It’s been discussed in a few other posts but probably deserves it’s own discussion.
Apparently my state was the first in the U.S. where it was found/documented:
U.S. Distribution: Japanese stiltgrass was first documented in Tennessee in 1919, introduced as a packing material for goods from Asia . It has spread across much of the eastern U.S. as far north as New Hampshire and as far south as Texas.
It can grow in full sun or heavy shade. It can therefore grow in dense forest and crowd out much of the understory. I’ve seen many places in parks or national forest where the forest floor is covered in it and the common native plants are in short supply.
It’s actually fairly easy to kill… It has a very shallow root system so pulls up easily.
Glyphosate will obliterate it. But it grows in my wife’s flower beds so that’s out…
Selective herbicides like Ornamec or Fusilade II work fairly well. i hope they won’t bother those flowers because I doused her flower beds with Fusilade this year!
I didn’t start trying to control it early enough and now it’s everywhere… I killed a ton of it this year with a string trimmer and I’ve now sprayed a bunch too. Am hoping to get the upper hand… Suppose we’ll see.
So are you “fighting” it too? Have any words of wisdom or advice?
It made it to my yard last year. The only good thing is its like a Vampire and can’t stand the sun. I have seen acres of woods near me with a carpet of Stiltgrass overtaking it. Dry or moist areas, makes no difference as its grows and grows…
Went to a meeting on invasive plants and spraying with roundup was what the forestry department was doing. Its an annual so at least that makes it easy to kill.
I have it mixed with poison ivy seedlings so no string trimmer for me slinging ivy juice around. I went 60 years without getting poison ivy. Now just a touch gets bad.
Stumbled onto this on Youtube. He does a pretty good job telling the history of the introduction of Japanese Stiltgrass in the US, through to some tips on getting rid of it.
Oddly enough this is about the only type of grass I can halfway stand despite it being invasive…
But I’m pretty miserably allergic to any native or turf grasses, so this is the only grass I can remember being able to play in and around as a child without going home with hives and the only one that cutting/etc didn’t leave me with itchy eyes and sneezing the next day or two (it was the major ground cover in the woods on the mountain my folks lived on), and as I got older I also appreciated that, unlike turf grasses, if I wanted to remove the stuff from an area I intended for planting other things, it was not the nightmare to try removing that a lot of turf grasses are (shallow roots, doesn’t tend to have miles of woody stolons racing to replace what you do rip out)… kinda made me sad to learn it was an invasive as I got older…
But at least there are native violets that do well in shade and can tolerate abuse that I can dream of one day fully overtaking the normal grasses in my yard..
I had allergy tests as a kid and grass was one of the things identified for me as well. Luckily it never caused me all that much grief though…
That shade tolerance is what makes me dislike it the most. It has been steadily establishing in forested areas around here, very clearly pushing out many of the natives.
I’m glad it’s not a perennial, if it were it would be worse than Kudzu! Thankfully it’s easy to control via herbicide or simply pulling or string trimmering. If you can ever get past all the seeds that is!
Heh, speaking of woody stolons racing to replace what you do rip out. When my wife and I were house hunting around 2012 a consideration I had, that she likely rolled her eyes at.. Was when we pulled up to a house, I’d check the yard to see if it was Bermudagrass. Wasn’t exactly a deal breaker but would certainly be a detractor IMO
