Hen’s Eyes, Coral Ardisia

Miller, James H.; Manning, Steven T.; Enloe, Stephen F. 2010. A management guide for invasive plants in southern forests. Gen. Tech. Rep. SRS–131. Asheville, NC: U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, Southern Research Station. 120 p.

Hen’s eyes or coral ardisia (Ardisia crenata Sims) is an evergreen erect shrub, 2 to 6 feet (0.6 to 1.8 m) in height with short stems or multistemmed bushy clumps. The species is distinguished by shiny green leaves with distinct thickened, wavy margins. Drooping white to pink axillary flowers appear all summer to yield dangling, bright red berries fall and through winter. Spreads and colonizes by animal-dispersed seed to form dense infestations. Plants produce fruit within 2 years.

Management strategies

• Do not plant. Remove prior plantings, and control sprouts and seedlings. Bag and dispose of fruit in a dumpster or burn.
• Treat when new plants are young to prevent seed formation.
• Cut, mulch, or bulldoze when fruit are not present.
• Minimize disturbance within miles of where this plant occurs, and anticipate wider occupation when plants are present before disturbance.
• Manually pull new seedlings and tree wrench saplings when soil is moist, ensuring removal of all roots.
• Burning treatments are suspected of having minimal effect due to scant litter.

Recommended control procedures

• In fall, apply a basal spray of Garlon 4 as a 20-percent solution (5 pints per 3-gallon mix) in a labeled basal oil product, vegetable oil or mineral oil with a penetrant, or fuel oil or diesel fuel (where permitted).
• For stems too tall for foliar sprays, cut large stems and immediately treat the stump tops with Garlon 4 as a 20- to 25-percent solution (5 to 6 pints per 3-gallon mix). ORTHO Brush-B-Gon, Enforcer Brush Killer, and Vine-X are effective undiluted for treating cut-stumps and available in retail garden stores (safe to surrounding plants).
• Thoroughly wet all leaves with one of the following herbicides in water with a surfactant: a glyphosate herbicide or Garlon 4 as a 5-percent solution (20 ounces per 3-gallon mix).

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