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Japanese honeysuckle

17 years ago

Any suggestions as to how I could eradicate japanese honeysuckle without killing existing native plants? I've got a half acre of woods in which the understory is covered with coralberry, but unfortunately jh has made itself at home. The jh is intertwined with the coralberrry to the extent that hand weeding is very difficult. Don't know much about Roundup applications, but was wondering if I could spray now while the coralberry is dormant but the jh is in leaf.

Any thoughts appreciated

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Comments (5)

laylaa
17 years ago
You may be stuck pulling the stuff up. Roundup is a systemic herbicide - the chemical is taken in through the leaves, and not as likely to be absorbed by a woody stem of a defoliated plant that is dormant. Something like Orthos brush-b-gone is more for woody plants, but in my experience the Ortho works better on honeysuckle than round-up.

With the coralberry dormant it may be okay to use round-up as there are no leaves to absorb the chemical, however I am not familiar enough with coralberry to know how soft the stems are. Soft stems can absorb the chemical. I've got to believe, due to it's family, that they are fairly soft and new growth will stand a chance of absorbing poison. Not really worth the risk.

Honeysuckle is not that bad to pull up, really, not in comparison to other invasives anyway. That's just my opinion, though, maybe because I've pulled up miles of the stuff in my life. It's still a chore and a half, probably take a couple of seasons, but coralberry is worth saving. I'm in my second season of battle with jh which has run over a bunch of natural ferns and unfortunately there is no easy way about it.
stellar.bpo
17 years ago
I've got to believe, due to it's family, that they are fairly soft and new growth will stand a chance of absorbing poison.

Lisa11
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First off, kudos to you for researching and asking in here before planting. That sort of conscientious gardening doesn't seem to be as common these days. To answer your question--if you cherish your garden even a little bit, don't plant this horrible exotic menace! It spreads by runners, literally creating an underground carpet that can sprout even through grass. It laughs at pruning!..."3-4 times a year" will quickly turn into 3-4 times a month. If this wasn't bad enough, it also produces small fruits the birds eat and disperse all over the place. It is truly a tenacious SOB that will never, ever die if you plant it and give it half a year to establish. To get the fragrance but not the invasiveness, try the native goldflame honeysuckle (lonicera x. heckrottii). Niche Gardens has it in Chapel Hill for a reasonable price (www.nichegardens.com; they also mail order). Goldflame isn't quite as strong as japanese; but you can always go to your local woodland edge to smell that invasive monstrosity! It certainly has no place in a garden. Any honeysuckle twines up through lattice and should last as long as the lattice itself. Best wishes for your fragrant garden! Here is a link that might be useful: Japanese Honeysuckle
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Salt is safe unless you are in a desert area. Up here, we dump truckloads of it into the environment for snow removal every year. It will only work in dry weather, because rain will take it into the ground and on its way to the ocean. There is always salt in the ground and in water in small ammounts and it only concentrates in the ocean and some rare inland areas that do not drain to the ocean. The main problem you have is the extreme local invasiveness of japanese honeysuckle. As long as it grows on the other side of your fence, it will keep spreading to your side. And the more vigorous the growth on the other side of the fence, the more virogously it will try to spread. If you do not remove it all, you will be fighting this battle forever regardless of what you do on your side of the fence. Ziggy
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Photos would clarify but I think you are talking about two different plants. The vining types of honeysuckles and the shrub honeysuckles are not the same plants. Japanese honeysuckle, Lonicera japonica, is a vine. If nothing nearby to climb on, it could be a sprawling groundcover. Shrub or bush honeysuckles are different plants. Like the vines, there are a number of desirable ornamental ones but also a number of common invasive species, all of which are native to Asia.
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bob64
17 years ago
I'm not too familiar with coralberry so I don't know how vulnerable the stems would be to RoundUp (glyophosphate). You could use shears or loppers to cut the honeysuckle that is growing on the coralberry shrubs and just spray whatever honeysuckle is actually on the ground. That's still a lot of work but spraying RoundUp will be more effective than handweeding of honeysuckle in the long run since you really need to kill it all the down. If you hand pull and miss some it will regenerate pretty quickly. You can use a snow shovel or cardboard or whatever to protect the stems of the coralberry from drift while you spray the honeysuckle that is growing nearby. In the alternative, you could do a test in a small area and wait until late spring to see if the coralberry in that one small area succumbed to the poison and then you will know for next season how aggressive you can be with the poison.

Here is a link that might be useful: japanese honeysuckle info
arisaemadracontium
17 years ago
I think bob64's idea of careful, selected careful spot herbiciding during the dormant season is the best bet. If prescribed burning is a possibility at your site, that might help as well.
Nell
17 years ago
To make the hand-digging a little more pleasant, why not make wreaths out of the honeysuckle? Or, better yet, have local basket makers pay admission to harvest their own?
Nell

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