Demonstration of Invasive Tree Girdling with Cliff Tyllick

Thank you for this video. You've inspired me to go out and girdle invasive trees.

I think this comment got cut from the video, but it's important: When you're peeling the bark and phloem away from the trunk, you won't see the difference in color that shows up in the video. On camera, the beige shade of the exposed sapwood and the bright white of the phloem are easy to distinguish. With the naked eye, both seem to be ivory-colored. It's easy to miss seeing that you left a lot of phloem behind. On the other hand, if you leave the girdled trunk alone for a few minutes, both the phloem and the cambium on the surface of the sapwood will darken. Better yet, they will darken to different shades of brown. Then it's easy to see what's left and to know when you've finished removing it. So when I girdle a multitrunked tree, I will do all the work with each tool before going to the next tool: 1. Circumferential cuts with the carpet knife—on every trunk. 2. Peel away the bark and phloem with the putty scraper—on every trunk. 3. Now that the trunks are darkening, start with the first trunk I peeled and do a quick follow-up scraping to remove the big pieces of phloem—on every trunk. 4. Starting again with that first trunk, scrub with soapy water and a coarse scrubbing pad—on every trunk. 5. Again, starting with that first trunk, scrub with rubbing alcohol (70 percent isopropyl alcohol; check the label) and a finer scrubbing pad. If a tree has only one trunk, I will girdle several other trunks at the same time, working through the same sequence. By giving each trunk a few minutes to age between steps, I make it easier for me to see the tissue I need to remove.

I'm glad I found this! I've got invasive scrubby overgrowth, and it's cut it back, it regrows, repeat. Going to do more research on this technique.

This works, but its labour and time intensive. Hack and squirt for the win.

Good Job, Cliff! Very thorough. I usually use a saw to make the initial cuts and a 5-way tool to peel the bark. A really sharp 5-way tool. Don't usually spray after if I take the time to insure all the cambium is gone. This is not as easy as it looks, people!

I guess I can’t post pictures here, but I checked these trees out March 4, 2020—about 7.5 months after I had girdled them—and no tissue had grown in the gaps and no sprouts had formed below the girdle. (After the video was done, I stayed and finished girdling all 7 of the other trunks on this tree, two of which were hidden behind the others.)

To do it right, don't overlook all these key points: 0:00 background 1:15 how girdling works 2:10 technique: initial cut 3:10 technique: peeling 4:15 technique: cleanup with blade 5:55 technique: cleanup with abrasive pad 6:45 technique: cleanup with alcohol 8:10 treating the whole tree

Cliff is my hero

Excellent work. Good job

Thanks for this video. It was very helpful. I started experimenting with girdling black locusts a couple of years ago on my property. I girdled them in the fall. I didn't realize that the girdling should be done when the trees are leafing out to put additional stress on the root system. That seems really important. I got robust sprouting from my girdled trees below the girdle.

Good farming.. 👍😎

That was so nicely done you could have signed it.

Excellent

Just go around the base with a strimmer, a method used to kill perfectly good trees by council workers tidying up the grass verges in the UK.

"grim reaper of ligustrum" 😂 -that's my line! -or I guess that make me the "Prince of Privet-Destruction" or the "Annihilator of Arundo Donax" 😂 -Fight the good fight ya'll! "-The Justiciar of Johnson Grass has weighed and measured your monoculture and found it wanting..." B\

Does anyone know if this will work for tree of heaven (aka tree of h_ll)?

Great video and info. I'm wondering if this would be a good time to start girdling more of them, given the stress they've had with the last month's freeze. Or would it be better to wait a few month until they've pumped their carbohydrates to grow new leaves and then girdle them to burden them at that point? \ Have you ever tried spraying with salt water, and could that work? Rubbing alcohol right now is precious right now for our household during COVID, so am looking for short-term alternatives.

Would this technique work for prepping a branch for airlayering too?

Cliff this a great video. I have a question. What happens if you cut too deep? I think I may have cut too deep on one of the trees.

Could one use a cordless angle grinder with a sanding disk to remove the cambium? Thanks for showing a safer way to get rid of the trees without the potential for harming my oaks.