Home Forums Miscellaneous Topics Rural Living Honeysuckle

I hate honeysuckle. It is God's best example of relentless growth I think. I know most use glyphosate to kill it off, and I'm not sure just how complete a job that does, but I don't use it. The growth is networking at it's best.

When I first purchased our place much of it had been cut/cleared just a few years earlier. The "pastures" hadn't been sown down. Once I got some of it fenced honeysuckle was covering much of the ground and anything it could grow on. I started raising goats and they wiped it out....ate it down to where the stem grows out of the ground. They ate it like they were addicted to it. I later sprayed everything and sowed it down. I still spray the fence lines to keep it off the electric fence. It's all around the other side of much of our fences but if any of it has gotten back in the pasture the goats have cleaned it up.

Roundup will kill it, might take several treatments, but it will finally kill it. So will Crossbow, and 2-4-D will, again with several treatments. Goats will eat anything, and they will keep honeysuckle eat down. So will cows.

We have honeysuckle hedge my father planted in the mid 50's. It is a great start foe the windbreak. A bit has volunteered, next to it, but no problem.

Different areas have different troubles, good luck with it.

I'd take the honeysuckle over what we have down here..

Rose hedge. Nasty stuff.

I do make quite a bit spraying/shredding it though...

https://www.texasinvasives.org/plant_database/detail.php?symbol=ROBR

Some dumbass brought it here because they didn't wanna build fence.

We have the multiflora rose (Rosa multiflora) which is very similar. Its nasty stuff too, and I'm constantly fighting it in my fence rows and pasture. Privet and Elaeagnus are two more invasives that love fence rows. I've cut some out that had trunks big enough to use for firewood.

Possibly the worst though are the wild pear trees that are the offspring of Bradford pears. The wild stock have thorns as long as my fingers, and will go through the sole of a work boot just like a nail. I even had one flatten a steel belted truck tire,.

Mix 2-4-D and glyphosate at strong levels together.
They work somewhat differently, and enhance each other.

I do that on occasion, and they really do work well together.

Our place here's lousy with honeysuckle too. Damn stuff is everywhere, including growing up through Wifey's Lilacs. Spray them there and you kill the Lilac too.
I cut the things out with my sawzall and "painted" stubs left behind with diesel.
That stopped it from coming back without damaging the Lilacs.
7mm

I have a bunch growing at the back of my place.

Evidently, yall are talking about some kind of honeysuckle other than the kind we have.

What we have is a vine that has a very pleasant odor and the flowers have a sweet nectar. Deer love it.

Someone back in the day planted tri folate orange around an old house on our place. It’s everywhere now. If I ever figure out who what I’ll do On their grave won’t pass for flowers

2-4-D, 2-4-5T and kerosene as a wetting agent.

Deer love to expire in the midst of some multiflora rose. The old gnome with whom I used to hang would use very bad language when talking about "them multiple roses".

The thorns on the multiflora rose are curved almost like a fish hook, and they are a nightmare to get out of your clothes (or skin) once it gets a hold on you. And they work like a tar baby -- when you get one branch stuck to you it draws other branches toward you. And the birds love the seeds, and spread them everywhere.

What we got up here is called "Japanese Honeysuckle". More of a bushy shrub than a vine.
By itself, you'll see a couple or three trunks maybe the size of your wrist. It'll get 7 or 8 foot tall, interlocking with others into quite the little jungle if left unchecked. If it's got something to climb, it'll get 15 or 20 foot up a tree.
It's actually kinda pretty, and has a nice scent. But it takes over and chokes out native plants.
Deer don't normally eat it that I've seen. Goats are supposed to be fond of it when it's small. Maybe I ought to go to the livestock auction?
7mm

I fight sumac around here.

My targeted control is to get a sharp hatchet, and cut just deeper than the bark on a downward angle. Rock the bark out away from the trunk. Repeat around the trunk.

Pour some 40+% glyphosate concentrate in a pop bottle, than carefully pour it into the pockets
you made with the hatchet. In a few weeks, whatever you treated is stone dead.

I know some power line tree trimmers. They use the same glyphosate dumped on the live
Part under the bark on fresh cut stumps. They rarely ever sprout again.


Your diesel would be more forgiving of a spill.

We have sumac here too. It is a very invasive tree, fast growing, and they spread like crazy.

Ok, our honeysuckle is nothing like that.

i cut the bush down with a chainsaw and treat the stump with tordon.