August - Prime time for battling Japanese Stiltgrass

Japanese Stiltgrass, Microstegium vimineum, is a major invasive grass species in the Mid-Atlantic and encroaching on New England.  It forms a dense layer of vegetation that shades out native plants and other desirable species.  In late July and through the rest of summer it puts on a growth spurt jumping from 6 inches to over 3 feet tall.  This is the prime time to take action to reduce its numbers for next year.  As an annual grass the main goal is to keep it from setting seed and, eventually, the seed bank will be depleted.  Unfortunately that can take 5 to 7 years, but if you don't start doing something today, waiting longer will just make it that much harder.

I've published posts in 2014 and 2015 on my approach to dealing with stiltgrass, and I've had to go back several times to remind myself of what to do and when.  So here goes...

Freshly pulled Japanese stiltgrass.  There is a lot of leafy growth
for the relatively small root system.

Letting the pulled stiltgrass sit in the sun for a day or two helps to kill it
and it reduces the weight of the debris.  Before pulling,
 the stiltgrass in the bed was about 3 feet tall.

In planting beds where the grass has gotten several feet high pull it out by hand at the end of July or early August.  Its shallowly rooted and easy to pull, especially after a little rain.  Perennials are more deeply rooted and are harder to pull.  I've found that by loosening my grip a little I can leave perennials like New England Aster in place, while pulling out the grass.  Also at this time the stiltgrass is taller than many of the desirable plants so by grabbing the tops I can leave the lower growing plants undisturbed.  One of the reasons for pull now is to let some light reach the soil and induce more stiltgrass to germinate.  This late germinating grass won't have time to mature and will be killed off when the temperature drops.




In areas to large for pulling I usually wait until blooming is just starting (end of August-early September) and then weed whack it close to the ground.  The idea here is to prevent another season of seed from maturing.  Unfortunately stiltgrass is very slow to decompose and can form a mat layer that also shades out the native seed bank.  Where the cut grass is particularly thick I try to rake it together in piles in the shade where any viable seed is less likely to germinate.

This is an area of lawn that has been seeded twice with a low-mow  blend of fine fescues.
It has not been mown for at least 4 weeks.  There is much less stiltgrass than in the unseeded area to the
 upper right. I'll wait until the end of August (ca. 2 weeks) to mow this lawn (I've already pulled out the stiltgrass from the bed).

For lawns that are full of stiltgrass the recommendation that I'm am trying to follow is to leave it unmown from late July to late August.  Then, just as the flowers begin to form, cut the lawn at a lower level.  The idea here is that constant mowing encourages the stiltgrass to form cleistogamus flowers low on the plant.  These flowers self pollinate and are difficult to remove.  While I'm not sure if it's true, it seems that letting the plant put its energy into upper open flowers will reduce the number of these lower flowers.  These upper flowers can then be sheared off and the plants may not have time to recover with a second bloom.

The final stage for the lawn is to rake out the remaining stiltgrass in mid-September and overseed with a desirable cool season turf grass.  The cool season grasses will germinate in the fall and fill the gaps previously inhabited by the stiltgrass.

This shady area was solid stilt grass 4 years ago.  Now, after 3 years of annual weed whacking
and some pulling there is more diversity.  The tall grass here is Virginia wild rye, Elymus virginicus,
which is now going into bloom

I am happy to report that following these practices is showing promise.  In the lawn overseeding with a low-mow blend and 'deferred' mowing has reduced the density of the stiltgrass.  Also in some of the natural areas I am seeing less stiltgrass and more diversity.  One species that is doing well in the shade is Virginia Wild Rye, that I seeded in two years ago.