Having trouble with stiltgrass? Instead of waging war, look for the bright spots. My favorite: a native grass called nimblewill.
Most conservationists and gardeners see Japanese stiltgrass as a scourge, an invader of habitat that runs roughshod over native plants in forests and meadows across the Eastern U.S. I’ve learned to see it as an opportunity.
Don’t get me wrong; I don’t encourage stiltgrass, which was accidentally introduced to this continent about a century ago, probably in packing material for porcelain. But nor do I kill it with fire, poisons or constant cutting—for one simple reason: Those methods would harm not just the animals hiding among the grasses but also the other species of plants growing underneath and alongside them, namely a native grass called nimblewill.
A narrower-leaved and more delicate-looking plant, nimblewill (Muhlenbergia schreberi) likes the same conditions as stiltgrass (Microstegium vimineum)—semi-shade and moisture. It has proven to be a strong ally in holding the ground against its invasive companion, perhaps gaining its competitive advantage through its longevity: Though both grasses reseed and root around, stiltgrass is an annual and nimblewill is a perennial. As it starts to reclaim the land, it also feeds grazing herbivores, birds, and insects.
Despite its benefits and faunal fans, you’ll find few admirers among mainstream human sources. The Lawn Care Academy website calls nimblewill “a wiry, upright growing perennial grass … considered an invasive weed that invades lawns, flowerbeds, and gardens.” Last year on social media, a garden radio show was more alarmist, posting photos of nimblewill during its winter dormancy phase along with a plug for an herbicide: “WANTED DEAD: A white/brown straw grass known as nimblewill. Do not fear when your lawn comes in contact—it will green up and you can get rid of it with Tenacity. WARNING: Normal weed killer will not work. You’ve been warned.”
Many extension services pile on, recommending numerous ways to kill nimblewill; the website here in Maryland doesn’t even mention that it’s a native grass. In a creative twist, Ohio State chastises nimblewill for entering human-dominated domains: “Nimblewill naturally occurs in open woodlands and stream bottomlands. It has moved out of these native habitats, and can be a problem in agronomic crops, where it tolerates some grass herbicides.”
Nice try, but how can a plant that is native to this land move out of its own habitat? We aren’t talking about lesser celandine or multiflora rose or autumn olive, species that were intentionally imported and are now costing significant amounts of time and money to remove. We’re talking about the opposite phenomenon—a native plant that can thrive in the human-built and disturbed environment, and one that costs us nothing but a shift in perspective to let live.
Why all the hate, once again, for one of the many plants indigenous to most of the U.S. and Ontario?
I’ve been able to find no evidence that nimblewill actually harms anyone or any habitat, unless you consider a manicured golf course a habitat. The Horse magazine is the most straightforward in identifying the real issue: “The plant turns brown in winter, and many horse pasture managers consider it unsightly.” Penn State further explains that nimblewill is “one of the most troublesome grassy weeds out there” because it disrupts the obsessive American aesthetic of turf-at-all-costs: “After the snow melts and everybody gets antsy for spring to arrive, we start to notice the not-so-green parts of the lawn. … The circular straw-colored patches of dormant nimblewill are very noticeable from early fall to late spring. The patches start small and round, but can eventually spread over most of the lawn area.”
I lose my color in winter too. Does that mean I need to be sprayed? Why are we investing so much time and money in turfgrass instead of appreciating the natural cycles of the seasons? And for all the maligning of nimblewill’s loss of green when the temperatures dip, there’s usually no mention of the fact that, when lawns start to look peaked in the high heat of July, nimblewill is at its prettiest, shining a greenish-blue hue in the morning dew and coming into its own summer glory.
After I first observed nimblewill in our habitat, it took a while to identify and even longer to find a reliable source with any information about its value. In the University of Georgia Extension guide Native Plants for Georgia Part IV: Grasses and Sedges, a profile of nimblewill mentioned its helpfulness in suppressing Japanese stiltgrass. That was all the encouragement I needed to start my experiment.
Since then, I’ve recruited nimblewill to crowd out stiltgrass in several large areas, lending a helping hand by pulling out remaining bits of stiltgrass that crop up. Joining the effort and occupying the space companionably are other native groundcovers—violets, white avens, golden ragwort, green-and-gold, enchanter’s nightshade, ferns, sea oats—as well as shrubs and taller wildflowers.
