If you have this grass growing on your property or in your yard and you’re trying to grow a garden, it is your nemesis and right now is the best time of year to deal with it. It emerges in the spring as thick round blades of harmless looking grass. When you pull it, it pops off easily. It’s what is underneath however that will turn your garden into a thick, nightmare of a jungle by July. This grass is growing from a massive root system below the soil that can create new clusters and new roots quickly. Johnsongrass prefers a warm, humid climate although it will grow just about anywhere. Popping off the grass is futile. Outside of trying to prevent it from growing in the garden there is only one way to manage it without harmful chemicals, remove the root system and rhizomes. Unfortunately, this means a no-till garden that does have the grass will always have the grass. While there are hundreds of invasive species of plants here in North America, next to the Asian Bush Honeysuckle, this one is, at least for us, the most aggressive and problematic.
A quick overview:
Johnsongrass was brought to the United States in the early 1800’s for cattle feed from India and southern Europe and has spread throughout most of the country. It belongs to the sorghum family and is a decent feed grass for cattle unless it experiences drought or frost. It then can cause intestinal issues. It Made the Top Ten Worse Weeds list in 1977 and remains there today. It is classified as invasive in Missouri and North Carolina and is prohibited in Wisconsin. These grasses can grow to eight feet tall.
Preventing johnsongrass:
1. Don’t dump grass clippings into an area you are gardening in or plan to garden in. You are more likely to have johnsongrass if you live in an area that has or has had cattle. We planted some grass when we first moved into our house because the yard was bare dirt from the construction of our home. Beyond that our belief has been that green is good. The only grass I have planted here in the past dozen years is buffalo grass. The rest is clover and a mix of unknown green. We never knew johnsongrass existed, let alone was a part of our yard’s green. For several years we collected some of our grass clippings for chicken coop bedding and garden mulch. That was a VERY bad idea.
2. Even if you don’t have it in your garden, if you have it anywhere on your property keep it cut and don’t let it go to seed. Keeping it from pollinating can also help prevent any allergies that you might have to it. I am personally very allergic to it.
Managing johnsongrass:
1. DON’T pull tall blades with your bare hands. This grass is sharp both when green and alive and tan when dead. The dead canes will cut through your skin like fiberglass. Both can cut through common gardening gloves. If you are just wanting to cut it back use a powerful weed eater, (my battery powered weed eater is useless against it), hedge sheers/clippers or a shovel.
2. Get to the roots in the spring. Depending on how deep the roots are, tilling can chop up the root system. We have two main gardens here, one is tilled the other is a no-till. The tilled garden has no johnsongrass. For the no-till garden, this is a labor of love. Using a shoved I dig the roots and rhizomes out of the ground as soon as the grasses appear. Most of them are only a few inches below the soil surface. If you take this route, try to follow the root to get all of it. Pulling on the root often causes it to snap because the roots aren’t strong like tree roots or vines. I start with a shovel then dig into the root with a small trowel.
Got an invasive plant causing gardening angst? Let us know about it and we'll try to cover it in a future blog.
Audrey L Elder
Fourteen Acre Wood
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