I live in southern Ohio. The back 1/8-acre of my property is a wooded area down the side of a ravine, with a couple of dozen red oak, sugar maple, hickory, locust, redbud etc.
There’s also a significant infestation of bush honeysuckle, with several dense thickets of 10-foot tall plants with 1" thick branches and a handful of very large, 30-foot plants with 6-inch branches.
I’d like to get rid of the honeysuckle to the most practical degree possible, but I’m concerned about erosion on the hillside.
I was planning on taking out the suckle by lopping or sawing off the branches where practical, or drilling a hole where not, and applying brush killer to the fresh cuts, leaving the roots in place.
Since I’m leaving the roots, do I need to be worried about erosion? Also, any suggestions on planting something native to crowd out / slow down the inevitable re-infestation?
I was hoping you’d get some replies from people that knew more. My very unexpert opinion is that if you leave the roots, they will keep the soil in place for a while at least. You might require follow-up applications of herbicide for the regrowth.
There are often a bunch of native seeds still in the soil, so you could wait and see what comes up. Weed out any invasives that appear. State university extension services are really good sources of information about local plants, if you want to find something to plant.
Here’s something to consider: For eradicating Asian honeysuckle in my area, there are often large, as in acres, of infestation.
When it’s not practical to thoroughly cut and remove it, they employ an herbicide fogger. Honeysuckle remains green for quite a while longer than everything else, so when it’s the only plant left with leaves it’s also the only the effected.
Don’t know how much cutting/drilling/spraying you have to do, but thought I’d throw it out there. I’ve cleared a lot of fence line of the stuff and it’s a PITA.
All opinions expert and inexpert are welcome. The first order of business is just to get the damn branches out of the way and roundup whatever stumps are left behind.
Thanks for that pamphlet bob++. It has some great ideas for native replacements.
The large diameter honeysuckle branches and stocks make excellent all wood archery bows. Anything over 2" and 6 ft long has some value. If you do happen to take it out keep an eye out for large straight branches. You can sell them on e ebay or directly to me. I might even be able to find someone in your neck of the woods who would be willing to come over and cut them down for the wood.
