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.
Japanese meadowsweet or Japanese spiraea (Spiraea japonica L.f.) is a deciduous erect shrub to 6 feet (1.8 m) high with multiple stems and alternate branches, slender and brown, intertwining or arching outward on hillside infestations. The leaves are small, alternate, and lanceolate with irregular serrate margins. Flat-topped clusters have tiny rose-pink flower heads with festooning branch tips and turn into crowded clusters of lustrous brown seed capsules in midsummer. Dense infestations of entangled stems, branches, and foliage exclude other plants and impact animal habitat. Infestations intensify by abundant basal sprouting. Resembles several native and nonnative spiraeas, but is unique in the flat-topped, pink to pink-rose flower clusters and brown fruit clusters, the hairy branchlets and flowers, and lanceolate leaves.
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.
- Minimize disturbance within miles of where this plant occurs, and anticipate wider occupation when plants are present before disturbance.
- Do not treat with herbicides when leaves are yellow.
- Manually pull and tree wrench when soil is moist, ensuring removal of the roots.
Recommended control procedures
- Thoroughly wet all leaves with Garlon 3A or a glyphosate herbicide as a 3-percent solution (12 ounces per 3-gallon mix) in water with a surfactant. Applications may be made almost any time of year, but air temperature must be above 65 °F (18 °C) to ensure absorption by the plant. September is the best time of year for application.
- Cut large stems and immediately treat the stump tops with one of the following herbicides: a glyphosate herbicide or Garlon 3A as a 25-percent solution (3 quarts 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).
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