As winter creeps in, the drying-out blades of nimblewill create a blanket, protecting the new shoots of suckering elderberry. They also nurse new seedlings of shrubby St. John’s wort and other offspring of nearby plants. Though the straw-colored grass may look out of place in landscapes dominated by the forced green of cool-season turf species from other parts of the world, in our habitat it’s truly at home. Among the warm-season Maryland grasses and forbs that sleep through the cold months, nimblewill fits right in, as if it has always been here—likely because it has.
When bringing life back to an eroded landscape, it can be easy to fall into the trap of focusing on everything that’s going wrong. If you’ve ever volunteered for an invasive plant pull at your local park, you know the drill: Show up in long pants with your favorite pair of gloves in your pocket, learn what scourge of the moment you’ll be removing that day, spend a few hours cursing its name while yanking and cutting, feel vaguely triumphant when you look at the big empty space that’s left in the wake of your labors, and then come back a couple of weeks later to find it all filled in again with another plant that’s just as harmful to wildlife habitat.
It’s not that these volunteer invasive-pull days aren’t important. But they can easily backfire, because most of the time we don’t learn about what plants to keep. I know quite a few people who are far more familiar with invasive species in local woodlands than they are with our treasured natives. Many of these forgotten plants are still there, but few of us take the time to learn their names.
To avoid burning out our spirits and the land, we need to switch it up, spending just as much time nurturing plants that nourish wildlife and heal the environment as we do pulling the ones that don’t. I’m far from the first one to articulate a more life-giving strategy. In the 1970s, an Australian named Joan Bradley wrote a guide to reversing course, Bringing Back the Bush. “We are concentrating not on eradicating weeds but on enabling native plants to grow, unhampered, in an environment that suits them best,” she advised. Describing her evolution in thought, she continued: “We began to understand that there might be another way to fight invaders. Given half the chance, the bush would fight back on its own behalf.”
It’s a way to look for the bright spots, a concept explained in the book Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard, which highlights the story of another forgotten and maligned plant that ended up improving the lives of thousands of malnourished children in Vietnam. Several organizations had already tried to push their own agendas for helping, without asking questions and observing local cultures. Then one group took the opposite tack, looking for what was already working. To their surprise, some of the healthiest children came from the poorest families. But they also had the smartest mothers, who were supplementing rice with nutrient-rich sweet potato greens, a food considered low-class by wealthier villagers. Through outreach and cooking instruction, the mothers of the healthy children helped change attitudes, reaching 2 million people across Vietnam.
Nimblewill has become my sweet potato green, my “low-class” grass that flies in the face of the culture’s obsession with lawns, which are nutrient-poor for wildlife and unhealthy for the environment. It’s the bright spot among the old turf, a symbol of what’s still going right in a landscape gone wrong in the hands of humans for so many years. Nimblewill is one of many native plants that can help us feed and shelter wildlife while ending the fruitless cycle of mowing, fertilizing, and spraying.
Though deer are often blamed for the spread of Japanese stiltgrass, they also spread nimblewill, as do other animals, including us. How much more could we accomplish if we stopped scapegoating and started examining our own harmful practices and reactionary decisions? If we started to look for the bright spots in the lifeless turf and thanked our wild friends for helping to spread them? It takes a bit of patience, and I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t eliminated Japanese stiltgrass and probably never will. But as I’ve reduced the presence of both stiltgrass and turfgrass, I’ve tipped the scales toward much more habitat for wildlife. In a way, the invasive plant has been a primary driver of that conversion, introducing me to natives that no one else seemed to know or care about. If it weren’t for stiltgrass, I would never have made the acquaintance of nimblewill, one of the many treasures lying beneath the old lawn, just waiting for someone to notice and appreciate it.
Tips for Starting Your Nimblewill Experiment
If you live where nimblewill grows naturally and Japanese stiltgrass is invasive, you can try these strategies for giving the native species an edge. If you live in another region, you may find some of this advice helpful when using natives to crowd out different invasives. The key is to observe, experiment, and be open to learning from the plants themselves—they always have something new to teach us.
Get to know nimblewill and stiltgrass.
Nimblewill is invasive in California but native to 40 states. To find out if you live in its natural range, check the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center’s native plant database or the Biota of North America Program. Find photos and species profiles at Illinois Wildflowers and Native Plants for Georgia IV: Grasses and Sedges.
