Bush Honeysuckle Removal in Michigan: Plan and Cost

Across southern Michigan, the shrub that turns a fencerow into a wall and an open woodland edge into a thicket is usually a bush honeysuckle. Amur honeysuckle is found from Jackson County to Ottawa County, and it does not leave on its own.

Clearing it takes a mulching pass, return cuts for the sprouts over the next seasons and, if you choose it, stump treatment by a licensed applicator. Clearing honeysuckle from a fencerow or woodland edge typically runs $1,500 to $2,500 an acre.

Telling Invasive Bush Honeysuckle From the Native Kind

Four invasive shrubs share the name in Michigan. They are Amur honeysuckle (Lonicera maackii) and Morrow’s, Tatarian and Bell’s honeysuckle. They look and behave much alike, and they are cleared the same way.

What to look for:

• Size and shape. A multi-stemmed shrub that can reach 15 to 20 feet and often forms dense thickets.
• Leaves. Oval to egg-shaped with a long tapered tip, up to about 3 inches, set in opposite pairs along the stem.
• Flowers. Tubular, two-lipped and about an inch long, in pairs, opening white and fading to pale yellow or cream from late May into June. Across the group the flowers can be white, pink or red.
• Berries. Round, juicy and red, borne in pairs, ripening from late summer and hanging on through winter.
• The stem test. Cut an older stem. The invasive species have a hollow brown or tan center; native honeysuckles have solid white pith.

That last test is the one to trust. A native honeysuckle will not have a hollow pith, while the invasive ones will. One more clue: the cut wood smells like honey.

Michigan also has a native shrub called bush-honeysuckle, Diervilla lonicera. It is a Great Lakes native, so a low shrub by that name in a garden bed may be a planting worth keeping. Check the pith before anything is cleared.

Where Michigan’s Rules Stand

Michigan’s 2026 Invasive Species Order, effective 20 May 2026, added six plants: water hyacinth and water lettuce as prohibited species, and Japanese barberry, glossy buckthorn, Callery pear and common buckthorn as restricted species from 1 January 2028. No honeysuckle is among them, and the state’s invasive shrubs page does not list bush honeysuckle either. As of October 2026, then, nothing in that order tells a Michigan owner to remove it. Clearing it is a decision about what the shrub is doing to the land.

How a Few Shrubs Become a Thicket

Bush honeysuckles were planted as ornamental and privacy shrubs and for wildlife. The traits that made them good shrubs (hardiness, fast growth and dense cover) are the same ones that let them move into woods and fields.

Birds plant it. Birds eat the berries and drop the seeds widely, shrubs spread from older ornamental plantings, and seed travels on the feet of animals. A fencerow, where birds perch on the wire, is exactly where it lands.

It grows where others stop. It grows in forests and forest understories, woodland edges, old fields, fencerows, floodplains, roadsides and yards, in sun or shade, on many soils, and it tolerates low light well.

It has a longer season. The leaves come out earlier in spring and stay later in fall than those of most native shrubs, shading the ground beneath. It is also thought to give off a chemical that holds back the plants around it.

The seed waits. Honeysuckle produces large amounts of seed, and the seeds stay viable in the ground for multiple years. Clearing the shrubs does not clear the soil.

What Happens After One Cut

Cut stumps resprout vigorously. A shrub cut to the ground and left alone answers with a cluster of new stems from the stump, and within a season or two the fencerow looks much as it did, only denser at the base.

Three things work against a single visit:

• The stumps. Every cut crown is still alive and sends up shoots.
• The seed in the soil. Seedlings keep coming up from seed dropped in earlier years.
• The birds. Berries from honeysuckle on the next property or along the road keep arriving.

For established shrubs the most reliable method is cutting followed by herbicide applied directly to the cut stumps. Herbicide is a licensed applicator’s work, never ours: our crew grinds the shrubs, and an owner who wants the stumps treated books an applicator to come in behind the machine. Seedlings are another matter: pull small plants with the root and leave them on a rock or log so the roots do not touch soil.

A Clearing Plan for Fencerows, Old Fields and Lake Lots

1. Look in late fall or early spring. Honeysuckle holds green leaves when most native shrubs are bare, which makes a thicket easy to map. Note how far it reaches, and ribbon the trees and native shrubs that stay.
2. Pick a firm week. A tracked mulcher should go in when the soil can bear it, after a dry spell or once the ground has frozen.
3. Grind the thicket. Each shrub becomes chips on the spot and its crown ends level with the soil. No brush pile is left to burn or truck off, and the trees you flagged keep their roots intact.
4. Decide on stump treatment. If you want it, a licensed applicator you hire treats the fresh cuts soon after the mulching.
5. Come back for the shoots. The crowns push up new stems through the following summer. Cutting them while they are still pencil-thin keeps the thicket from rebuilding, and that visit is much lighter work than the first.
6. Pull what germinates. Seed in the soil stays alive for years, so walk the open ground each spring or fall and pull young plants, root and all, while they come up easily.

