left in the first picture) and the north side of the deck, which are shallow. To get to the root of the sapling, you’d have to crawl under the east end, and the distance from the east end to the sapling is longer than the shovel.
Can you take the screws out at both end of the wooden planks? So that you can take away one ore two of them to pick the Ailanthus out, and afterwards put them back in their place?
I’m not a fan of herbicide but this might be a case for spraying with whatever systemic herbicide is recommended for this species to kill it down to the roots. If you just pull or hack off the top, the root system may sucker and next year you have a dozen of them poking through the deck.
I zoomed on the pics, the boards are nailed down. Taking them out will damage the surface.
Any chance of paying some scrawny kid to crawl under and dig it out with a trowel? Or more likely cut the roots as deep as they could dig.
I had a tree of heaven sapling take root in a gap in the concrete INSIDE my garage. They are practically indestructible and I’ve been fighting them in my yard for 20+ years.
The landlord came by today to mow the lawn, but didn’t pull it up because it’s been raining and he had to be back at his job within an hour. He said he’d come back on a drier day to pull it up.
The leaflets now have the “thumbs” that distinguish ailantos from sumacs, and there’s a new leaf poking through the deck. The way the leaflets grow is interesting.