Though various sources say nimblewill looks like Japanese stiltgrass, creeping bentgrass and Bermuda grass, it doesn’t look like any of those species to me. Once you see them side by side, you’ll likely agree. And though both plants are shallow-rooted, stiltgrass is even more so, making it easy to pull, especially after a soaking rain.
Look for patterns where stiltgrass grows.
Observing where these plants choose to spread can help you encourage nimblewill while reducing stiltgrass. In our habitat, stiltgrass and invasive mock strawberry (Potentilla indica) appear to be best friends; the mock strawberry leafs out first and leaves spaces for the stiltgrass to sprout. I pull as much as I can and replace quickly with native groundcovers, or I allow nearby volunteers, such as violets (a great competitor for mock strawberry) to spread.
Stiltgrass also seeds near remaining clumps of turf, so when I come upon those, I dig them out by hand too. In the shade they eventually die off on their own, so if you’re working in an area where the canopy is increasing, you likely won’t have a whole sea of turf to excavate.
Plant and nurture other competitors.
Many vigorous groundcovers—golden ragworts, violets, Robin’s plantain, green-and-gold, jewelweed and clearweed—do a fabulous job of holding the ground and even outcompeting stiltgrass. But nothing compares to sea oats (Chasmanthium latifolium), which thrives in part-shade. If you have the space, adding just a few near a patch of stiltgrass may help you gain ground fairly quickly; each year I have many more sea oats than stiltgrasses in the area where I’ve planted them.
Let nimblewill fill bare spots among plantings.
In a corner of the front yard where a mini-woodland of hickories, tulip poplars, walnuts, spicebushes, elderberries and possumhaw viburnums surround a meadow-type clearing, I’ve encouraged nimblewill to grow among recently planted wildflowers. As it covers bare ground quickly, it increases the buffet offerings and confers a kind of protective effect around young plants that rabbits and deer find tasty. Experiment in your own habitat, and you might notice different benefits that no one else has recorded before.
Spot-mulch bare areas where you’ve pulled stiltgrass.
If you’re pulling patches of stiltgrass and you don’t have volunteer natives nearby to help fill the space quickly, you can either replant right away with vigorous native groundcovers or spot-mulch the bare patches with leaves, wood mulch, or pulled stiltgrass (as long as the stiltgrass hasn’t started to flower yet). I like to transplant volunteer violets and other natives from our pathways and into the bare ground.
Use a trimmer in areas where taller natives are gaining an edge.
Last summer, in one area of the backyard, behind an abandoned vegetable garden, I noticed horseweed (Conyza canadensis), a native, sprouting around the edges along with stiltgrass and nimblewill. It was too hot and dry to pull, and the plants were tall by then, so I asked my husband to trim the stiltgrass instead. This year the shadiest spot of the patch is covered in nimblewill, and horseweed has filled in the area that gets the most afternoon light. Nearby, I recently planted two more great spreaders, common milkweed rescued from the roadside and Virginia sweetspires. Where the stiltgrass still grows here, I pull by hand and also use my quiet, battery-operated hand trimmer. Ironweed has started to appear in the patch, something that would never have happened if we’d simply mowed this whole section. Now I’m looking forward to what new surprises the next season brings!
RELATED ARTICLE: How to Fight Plants with Plants
Photos: Nancy Lawson/Humane Gardener
Thank you! Exactly what I needed today, and had me revisit battling invasives with natives which was also excellent help – again!
Oh good, I’m glad it helped! 🙂
I have been attempting to identify native grasses and leave them in place, or add them to my gardens this year.
That’s great! Native grasses are so good for so many different kinds of animals; even pollinators need them for food, something I think a lot of people don’t realize.
The plant that has been a bit invasive was foreign species that we’d planted when we moved here. On the other hand, we didn’t plant grass because it requires a lot of water and it doesn’t naturally belong to this valley. As you say, natives are the key!
Hi Soledad! Sometimes I think about that, too – the fact that some of the nonnative plants that can become a little bit aggressive still aren’t (or unhelpful) as turfgrass. It’s always a triage in terms of what to focus on first – what can help us make the most room in the least amount of time for the most natives/wildlife-friendly plants?
Nimblewill is hard to propagate on a commercial basis and somewhat slow growing. Otherwise I think it would be a popular turf for shaded areas as it is more tolerant of heavy foot/paw traffic that fine fescue. From a nutrient management standpoint, you treat it a lot like zoysia – minimal fertilization, minimal maintenance.
