OnslowOnslow Land Clearing Pros connects Jacksonville property owners with a local land clearing contractor for kudzu & privet removal in Jacksonville and the surrounding Onslow County communities.
Two plants account for a startling share of the clearing calls around Jacksonville. Chinese privet builds solid ten-foot thickets along fence lines, ditches, and every neglected edge, spread endlessly by birds. Kudzu does its work in the open — blanketing fence corners, outbuildings, and whole tree lines under a green mat that can add dozens of feet of vine in a single growing season.
Removal starts with mass. Privet is either ground where it stands or dug out at the roots, chosen by how much the ground beneath can tolerate; kudzu gets peeled — vines cut at the root crowns and dragged off whatever they've buried, which around here has included barns, boats, and entire pine rows. An excavator with a thumb does the heavy pulling without wrecking what's underneath.
Then comes the honest part: neither plant quits after one cut. Both resprout from root systems that survive the machine, so a real removal includes a follow-up plan — repeat mowing, root-crown work, or targeted treatment — sized to how permanently you want them gone.
Know the enemy: how these two spread
Chinese privet (Ligustrum sinense) escaped from hedges over a century ago and now owns the understory of much of the Southeast; the NC State Extension profile lays out why it's so hard to beat — shade tolerance, root suckering, and fruit that birds carry to every fencerow in the county. Kudzu (Pueraria montana) spends its energy differently: enormous starchy root crowns that refuel the vine no matter how often the top is cut.
That biology writes the playbook. Privet control aims at the root zone — grub the crowns out where the ground can be disturbed, or cut and treat the stumps where it can't. Kudzu control aims at the crowns too, but they're fewer and bigger: find them, sever them, and the mat dies back season by season.
A two-season plan that actually works
Season one is demolition: mulch the privet walls, peel the kudzu, expose the infested ground to light. Season two is enforcement: mow or treat every resprout before it hardens off. Skipping season two is how a parcel ends up cleared twice — regrowth on this coastal plain is fast enough that a summer of neglect undoes most of the visible progress. Where herbicide is the right finisher, it's applied under North Carolina pesticide rules, kept well back from ditches and creek edges per state water-quality guidance from NC DEQ.
The reward is real. Ground reclaimed from privet grows grass the following spring; a fence line freed of kudzu stays free with an annual mow along it. And keeper hardwoods that spent years under vine — surprisingly often still alive — get their canopy back.