Miscanthus sinensis or Chinese silver grass is a nasty invasive species that is often intentionally planted as an ornamental plant in bordering and/or screening. M.sinensis is a very aggressive spreader and has the ability to exponentially grow in population size each year. This plant can quickly fill an area and displace many native species that are responsible for supporting the ecology on your landscape. In this post we will look at the history of this species, how it is able to so quickly spread through the landscape and the best ways of removing it.
Miscanthus sinensis is native to eastern Asian countries such as China, Japan and Korea. It was introduced in the nursery trade in the 1800s as a showy ornamental grass. It can often be found in grasslands in eastern Asia where it can grow quite similarly to some of our native warm season grasses (WSG). It is really quite beautiful in its natural habitat.
For any taxonomy nerds out there, when looking at the family structure of the grass family, Poaceae, we are aided with the breakdown of subfamilies and tribes to help organize such a large family. If we look at native wsg species such as indian grass and switch grass, we see that Miscanthus is related in both the family (Poaceae) and the subfamily (Panicoideae). If we look at the genus Andropogon or the bluestem grasses, we see that Miscanthus is even more closely related, sharing the family, subfamily and the tribe Andropogoneae. This is a long, potentially very boring way of saying that Miscanthus is most closely related to many of our native bluestem grasses! You can see some similarity when you compare it to a species like big bluestem.
Fall and Winter are a great time to manage stands of M.sinensis. Cutting down plants this time of the year will give you an opportunity to spray when aggressive regrowth occurs in late spring /early summer. Another huge benefit in cutting this time of the year is that you can both quickly identify it from its mature seed heads but also remove the material before its seeds can spread. I would always reccomend taking the cut material and disposing of it off the property. After a 1’ of regrowth in the spring you can spray the shoots of new growth with a glyphosate mix. Following this treatment you can do an additional cut down when the growth has died back and become brown. This will give you the ability to easily target any additional new growth that may occur in the late summer/early fall.
There are many native alternatives to M.sinensis. Sometimes you will see M.sinensis praised for its ability to quickly border in areas. Unfortunately, this is celebrating its invasive tendency and is typically a feature of the plant that will almost always end up being a headache. Many native warm season grasses can replicate the function of M.sinensis but will stay in check due to the endless ecological interactions they face as a key components of our landscapes.
I always think back to conversations with a naturalist friend who would say Miscanthus had been great for birds and often times they could catch some meadow nesting birds interacting with it. I would always respond to this saying Miscanthus will not support any insects whereas our native species have endless generalist and specialist species that depend on them. These species of native grass are in turn providing both the desired plant structure along with the insects for the birds to eat. The grass structure alone is not enough! Our native species like Panicum virgatum, Andropogon gerardii, and Sorghastrum nutans are all great alternatives. After removing Miscanthus sinensis try planting these native species in its place!
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