Eliminating Invasive Honeysuckle - Phase 2 Begins

This past summer was so hot & dry and we have been in the worst drought we've ever had on Gobbler's Knob since moving here in 2007. If we don't get some rain soon, I'm not sure our fish will survive the winter freezes. The west side of the pond is, at best, 4' deep, and the east side is down to about 8' deep....with no substantial rain in the forecast.

There's absolutely nothing I can do about it, so I've decided to focus on the plans that we made for this Fall. This past Spring and late Winter, Bob and I spent some time identifying the areas where we need to start the battle with invasive Japanese honeysuckle. Depressingly, it looked a bit overwhelming - my shoulders and neck ached at the idea of trying to manually rake and pull it out. Fortunately, avoidance of strained, twisted backs, is the "Mother of Invention". Bob fired up the tractor - the brush hog on the back and the teeth on the front bucket would work nicely for the first attack. 

After stripping its vines off the trees, uprooting and mowing down as much as we could, we burned some of the spots.

Japanese honeysuckle vines after being pulled back from the trees with the tractor, then brush hogged.

I'm not sure how effective the burning was, but in my mind, we set it back. Besides, it felt good to set fire to something that is trying to take over and kill all the native plants. ha! At the very least, when it greened up again during the summer, it would be nice & low - perfectly setup for phase 2.

It took a great deal of constraint on my part as we walked past the honeysuckle patches this summer as they thrived in the heat, regrowing their leaves and trying to advance again. It is truly tenacious.

The only thing that made me feel better and gave me hope that waiting was the right thing to do, was attending the Missouri Prairie Foundation online classes on how to deal with invasive plants, such as honeysuckle. Their advice from the class for someone with an already-established prairie, spray the honeysuckle in the fall after the first frost (when everything else has died back)- with Glyphosate. My husband had been to all the safety & training classes for using such chemicals/ herbicides so that he could use them as part of his Land Care business and knows how to use this stuff, so he knows all about how they work. These chemicals are important tools to use in the fight against invasive plant species that, if allowed to continue unabated, would wipe out all our native trees, forbes & grasses, in a true environmental disaster. Anyone that has ever driven on I40 into the West side of Knoxville, TN would be shocked at the way the non-native, invasive Kudzu has literally smothered thousands of trees along the highway.

With all the misinformation and emotionalism around the use of "Round Up" and other weed killers, it was so refreshing to discuss this topic with true *Conservationists* in the public domain that had extensive knowledge in its *proper* use.   

Here's a link to the herbicide table and application rates that was shared with us during the presentation:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RTGGztqSIKR9djB9wrSgVnomKRD4c1YN/view

Thanks to the prep work, the growth stayed very low - perfect for the coming murder rampage I had planned for the fall.

This 75' foot long and 30-40- wide section on our East field has a thick, low mat of honeysuckle. The Indian, Big Blue and Little Blue grasses are struggling to fight through it...and losing. They're only able to sprout around the edges of the advancing honeysuckle vines. This is a view from the south. NOTE: All pictures can be enlarged by clicking on them.

The same section, view from the north.

Further north, a strip of honeysuckle has gotten a foothold...not for long though. Hold tight, I'mma coming. One clump of little bluestem has managed to grow up (far right of the picture, 1/3 of the way down - now light brown-colored)

Another 50' north, around the corner, we brush hogged & pulled the vines down here too. Perfect for the coming spray-a-thon.

On to the west side of the property - this is the area that we cleared out last year (more about that here)
We dragged this cluster out and burned it. The honeysuckle came back, but the grass got a little better start here.

This west cluster in the Savanna is only 40' from the one above.

Now we wait to see the results. I am not a patient woman, but a great distraction is found in shopping the Native Seed catalogs and planning the next phase.