Roadside Stiltgrass

Roadside Stiltgrass

Highway departments help spread Japanese Stiltgrass by mowing in fall. Their mowers pick up and distribute seeds, creating miles of stiltgrass along roadway edges. 

ALL TEXT AND PHOTOS © Marlene A. Condon

People tend to manage their properties without giving much thought to the detrimental effects of their actions upon the wildlife living there. Even folks who self-identity as environmentalists are often guilty of this lack of consideration for the creatures that share their world, although their actions may well be due to a lack of knowledge. Perhaps that situation can be remedied.

 

Consider the removal of so-called invasive plants. Much pressure is now applied to neighbors and friends by those who, in environmental-activist circles, believe it’s their duty to shame people they know into removing these plants by suggesting that such plants pose a great risk to the environment. But removal of these plants itself poses risks to wildlife that are never discussed; if it were, people who truly care about wildlife might build a wall of resistance to their friends’ or neighbors’ efforts to manipulate them into doing what they are told.

 

Recently, I noticed in the area where I live that a landowner had pesticided the Japanese Stiltgrass (Microstegium vimineum) growing alongside the road of his property, along with some stiltgrass growing in a parking area. Employing pesticides is rarely a good idea, and in this case, the use of poison was completely unnecessary. The amount of stiltgrass to be removed covered a very limited space that could have easily been cut in ten minutes with a string trimmer shortly before the plants had bloomed.

 

Timing is everything. Stiltgrass is an annual that blooms in late summer (the end of August where I live), and cutting it at this time prevents seeds from forming that would be the source of plants next year. On the other hand, people removing stiltgrass alongside roadways where the species grows in abundance are wasting their time if they think their property won’t simply refill with these plants in the future.

 

The seeds from all the ignored roadside plants extending for miles in both directions will find their way there, courtesy of the highway department. It sends mowers out in fall along the local roads and the huge machines “catch” seeds, which then fall off farther along the road where they germinate the next year. People then blame the alien grass for “invading” when our highway department is to blame for the ever-increasing amount of ground covered by stiltgrass.

 

Personally, I don’t see this as a bad thing. White-throated Sparrows and Dark-eyed Juncos spend the cold months of the year in our Mid-Atlantic region of the East Coast, and the stiltgrass shelters and feeds these birds well during what can be a very harsh time of year. This consideration is important in a world where most people’s properties consist mainly of lawns kept overly short which don’t provide much for wildlife in any way.

 

Additionally, Japanese Stiltgrass, despite being nonnative, is a host plant for the Carolina Satyr, a brown butterfly with eyespots on its wings. Efforts to remove stiltgrass where this butterfly resides puts populations at risk because the plants may contain eggs.

 

NATURE ADVICE: 

Garlic Mustard (Allaria petiolata) and Princess Tree (Paulownia tomentosa) are two other common alien plants that people are pushed to remove from their roadside property. Garlic Mustard is usually pulled, while Paulownia is cut down and possibly pesticided later. Removal harms early pollinators that can use both plants for nectar and birds that feed upon Paulownia seeds during the winter. Additionally, the roots of Paulownia prevent soil erosion—an important consideration when it grows along a river, as it does where I live.