Hi Thomas – thanks, that’s interesting that it’s hard to propagate. I wish it weren’t. It definitely grows well on its own on so many people’s properties, though, so if they could learn how to identify and nurture it, that could be very useful. And that’s also good info to have about the nutrient management; it explains a lot about why nimblewill is so adaptable — it loves shade, but it also loves cracks in sidewalks and such, I’ve noticed!
Check out WildLawn.com. One of their native alternative lawn species is Muhlenbergia schreberi and they’ve started commercial production of both seed and plugs.
Mark, I just checked out the website at WildLawn.com and I am in love! I am in northern VA, outside their territory. Do you know if there is any similar company in my region? I would love to redo my lawn — and consider what I could do to support a similar business here! [email protected]
Interesting that commercial lawn “care” companies speak of Nimblewill’s aggressive nature when promoting their herbicides.
I do have limited soil on top of the boulder my house seems to be sitting on, but once I embraced its presence, Nimblewill has become my ally in finally having something other than moss and spurge and Stiltgrass for a “lawn”.
Thank you! I probably wouldn’t have figured that one out.
Sure thing! I hope it helps!
What a beautiful, very educational story. I quietly try to clear local trails of the rapidly spreading invasive vines and ground plants. I used to use a weed wacker but stopped because it disturbed the soil and destroyed everything including ferns. Now I use hedge clippers and only cut or pull what I think is bad or covering the trail. Ferns and other diverse natives have started to out compete invasives. It’s a much better approach. Thank you for your encouragement and information!
Hi Mary! Thank you! And I really appreciate your efforts on your local trails. It’s great to hear that the natives are starting to respond to your approach too! 🙂
Can you buy nimblewill? Where? When I Google nimblewill, it only lists chemicals to kill it.
Can you buy nimblewill? Where? When I Google nimblewill, it only lists chemicals to kill it.
Beware that most of the non-professional internet websites are confusing Muhlenbergia schreberi (nimblewill) with Muhlenbergia frondosa (wirestem muhly). The latter IS a weed and is the actual control target. See the Ohio State University website that describes both: https://www.oardc.ohio-state.edu/weedguide/single_weed.php?id=76
Also, I know that WildLawn.com is producing Muhlenbergia schreberi plugs and possibly has seed for sale.
You can buy seed for Nimblewill at https://www.ernstseed.com/
What’s the best way to transplant Nimblewill? I am constantly pulling out stiltgrass and would love to find something that reduces the amount of time it spend doing that!
From seed, you would want to plant it in late spring when soil temperatures reach 70 F. You would plant it as you would turf seed – soil test, amend the soil as needed, etc. Treat nimblewill like zoysia in terms of nutrient requirements.
Best management practices for transplanting nimblewill sod/plugs have not been established Unfortunately, as it is generally considered a weed the research money is devoted to finding ways to kill it, not grow it. I know it can be tricky. My best advice would be to soil test. kill off what is in the area you want to plant in – you need good root to soil contact. Amend the soil as needed with lime based on the soil test. Apply fertilizer based on the soil test. Apply compost to the area. Mix lime, fertilizer and compost into the soil or at least scratch them into the soil with a garden rake.
Dig deeply (a few inches) when you are digging up the nimblewill. Put your transplants on the soil. Fit them together as tightly as possible – if there are gaps, there will be weeds to fill them. Tamp or roll the nimblewill once it’s all laid. Again sod to soil contact is important. Make sure it gets watered for it’s establishment season – treat it like any other warm season sod.
Sandy – if you have more questions about the nuts and bolts of establishment, let me know. I’m an Extension agent in Virginia and I can want you through the steps in more detail if needed.
Thomas – [email protected]
Thanks so much for your info. I will try it. I’m pretty certain that what I have growing around my property is nimbleweed, but not positive. It looks identical to the photos posted by Nancy. I tried using iNaturalist to confirm, but it didn’t come up as nimbleweed. When I wrote to that app asking about it, the reply indicated that iNaturalist is having trouble consistently identifying some grasses.
