Battling the Japanese Stilt Grass

In this picture, I have string-trimmed the Japanese Stilt Grass to the right of this fallen 90-foot pine, but not yet trimmed the Stilt Grass to the left.

Stilt Grass is an annual, which means control is about cutting it down before it seeds, which is my goal here. Over 3-4 years, I hope to reduce the Stilt Grass coverage in the lower forest to near-zero so that native brush and trees can come back to the extent deer will allow it.  

I am not a native-species purist; I may plant 1,000 daffodils in this forested area in the Fall. They are deer-resistant, but die back in May, so they are no barrier to native understory trees and shrubs.

The Stilt Grass along the mostly-dry creek bed is not being cut to give rabbits and fawns a place to tuck in, but *everything* will be cut to the ground in late August before September seed production.

Japanese Stilt Grass was accidentally introduced to the United States 100 years ago when it was used as a packing material around imported porcelain. Today it is an aggressive colonizer of forest floors and floodplains in the East, as it is disliked by deer.