How to clear stiltgrass from a large wooded area
Japanese stiltgrass can completely take over thousands of square feet of a wooded backyard, making it difficult to know how to fight back without it returning next year or how to prep the soil for new planting. Standard weed killers alone often leave owners worried the grass will just come back, while clearing the dead thatch is required before the ground can be made suitable for new growth.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Spraying with normal weed killer
- 2Using a 365-day vegetation killer
- 3Applying granular treatments
- 4Using Acclaim herbicide
- 5renting a lawn cutter
- 6removing grass by hand
- 7sheet composting
- 8starting with a smaller 1/4 or 1/3 portion of the area
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“How should I make the soil suitable to start planting it and get rid of all the dry grass/weeds?”source ↗
“Completely overrun by stiltgrass. Which if not stilt grass would just be the floor of the woods. I want to fight back. I feel if I spray it with normal weed killer it will be back next year. Any suggestions?”source ↗
“We're easily talking 10k sqft...”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
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- 18How to clean up acorns from loose gravel without losing stones
- 5Do I need to check my lawn for debris before mowing?
- 2Insects exploding everywhere after dethatching the lawn