Hi Sandy, I’m so glad Thomas had some advice for you. As I mentioned in my reply to him, I’ve only done this a few times, and just by guesswork and crossing my fingers. Usually I just nurture it wherever it comes up, since it grows well with other plants. One thing that I’ve noticed about nimblewill is that it can take on a slightly different aspect depending on conditions. To me, there isn’t any other grass that truly looks like it, but it has a bit of a shape-shifting quality, in the sense that when it’s drier, it’s a bit more thin-looking. And when it’s in pretty deep shade, I find it a bit softer and more loose, mixing with violets and such. When it’s in a bit less shade, unless the ground is very wet, it can be a little more dense.
iNaturalist does have a hard time with many grasses unless you’re fortunate enough to catch them when they are flowering and seeding (though recently it helped me ID a whole beautiful stand of beaked panic grass that is also doing a lovely job of competing with the stiltgrass!). In addition to Thomas’s transplanting suggestions, you could try broadcasting nimblewill seed. I haven’t done that (except to let my grasses grow and seed wherever they want), but I’ve heard from others who’ve had success.
Thanks so much for chiming in, Thomas! It’s true that there is very little available on this, other than advice to kill it with fire, so I appreciate your guidance for people. Someone else on the comments thread on my “How to Fight Plants with Plants” article just wrote that he’d had luck broadcasting nimblewill seed, and maybe Sandy could try that as well. Usually I just sort of look out for it and then leave it wherever it is, since it can grow around other plants, handle mild foot traffic, etc. But for a client in DC I transplanted some out of her staircase and into the garden; you are right that it can be a bit tricky to make sure you’re getting the roots and ensuring establishment.
Thanks so much for both responses. I just stumbled on your site, and was so happy to have found it. For instance, I nurture creeping Charlie (ground ivy) as a ground cover in spaces where I know there will be foot traffic and even a truck or 2! It’s on a dry slope & does well there. Most people/sites regard it as an invasive weed, but for my purposes, it’s managed this difficult area beautifully. And very easy to pull out if it gets into places where it’s not wanted.
Hi Sandy, yes, that’s definitely one that I just take out when I can and when there is something to replace it with. Otherwise I leave it for the bees in spring. Thanks for reading! 🙂
Thanks for this! I was feeling hopeless in my “battle” against siltgrass. (I’m in MD too—Montgomery Co) But just now, I looked in a patch of it, and realized that it was not JUST siltgrass—there was Nimblewill and Deertongue tucked in among it! I plan to add in some additional natives like Golden Ragworts to help, when I can get my hands on some, but I felt so heartened to see some natives fighting alongside me. Now if I can only have them help with the vinca .
Hi Christine! Yay, that is great! It’s so much more rewarding when you can preserve the treasures while pulling the stiltgrass. Yesterday I was working around all he little natives while pulling, and there was a variegated fritillary caterpillar on a broomsedge blade, presumably looking for another violet. I moved him to the little patch of violets I had just started under some dogwoods, and he was very happy there. (I’d moved the violets from among the stiltgrass and turf before covering it over.) For vinca, we had it here early on, and I think I just kept pulling it after rains, when it was easier to get at the roots.
I wanted to report back that less than a month later, I have notably less siltgrass in the patch where there are nimblewill and deer tongue (the patch is probably approximately 10×6 feet or so, for reference). I selectively pulled some but not all of the siltgrass once (when I wrote the original comment) and then a few days ago, and as I did, I noticed the natives were winning out. I did have some siltgrass with seed heads, so I focused on removing those. It is SO much more rewarding to feel like you are nurturing rather than fighting.
