My Third Foe

I try to be a good steward of my property.  I aim to make the yard a nature friendly place.  Tonight, as I mowed, I surveyed my yard and found my third foe.  My first foe was poison ivy.  I don't like poison ivy because I am allergic to it and end up in urgent care almost every summer and coming out of there with a couple prescriptions.  I poison the poison ivy every year and although it's not gone completely, I have knocked it back quite a bit.  It's an ongoing battle.  My second foe was and is buckthorn - an invasive species that crowds out the native plants.  It's everywhere.  I've cut it and poisoned the stumps the last two falls and I have a whole lot more to do. Tonight I recognized my third foe.  And this one really bugs me because it wasn't a problem until I planted it myself - amur maple.   I wanted a hedge. I wanted something that grew thick to add to the privacy of the yard. And I wanted something natural in appearance-not one of the closely clipped formal hedges.   I didn't know what kind of hedge to get.  I thought I made a careful and informed decision.    I read books.  I studied nursery pamphlets.  I even went out to the University of Minnesota arboretum to look at their hedge collection firsthand.  (I remember this trip distinctly because I accidentally dropped my car keys among the hedges and I had to search long and hard to find them again).   I decided on amur maple because of their growth pattern and pretty color in the fall.  Plus they were cheap.  Arborvitae was my second choice.   I got 25 amur maple plants from the soil and water conservation district.  Now that I have quit mowing so much of the yard I see that amur maple is also an invasive species.  I have thousands of amur maple trees growing everywhere.  They're everywhere!  I am considering cutting them all down; removing that privacy hedge.  Some of these amur maples are now 20 feet high.  I think I will get some advice from some people who know more about this than I do.