How to Get Rid of Snow-on-the-Mountain

Smothering

Mow your lawn in the spring. Snow-on-the-mountain is a perennial, so smothering it before the growth season kicks in is the best way to starve it to death. Grab your lawnmower and set the blades to the lowest setting available. First, cut down any of the weeds you’d like to get rid of. If you have a smaller patch of snow-on-the-mountain, feel free to use a handheld lawn trimmer. If you want to keep some of the snow-on-the-mountain as ground cover or decoration, just mow the areas you want to remove.

Cover the mowed area with landscape fabric or plastic tarp. Once the area is freshly mowed, cover it. You can use landscaping fabric or plastic tarp to block the sun and smother the snow-on-the-mountain. Weigh the tarp or fabric down along the edges using small rocks or bricks. Snow-on-the-mountain grows via rhizomes, which are roots that connect to one another underground. Smothering the ground above the large root system will starve it over time.

Lay mulch on top to keep the tarp or fabric pinned down. Mulch will ensure that any especially persistent snow-in-the-mountain shoots don’t make any progress. Cover the entire area with the mulch of your choice and leave it be. So long as you can’t see the fabric or plastic covering the ground, you’re good to go. The mulch will also keep your yard or garden looking halfway decent while you’re starving the weeds. This process is going to take some time, and you probably don’t want to look out and see a random tarp or fabric sheet every time you hang out in your yard!

Leave the fabric or tarp in place for at least 6 months. Yes, this is going to take some time, but it will 100% kill snow-on-the-mountain permanently. This persistent weed’s rhizomes can survive without sun or water for a while, so wait at least 6 months before you remove the mulch and landscape fabric or tarp. You can totally leave the tarp or fabric for a full year if it ends up snowing or freezing before you have a chance to remove everything.

Herbicide

Tackle your weed problem in the fall for best results. Snow-on-the-mountain is a perennial that stops growing in the colder months, so attacking the root system with herbicide right before late fall is a great way to keep the snow-on-the-mountain from coming back. You can use herbicide to spot treat patches of snow-on-the-mountain during the spring and summer if you’d like, but it is unlikely to permanently solve your problem.

Buy a herbicide that’ll kill snow-on-the-mountain. Basic commercial herbicides containing glyphosate (like Roundup) should kill snow-on-the-mountain no problem. And torodon-based herbicides, which are commonly used to kill stumps and brushes, will also do the job. If you happen to have any 2,4-D products (like Amine) that are for broadleaf weeds, that’ll fix your snow-on-the-mountain problem as well. Metsulfuron plus will also be efficient at combatting snow-on-the-mountain. Skip the vinegar. Vinegar works with weeds that are especially young and weak, but snow-in-the-mountain is hardy, and its root system is often very elaborate.

Treat the area by spraying the plants with your herbicide. Take the herbicide of your choice out to the yard or garden and spray the snow-in-the-mountain liberally. Aim for the roots so that you soak the base of the stalks with your weed killer. Read the label carefully before you apply the herbicide to see if you need to wear gloves or follow any specific directions.

Continue re-applying the herbicide whenever you see new growth. It’s possible (if not likely) that the snow-on-the-mountain will require multiple applications of your herbicide. If you see new shoots growing in your yard or garden, take your herbicide out and spray it down again. It may take a few weeks until you stop seeing new growth. You can treat your whole yard if you’d like, but that’s going to kill everything. It’s more efficient to simply treat the snow-on-the-mountain directly and then tackle new growth if/when it appears. So long as you keep killing the leaves and stalks, the roots will die out over time. The next growing season, you shouldn’t see any snow-on-the-mountain growing wherever you treated the soil.

Organic/Natural Solutions

Install landscape edging to contain snow-on-the-mountain. If you like the snow-on-the-mountain but it’s sort of running wild in your yard, pick up some plastic landscape edging. Use a trowel or small shovel to dig a 4–6 in (10–15 cm) trench around the area where you want to keep the plants. Then, lay the edging in place and tap it into the ground with a rubber mallet. This will keep the root system from spreading. You can also use pavers or gravel to block snow-on-the-mountain from expanding. Snow-on-the-mountain has an elaborate root system, but it doesn’t go particularly deep. Physical barriers should keep the weed from spreading. If you're looking to propagate snow-on-the-mountain within your landscape edging, simply leave it alone! The bees and butterflies will spread the seeds that grow out of the flowering portion of the plant in the late summer. To manually propagate snow-on-the-mountain, pick some adult plants up from your local gardening store or flower shop and plant them in shallow, well-drained soil.

Grow grass to outcompete the snow-in-the-mountain. Snow-on-the-mountain can cover a wide area, and it doesn’t need a ton of sun and water to thrive. However, the rhizomatic roots are fairly shallow, and grass can easily outgrow the snow-on-the-mountain and starve its roots of nutrients. If you’ve been using snow-on-the-mountain as ground cover, lay grass in the spring. The problem may go away on its own. Snow-in-the-mountain is invasive, but in the least problematic way possible. This is an invasive weed that only succeeds where other plants can’t grow, so growing grass will solve the problem over time.

Remove small patches of snow-on-the-mountain manually. If you spot a few of these weeds spilling over into an area where they don’t belong or if a small patch pops up out of nowhere, grab a shovel and throw some gloves on. Drive the head of the shovel into the base of each stalk and rip the plants out by hand. The sap inside of snow-on-the-mountain causes dermatitis, a skin reaction that causes itchy irritation and rashes, so don’t rip the plants out with your bare hands. This doesn’t really work if there are a large number of stalks. It can just be too difficult to get all of the roots.