If I may ramble a bit about that last point…we moved to this house in Dec 2018, and part of what attracted us was the more or less fully wooded back yard and trees and open space in our neighborhood, despite being close-in to the city. But by summer, I became overwhelmed. It was the first time I had a yard of my own. I’d lived in apartments for 14 years, and only for 2 of those did I have any outdoor space—on a balcony—where I could start having any plants. Anyway, both my husband (who had also grown up in apartments…so no outdoor experience) and I all of a sudden had this yard to deal with, and the flower beds and yard went from pretty and green the first spring to quickly overgrown by summer. Our first approach was just “control”—power tools and trimmers. Of course, that just gave some invasives an edge up. I know that now. This year, I was finally able to breathe and start to nurture a bit. The previous owner was apparently an avid gardener, but she moved out and had renters for several years. They had landscapers rip out a lot and leave only “low-maintenance” plants. Many of which are invasive or potentially so: all the vinca minor and vinca major, English ivy (no idea if that was planted or just moved in when they ripped out other things), and a HUGE patch of Chinese silver grass. I saw pics on google street view from when it was a manageable little planting. Still no idea how to get that monster from taking over the entire property—I honestly think it’s going to take a crew and a truck! And now that I’m more educated, I notice a lot of other invasives every day—Japanese honeysuckle, Chinese privet, the dreaded garlic mustard, wild garlic…Other random stuff that shows up. I see a flower, hope it’s a native, but nope! I think that woodland in our backyard was once more cultivated and managed. She probably planted that vinca and kept it in check. Now, it’s almost all covered. So, it can still be overwhelming. But I think focusing on the positives—the redbud and dogwoods, the black walnut and white oak, the Virginia bluebells that come up in spring, and the headway I’ve made in planting some natives in the beds—so far, rudbeckia, Coneflower—and leaving other natives like nimblewill, violets, and wild ginger that I might have considered weeds helps. So, thank you for helping me see that! I’m now even inspired in the back yard—to at least clear small areas of vinca around the Christmas ferns that also came up to give them a fighting chance!
Thank you for sharing this informative article! Now I can even make out some of the grasses in my pasture =)
Can you tell me about three seeded Murcury? Are there any benefits in the garden or is it toxic. Not finding a lot of information on it, do not want to kill it or move it if I do not have to.
Hi Carla, I absolutely love this plant! It’s an annual and, like some of our other native annuals, actually makes a very nice groundcover under shrubs, in borders and around perennials. The past couple of years, I’ve also put it in our rubber tree pots that we keep inside in summer and pot outside in the winter; it adds a nice layer that helps keep the pot cool and shade roots, etc. It’s not toxic as far as I know – the name “mercury” refers to the Roman god. I wrote more about the plant in this older post: https://www.humanegardener.com/give-weeds-animals-chance/ Hope that helps! 🙂
Nancy, I will be participating in your September 1, 2021, webinar: “The Humane Gardener: Nurturing Habitat for Wildlife – Nancy Lawson.” I hope you will talk about Nimblewill! I have been weeding in and around my natural patches of nimblewill in my lawn, and transplanting volunteers into my lawn. I have even bought seed, but I would like anything you can share about how I can overseed my “lawn” successfully. There is such a hunger for native groundcovers and lawn alternatives! Please share what you have learned. I have already shared this piece again and again!
For those interested in hearing Nancy’s talk on Wednesday, register here:
https://www.lewisginter.org/event/grow-native-series-the-humane-gardener/
Hi Laurie, thanks for the plug! That’s one of my favorite subjects, and I have another talk that goes into a fair amount of detail about nimblewill and many other groundcovers, called “How to Fight Plants with Plants.” But the talk tonight is my main talk about humane gardening. I can tell you, though, that I have never tried overseeding a lawn with nimblewill or other natives. If your lawn is vigorous and in sun, I don’t know how successful that would be. Even though nimblewill even grows in our driveway (so seems to not mind some sun), where it really proliferates is in the part-shade or shady areas — or sometimes in sunny areas, but under and around taller perennials, shrubs, etc. I have removed lawn around nimblewill, but only when the nimblewill is already a sizeable patch. And the sizeable patch happens because lawn is retreating, as lawn doesn’t really like those shady or understory areas.
Our “lawn,” however, hadn’t really been lawn for a long time, in the sense that it was a mixture of all kinds of nonnative grasses as well as violets and clover and many other things. So maybe if you still have traditional turf, you might find that nimblewill competes more easily with that because traditional turf is more shallow-rooted than the layers we were working with. You might want to also try seeding nimblewill in bare ground to get some patches going — maybe under some trees and shrubs and around some of your perennials.
In general, I try to encourage people to keep looking for whatever might be growing naturally (or wanting to grow naturally) in their spaces and communities because often that’s what really thrives. And having a matrix of a number of different groundcover species ensures that as things reseed and move around and evolve, you’ll be continuing to expand your seedbank and the underground root systems with quite a diversity of plants that can continue to help fill the spaces.
