About Buckthorn

Common buckthorn and Glossy buckthorn are woody plants from Europe that were brought to North America in the 1800’s for landscaping and hedges. Many Twin Cities metro area yards, a number of golf courses, parks and institutional campuses sport buckthorn hedges. Arborists, ecologists and foresters began noticing that buckhorn was spreading from hedgerows to our deciduous woodlands where it steadily formed larger and more numerous thickets. Leafy buckthorn mantels below the taller trees looked lush and benign to most of us, but savvy watchdogs began to measure disturbing declines in native plants, insects, invertebrates, amphibians, songbirds and small mammals. Our local forests, it turned out, were being killed off not only by suburban development but also by buckthorn -- and buckthorn was only part of a more general assault of non-aquatic invasive plants.

The battle is ratcheting up. Common and Glossy buckthorn have been designated noxious weeds that can no longer be marketed in Minnesota. Various park entities, landscapers, property owners and community service groups have made buckthorn abatement part of their missions.

PLANNING BUCKTHORN PULLS & WOODLAND RESTORATION PROJECTS
A “buckthorn pull” is an organized event that engages volunteers to uproot the demon weed tree from infested areas. Do-it-yourselfers and school, home association, church, scout and environmental groups can be effective buck combatants if they arm themselves with good information.

Janet R. Larson’s BUCKTHORN: A Threat to Our Native Woodland Ecosystem (a PDF download) and other free materials available at the end of this web page should be read by anyone hoping to stop the advance of buckthorn.

BUCK BUSTING: GENERAL TIPS

• Buckthorn projects are more effective when supported with knowledge of a woodland’s ecosystem and its native shrubs, trees and herbs.
  Review and evaluate the various chemical and mechanical methods of killing buckthorn.
• Target areas for buckthorn removal where (1) native plants and young trees can make a come back, (2) view sheds can be reclaimed from dense thickets, (3) thickets and isolated buckthorns are encroaching into pristine, wooded and wetland areas; (4) trails and pathways that are smothered by buck.
• Before clearing buckthorn, tag or mark native plants, shrubs and trees such as wild cherry, hawthorn, ironwood, basswood and dogwood that can be mistaken for buckthorn. In their enthusiasm, well meaning buckthorn pull volunteers regularly uproot young trees that are mistaken for buckthorn.
• Before clearing buckthorn from your property, alert your neighbors -- they may view your buck thicket as an attractive, natural screen for their “privacy” and know not one whit of the harm it is foisting on the neighborhood. Replacing buckthorn with a variety of native shrubs and trees for screening purposes will provide you and your neighbor with a more appealing and eco-friendly buffer.
• Consider cutting buckthorn by saw followed by an application of a glyphosate herbicide on the stump. This method does not disturb ground cover and is easier and quicker than pulling larger specimens.
• If you are going to pull buckthorn by hand or with tools, follow the BETTER BUCK BUSTING advisories below.
• If you intend to naturalize the target areas, develop a replanting plan -- perhaps with a woodland restoration professional. Use only locally grown, native shrubs, plants, herbs, sedges and grasses.

BETTER BUCK BUSTING
The requisite task of each method of killing buckthorn is to kill the roots (a) by pulling or digging the roots out of the ground, (b) by painting herbicide with an effective concentrate of glyphosate around the outer rings of a freshly cut tree or on a girdling cut around the stem or (c) by applying an effective foliar herbicide to green buckthorn leaves in the fall.

ADVISORY:

• Cutting buckthorn without a glyphosate application will NOT work. The roots will send up vigorous new and denser growth.
• Uproot buckthorn when the pullin’ is easy – when the ground is soft in the spring and autumn or after heavy rains.
• Avoid erosion. Do not use up-rooting tools or shovels on hills and banks. Stumps and their roots (killed with glyphosate) can be left in place to prevent erosion. Lay felled buckthorn trunks (with limbs trimmed) on slopes held in place with stakes and stumps to slow rainwater runoff and prevent erosion.
• Save native plants. Do not uproot nearby sedges, wildflowers, shrubs and trees when pulling buckthorn. If you uproot a good plant by mistake, re-plant it ASAP and dress the ground with leaf or woodchip mulch.
• Fill holes left by uprooting with soil shaken from buckthorn roots. Tamp the soil with your feet and cover with leaf litter or wood chip mulch.
• Leave small buckthorns to decompose where you’ve pulled them
• Stack buckthorn in piles to provide wildlife with shelter and hiding places.
• Buckthorns that have not produced berries can be run through a chipper. Use the chips to mulch bare spots.
• Some cities, including Minnetonka (but not Eden Prairie) operate seasonal brush and buckthorn recycling services. Most commercial garbage haulers will pick up buckthorn (and garlic mustard) if it is cut and bundled (or bagged) to specifications.