Honeysuckle Clearing Prices Per Acre

For honeysuckle and brush in a fencerow, along a woodland edge or beneath trees you are keeping, budget $1,500 to $2,500 per acre. That is the honeysuckle and fencerow row on our Columbia Township pricing page, and every Michigan market prices its understory row in the same band. An old thicket with saplings standing in it moves into the forestry mulching band of $1,500 to $4,000 per acre.

What the ground holds	Band	How it is counted
Shrubs in a fencerow or along a woodland edge	$1,500 to $2,500 per acre	A strip by the fraction of an acre it covers
An old stand with saplings grown through it	$1,500 to $4,000 per acre	The forestry mulching band
A whole tract opened to an agreed finish	$1,500 to $4,500 per acre	The land clearing band
A single short row or one corner	Minimum charge of about $1,500	The floor for small work, billed instead of an acre rate and never added to one
Shoots cut back the next season	Quoted by the visit	Its own line, yours to take or leave
Stump herbicide	Outside our work	Booked by you with a licensed applicator

Our mulching turns shrubs, small trees and stumps into mulch where they stood, leaves the stumps flush and hauls nothing off the property. Taking stumps out below grade, or cutting and hauling very large trees, is discussed and priced in the quote. Grading is not part of our price; we clear to the ground so a builder can grade.

An acre climbs within its band when the stems are older and closer together, when many keeper trees have to be worked around, and on soft or sloping ground. For other kinds of clearing across the state, see the Michigan land clearing cost guide.

Bush Honeysuckle Around Michigan’s Markets

Amur honeysuckle is recorded in the counties of every Cut Brush market in Michigan.

The Irish Hills and Jackson County

Around Columbia Township and Brooklyn, the ground is the rolling, lake-dotted country of the Irish Hills, so honeysuckle work often means a fencerow between fields, the edge of a woodlot, or the shrub layer on a lake lot sloping toward the water. Near the shore, Michigan’s soil erosion rules typically require a permit for earth change within 500 feet of a lake or stream, and burning brush is not allowed within 1,400 feet of an incorporated village such as Brooklyn. Grinding the shrubs in place removes the burn question entirely. The towns we cover, from Jackson, MI to Adrian, Chelsea and Hillsdale, are on our Columbia Township land clearing page.

Grand Rapids and West Michigan

Honeysuckle is recorded across Kent and Ottawa counties. Our Grand Rapids land clearing page covers the towns across Kent, Ottawa, Allegan, Barry, Ionia and Montcalm counties.

Muskegon County and the White Lake Area

Honeysuckle is recorded less often here so far. Japanese barberry, the thorny shrub of the dune-edge woods there, has its own Michigan Japanese barberry removal guide, and our Fruitland Township land clearing page lists the towns.

Port Huron and St. Clair County

Honeysuckle is recorded in St. Clair and Macomb counties. Callery pear has its own Michigan Bradford pear removal guide, and our Kimball Township land clearing page covers the towns.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is bush honeysuckle banned in Michigan?

Not as of October 2026. The state’s 2026 Invasive Species Order restricted barberry, Callery pear and the two buckthorns from 2028, and no honeysuckle is on that list.

How do I check a stem for hollow pith?

Cut an older stem across and look at the center. A hollow brown or tan core means one of the invasive bush honeysuckles; solid white pith means a native.

How many visits does a honeysuckle fencerow need?

Expect the clearing pass, at least one cut of the shoots the following summer, and a few years of pulling seedlings, because the seed outlasts the shrubs.

What does honeysuckle clearing cost per acre in Michigan?

Fencerows and woodland edges usually fall between $1,500 and $2,500 an acre, and an old stand with saplings in it between $1,500 and $4,000. Small jobs start at a minimum charge of about $1,500, and each later visit for shoots is quoted separately.

Get the Fencerows Back

Request a free quote and we’ll contact you to discuss your property, access and the clearing you need. Our crew schedules honeysuckle in stages: mapped while its leaves stand out in the bare woods, ground down when the soil is firm, trimmed back as the shoots appear, then checked for seedlings.