I hope that helps, and I’m sure there are others in this thread who might have some more seeding advice too. I haven’t actually seeded it myself — I just keep encouraging it wherever I see it by pulling any invasives around it and letting it spread. See you tonight! 🙂
I spent the last 36 years encouraging spring beauty to spread across my front and back ‘lawn’ by not mowing until it fruits. The results have been spectacular. Worrying about the arrival of stiltgrass, I had been thinking about nimblewill, a plant I had only recently become acquainted with (ironic since I am a ecologist/ botanist). I found your post refreshing and exciting. I am going to get nimblewill started with false mermaid weed in my gardens. I disdain the traditional lawn management. Thanks.
Noel from Duneden
Hi Noel! Your spring beauty “lawn” sounds gorgeous! I had not heard of false mermaid weed and just looked it up – very cool! Thanks for teaching me about it. I’m so glad the nimblewill post is helpful to you! Today I did my routine stiltgrass pulling and was happy to see nimblewill continue to gain ground in new areas.
Your post is a godsend. I have spent many hours for many days this month pulling stiltgrass out of my backyard, leaving anything I know to be native (a few violets here and there, a few tiny yellow wood sorrel plants, a couple of small daisy fleabane plants). When I don’t know what something is, I leave it until I can identify it. That was the case with this grass that to me was reminiscent of undesirable weeds in the suburbs where I grew up. But I never pull anything I don’t know in case it might be an unknown-to-the-general-population native. Such a joy (and a relief) to discover that my compulsive efforts to pick stiltgrass out of this stuff were warranted.
I find it’s quite laborious to pick out stiltgrass from the nimblewill, maybe because nimblewill forms such a tight mat. Or maybe because my husband weedwhacked the yard about a month ago. (I notice stiltgrass is easier to pull when it’s tall and it’s not growing with other plants.) Also, we have an extremely high deer population that tromps through the yard so maybe their browsing/soil compaction contributes to the difficulty? (My husband put up a dripping water station that the birds, squirrels and turtles and other critters love, but it also attracts deer; the bird feeders in the back yard also attract deer.) So I’m glad to hear deer spread nimblewill.
But will the deer eat the nimblewill too?
Btw, another benefit of pulling the stiltgrass: I am discovering the terribly invasive Wavyleaf basketgrass hiding underneath and can pull that before it goes to seed. (There’s a heavy infestation on adjacent state lands; thankfully, land managers are working on addressing it.)
I live in Jefferson County, in the eastern panhandle of West Virginia, just outside Harpers Ferry.
Thanks again for your wonderful post!
Hi Laurie,
I’m so happy that the post gave you some relief/joy! 🙂 Yes, it’s interesting = it can be a little tedious to pull out above the nimblewill when it’s really short, but as long as it’s tall enough to get a good grab on it, you can just grab handfuls and pull quickly! This works especially well when it’s not overly dry (as it had been starting to get before these recent rains).
I think deer might nibble here and there, but when there’s other stuff around they won’t bother with the littler, finer-leaved plants as much. In my experience the nimblewill just keeps spreading! Also there are two other plants that are really holding their own here and spreading in spite of the stiltgrass (directly competing with it): blue mistflower and false nettle. Every year we trim around the edges of the patches, and they just keep getting bigger! So I have islands of natives that are growing in the back area where the stiltgrass is.
And I’m sorry you are finding the wavyleaf – me too. So far it’s just bits here and there, but there’s likely bigger patches in nearby woods. That’s good that the land managers are working on the ones near you.
Thanks for writing and for nurturing the natives!
How beneficial are non-native violets compared to native ones? Do fritillaries in the US use them as well as the native ones? I have patches of both, but more of the non-native variety.
Hi Sean, this is a good question. I think I’ve researched it before and have not found anything definitive. But since the English violets are scented, I imagine they might be attractive to a different set of insects and not necessarily to ones outside of the region where they grow? That’s just a wild guess. But if their chemistry is different, then they might not be getting what they need, or it’s possible they could be getting something that’s not good for them. Let me know if you find any information on it – I don’t know whether any research has been done or not.
We graze 1000+ acres in TN. We consider nimblewill to be an invasive in our pastures because of its low palatability and how quickly it spreads. We know of no way of controlling it but broad spectrum herbicides which we oppose. It may be native, but it is terribly costly for us. Certainly a bigger economic issue for us than stilt grass which we find limited to some forest edges.
Clearly, nimblewill is not useful for your grazing purposes. But so many suburban acres are planted in fescue and other turf grasses, only to be mowed and primped. Those are the acres that would do better planted in nimblewill or any of a variety of native ground covers. Or converted into native gardens rather than lawn!