August is the month to try to keep the uber-invasive Japanese stiltgrass from taking over your yard. People familiar with the plant may shake their heads at such a goal, but there are still many yards that are free of its plague-like qualities, whether through luck or a combination of early intervention, vigilance, and persistence.
Have you seen it? There's usually a white line running down the middle of each leaf. It looks harmless, even graceful, but stiltgrass (
Microstegium vimineum for long) spreads so aggressively that it can blanket whole forests, or line roadsides for miles. Once you learn to identify it, you may start seeing it everywhere.
Michigan had until recently been spared, but here's my Ann Arbor friend Sam's backyard last year. Another friend, Victorino, who grew up in Guatamala, called it "communista." I had to laugh, if grimly, because replacing diversity and individuality with monocultural conformity and oppression is what stiltgrass does all too well. It's a warm-season annual grass, meaning that it sprouts from seed late in the spring and matures through the summer. By late August it can grow up and over everything else, then sets zillions of seeds in September.
Because stiltgrass is an annual, the way to fight is to prevent it from successfully producing seed.
Here's Sam's backyard after he weed-whacked the stiltgrass in July. A lot of work, but maybe effective, because I saw surprisingly little regrowth through all the resultant mulch.
Weedwhacking can also be done in mid to late August, just before the flowers form, to reduce even further the chance of resprouts that could produce seed. Do this year after year, and eventually the soil will run out of seed to sprout.
But by far the best way to keep stiltgrass from taking over is to catch it early. Even though it has blanketed many areas of Princeton, there are still substantial areas that can be saved from its smothering growth by strategic, annual action. This super plant has a big weakness: it has super weak roots, and pulls super easy.
Look closely at this photo. Do you see the stiltgrass mixed in with the other foliage? Pull those few plants, and there will be no stiltgrass to produce seed. Stiltgrass spreads into new areas of nature preserves primarily along trails, so some scouting and strategic pulling in August is an excellent way to protect large portions of preserves from incursion.
Otherwise, the trail can end up looking like in this photo.
It can even grow in a miniature form in mowed lawn.
For homeowners, where there are just too many to pull, another approach is to spot spray with a super dilute formula of systemic herbicide. You can see at the bottom of the photo how tiny the roots are compared to the plant. That's where the herbicide does its work. The Penn State Extension website offers some
means of control.
Whatever combination of methods you use, it's best to start early in August. Make one pass through an area, then check back in a week or two to get any that were missed the first time through.
Though many people are intimidated by the thought of distinguishing one grass from another, it's possible to get quite good at it over time. Below are some plants that can be mistaken for stiltgrass.
Carpgrass is another nonnative annual grass, shorter, with wavy leaves, and less common than stiltgrass but similarly invasive.
Virginia whitegrass (
Leersia virginica) is a native with narrower, longer leaves. It flowers earlier and lacks the white stripe down the leaf. As with most native plants, this species "plays well with others," growing here and there without dominating.
I'm calling this one Heller's Rosettegrass,
Dichanthelium oligosanthes. It's sometimes recommended for native lawns, but shows up in woods around Princeton.
Various other native Dichantheliums make life interesting. These native grasses tend to be perennials, and so better rooted and more resistant when you accidentally pull at one.
Various smartweeds can also look somewhat like stiltgrass. Smartweeds can be rambunctious, whether native or nonnative.
Though I've despaired at the sight of stiltgrass rising in late summer like an indomitable sea in some areas, I've also been surprised and gratified to find many areas that remain free of it, and could continue to be if people act strategically year after year.
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