How to kill a Bolivian Sunflower (Mexican Sunflower) aka Tithonia diversifolia

I had this monsterous plant, it took some research to identify it and FINALLY after two years I HAVE KILLED IT.

I am a fan of plants in general, love them! I hate using chemicals but sometimes there is just no other way to get something dead.

This thing was not a normal plant, it was a beast that could not be killed and caused everything around it to die.

Here is what this thing looks like:

Looks harmless and pretty, huh? 

What you can't see is that it is like 12-14 feet tall. 

And what happens when you try to keep it shorter? It is like getting a gremlin wet, you cut a branch and it grows 5 more! And these are LONG branches, that 12-14 feet is the length of each branch coming from the ground. Not only that but they grow SO FRIGGIN FAST!!!!

So after several tries cutting it to nothing, I decided to kill it once and for all. And I succeeded!!!

So here is the trick: First, curl up in a ball all night while a hurricane rages outside and cry like a baby, then spend two days in a stupor staring at your sad destroyed yard.

Second, put on your long sleeves, jeans and boots and spend 2 hours cutting all the branches down while swearing like a sailor, then drag the giant limbs to the curb, with more cursing and scaring the neighbors. Basically you are hauling 40 or so long small trees, it is not fun.

Once cut I soaked it in weed killer. Every leaf and stump was soaked.
Next day, nothing was even remotely shrivelled.
So I soaked it again.
(I highly recommend using one of these:)




Days 3 and 4.
Soak the evil demon plant again and again.

Day 5: Some leaves finally start looking like they are slightly ill. Spray again.

Somewhere around Day 7 it actually started to die and proceeded to die slowly for the next week.

After a couple more days. IT WAS DEAD!!!!! I tried taking a shovel to the giant 4 foot diameter base of it and could not get even the slightest bit of progress.

Then I got really busy and would just stare at it every couple of days, being glad it was dead but having no idea how to get it out.

BUT... here is the best part.

After 3 months of procrastination and frustration and having no idea how to get this thing out I went over and started kicking it. 

Something wiggled.

In that 3 months of pointless head shaking the roots started to rot! It rotted so much that I could wiggle and pull out sections of it relatively easily with the roots (roots were still alive BTW, remember this is an evil demon plant.)!

I feel powerful and victorious now and anxiously wait for Spring when my Agapanthus, Birds of Paradise and banana trees will finally get SUN!

And in March I can pick out a shiny new lime tree to replace the evil beast with.