GARLIC MUSTARD ADVISORY: Garlic mustard can quickly move into areas that have been cleared of buckthorn. Gm will out-compete spring ephemerals, ferns and other native plants and is a serious threat to local woodland ecosystems. Before removing buckthorn from an area, uproot all the garlic mustard plants you find. Gm is easy to pull; sometimes two to five plants can be grabbed by hand at a time. Garlic mustard with seed capsules (siliques) should be bagged for disposal to reduce the thousands and thousands of Gm seeds that would otherwise sprout. Review our Garlic Mustard Portal for more info.

BUCKTHORN EXTRACTING TOOLS

Small buckthorns up to 3 feet high can frequently be uprooted by hand. Large buckthorn can always be sawed near ground level if herbicide is applied to the stump. If soils are loose, buckthorns with trunks up to 2.5 inches in diameter and up to 16 feet tall can be levered out of the ground -- roots attached -- with tools like the Extractigator and Weed Wrench.

FBIW LOANER PROGRAM
Friends of Birch Island Woods loans out such buckthorn tools to folks who have attended its invasive plants workshops or pulls. The tools are occasionally available for others. The tools can also be used to uproot other woody plants such as Asian buckthorn.

LOANER CONDITIONS
All borrowers must (a) agree to use the tools properly, (b) agree to pull and dispose of garlic mustard before uprooting buckthorn (c) agree to return the tools clean and on time and (d) agree to volunteer for a future Birch Island Woods buckthorn or garlic mustard pull or seminar.
(Note: These volunteer opportunities are actually enjoyable.)

The loaner Weed Wrenches and Extractigators are owned by FBIW and private individuals and are available on a reservation basis. Call Jeff Strate for details at 952-949-8980.

BUCK’ TOOLS FROM YOUR CITY GOVERNMENT
Bloomington - Call Jean Buckley, 952-563-8751
Edina - Call Forester Tom Horwath, 852-826-0308.
Golden Valley - Call Environmental Coordinator Al Lundstrom, 763-593-8046.
Minnetonka - Call Janet R. Larson, Restoration Specialist, 952-988-8423
Shorewood - 052-474-3236 ($30 deposit is held until wrench is returned)

RENT A WEED WRENCH
J & F Reddy Rents leases Weed Wrenches. Call 952-927-5641 for rates. The store is located at 3320 Republic Ave, St. Louis Park, MN 55426

BUY A BUCKTHORN UPROOTING TOOL
EXTRACTIGATOR from Exclusive Mechanical Systems Ltd, Shawnigan Lake, British Columbia. For prices and product and shipping info call 250-743-0353 or visit the Extractigator website at http://www.extractigator.com/

WEED WRENCH from The Weed Wrench Company, Grants Pass, Oregon. For prices and products and shipping info call toll free 877-484-4777 or visit the company’s web site at http://www.weedwrench.com

MORE TOOLS FOR KICKIN’ BUCK
The Native Species Initiative of the Nature Conservancy has info on other woody plant removal tools including the Root Talon invented by St. Paul’s Jim Lampe: http://tncweeds.ucdavis.edu/tools.html/

BUCKTHORN LINKS

BUCKTHORN: A Threat to Our Native Woodland Ecosystem
This 17-page PDF download is a primer by Janet R. Larson that includes do-it-yourself mechanical and chemical methods of buckthorn removal and a list of native Minnesota plants, shrubs and trees to re-plant in the cleared areas. Ms. Larson is a noted woodland restoration specialist and a Friends of Birch Island Woods consultant.

The Trouble With Backyard Buckthorn http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/volunteer/julaug98/buckthorn.html
This enjoyable article by John Moriarity in the July-August 1998 issue of the DNR’s Volunteer Magazine gets it right and makes a pitch for replacing buck with native plants.

Minnesota DNR buckthorn web site http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/invasives/terrestrialplants/woody/buckthorn/index.html
This website presents lots of information on buckthorn and other invasive plant species.

Organize a buckthorn and garlic mustard pull in the Birch Island district or other parks and natural areas. http://www.fbiw.org/JoinIn/BuckthornProgram.htm

This section was prepared and written by Jeff Strate