Buckthorn Removal in Montana: The Plan and the Cost

Common buckthorn is a Montana Priority 2A noxious weed, and around Missoula it grows mostly along creeks and river banks. Clearing a buckthorn thicket typically runs $1,500 to $2,500 an acre with our crew. A plan that holds takes three parts: a mulching pass before the berries ripen, a licensed applicator’s treatment or return cuts for the shoots that follow, and two more years of checking for seedlings.

Where Common Buckthorn Grows in Montana

Common buckthorn is a woody shrub or small tree, 6 to 25 feet tall, that forms dense thickets and can crowd or shade out native plants. It came from Europe and northwestern Asia and spread because it was planted in hedgerows. It grows from the understory of deciduous woods to fence rows, pastures, abandoned fields and roadsides, and is more abundant in towns and the woodlands near them.

On the current Montana noxious weed list it sits in Priority 2A: weeds “common in isolated areas of Montana,” where management requires eradication or containment where the plant is less abundant, with local weed districts setting priorities.

Around Missoula. Common buckthorn grows along many of the valley’s waterways, with infestations along creek drainages and at fishing access sites across the Missoula Valley and a core patch on Rattlesnake Creek.

What the listing means for you. Montana law, MCA 7-22-2116, makes it unlawful “to permit any noxious weed to propagate or go to seed” on your land, though an owner following the local weed district’s management program or a management agreement is treated as complying. When you sell, you must tell your agent and the buyer about any noxious weed infestation and any management program in place. A buckthorn thicket on a creek lot is something a buyer will hear about.

How to Recognize It

The field marks:

• Size and bark: a large shrub to small tree, brown or gray outside, with orange to yellow inner bark on older stems when scraped.
• Thorns: twig tips usually end in a short, sharp thorn.
• Leaves: oval, glossy, dark green, finely toothed, with 3 to 6 pairs of veins curving toward the tip.
• Fruit: berry-like, about a quarter inch across, purplish-black when ripe in fall.
• Timing: the leaves stay green late into fall, after most native woody plants have dropped theirs.

Montana has a native buckthorn too. Alder buckthorn grows mostly in the western part of the state, but it has no thorns and its flowers have five petals, not four. Chokecherry has a similar leaf, with more veins and no thorns.

How Buckthorn Spreads

Only by seed, carried far. Common buckthorn reproduces only by seed. The fruit either drops under the parent shrub or is eaten by birds and small mammals that carry the seed a long way before passing it.

Down the water. The fruit can float, especially when dry, and travels along waterways. That fits where Missoula’s infestations were found, strung along creeks and at fishing access sites.

Only some shrubs fruit. Buckthorn is dioecious, meaning male and female flowers grow on separate plants, so only some shrubs bear berries. In a large stand, those fruiting shrubs are the ones putting out the next generation.

Shade below. A thicket competes for light, water and nutrients and can keep tree seedlings from establishing underneath it, so the trees along a creek are not replaced as they age.

Why One Cutting Fails

Cutting or girdling buckthorn without a follow-up herbicide treatment leaves the shrub sending up new shoots from its stumps and fibrous root mats.

So a Saturday of chainsaw work, or one pass with a mulcher, opens the thicket without ending it. Each cut stump becomes a clump of new stems, and seedlings come up in the newly sunny ground. Plan to revisit a site for at least two years after treatment to manage new seedlings. Fire is no shortcut either: an occasional prescribed burn will not eliminate it.

That is why our quotes list the return visits from the start.

A Plan Built Around the Creek

On a creek-bottom lot, a pasture edge or a wooded backyard, the plan comes out as six steps.

1. Find it in the fall. Autumn is the time to look, because the green leaves and black fruit stand out once the native shrubs are bare. Flag the thickets, note which shrubs carry berries, and mark the trees and native shrubs you want kept.
2. Check the creek rule. Work that changes a perennial stream’s bed or immediate bank needs a 310 permit, and one may be needed for removing vegetation within 50 feet of a river or creek. Around Missoula, the County handles it inside the 1946 city limits and the Missoula Conservation District outside them; elsewhere, ask your local conservation district. Requirements vary by parcel, scope and jurisdiction, and the governing authority makes the determination.
3. Cut before the berries ripen. The fruit ripens in fall. Along a creek, cut shrubs bearing fruit are piled and burned so the seed does not spread, but plants cut before seed set may not need burning. A mulching pass in late spring or summer grinds the stems where they stand with no ripe berries to wash downstream. Near the water, the machine stays on firm ground at the top of the bank, and how close to the water it works is settled in the quote.
4. Treat or cut the stumps. For a stump to stay dead, cutting is paired with herbicide. That is a licensed applicator’s work, and the cut and the treatment need to be timed together, so plan both before the machine arrives. Skip it and expect to cut the shoots back on return visits, which keeps the thicket down without killing the roots.
5. Pull the seedlings. Small seedlings can be pulled by hand or mowed. Walk the ground each fall for at least two years, when the green leaves give them away.
6. Plan what grows back. Opened ground fills fast. Decide before the cut whether it goes to grass you can mow or to native trees and shrubs, and talk to your county weed district about any follow-up it expects.

Pro tip: In a large stand, start with the shrubs carrying berries. Focusing on the fruiting plants is a key way to limit spread, and a low-density site cleared early costs less per acre than a closed thicket later.

What Buckthorn Removal Costs

Thinning buckthorn and brush out from beneath the trees you are keeping typically runs $1,500 to $2,500 an acre, the ladder fuel and understory band on our Missoula pricing page. An old, closed thicket with heavy stems prices as forestry mulching, $1,500 to $4,000 an acre.

Job	Typical range	Notes
Thinning buckthorn out from under keeper trees	$1,500 – $2,500 per acre	The understory band
Dense thicket with large stems	$1,500 – $4,000 per acre	The forestry mulching band
Small backyard or creek-edge patch	Minimum charge of about $1,500	Where small jobs start, not a fee on top
Return visits for shoots	Priced per visit	Listed in the quote on their own lines
Herbicide treatment	Separate trade	Quoted by a licensed applicator

Each pass grinds stems and stumps into mulch on site, stumps flush with the ground, with nothing hauled away. Full stump removal below grade, and felling and hauling very large trees, are discussed and priced in the quote, and grading is not part of our price.

Inside the band, the price moves with stem size, how many keeper trees the machine works around, how much of the job sits along the bank, and gravel in the soil. A buckthorn strip along a creek is often well under an acre, so a single strip frequently bills at the minimum. The Missoula forestry mulching cost guide explains how per-acre and hourly quotes compare.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is buckthorn a noxious weed in Montana?

Yes. Common buckthorn is a Priority 2A noxious weed on the state list, and Montana law makes it unlawful to let a noxious weed go to seed on your land.

Will mulching kill buckthorn?

Not by itself. Cut stumps send up new shoots unless a licensed applicator treats them, and seedlings keep coming for at least two years, so plan return visits.

When should buckthorn be cut?

Find and flag it in the fall, when its leaves stay green, and cut it before the next crop of berries ripens, especially along water.

How much does buckthorn removal cost around Missoula?

Understory clearing runs $1,500 to $2,500 an acre and dense thickets $1,500 to $4,000, with a minimum charge of about $1,500 for small jobs. Return visits and herbicide are priced separately.

Get Buckthorn Off Your Creek or Fence Line

Request a free quote and we’ll contact you to discuss your property, access and the clearing you need. Our crew flags the thickets in the fall, cuts them before the berries ripen and checks the ground again the next season.

Read more: the towns and creek permit notes on our Missoula land clearing page, what each method does on the Missoula services page, and statewide costs in the Montana land clearing cost guide.