Removing honeysuckle - what to plant in its place

[Flunkie #3]

Hello arborists. I have a patch of woods that I plan to remove a bunch of honeysuckle from.
These woods are mostly mature locust and 10-15 year old black walnut, with a pretty solid (75%) canopy over the woods. The honeysuckle has thrived in this partly shade environment and is arched all over the place. It dominates the 0-20' range of most of the woods.. Nothing tends to grow under these honeysuckles, its bare ground.

I have the means to remove these honeysuckle bushes, and Ive already done a bit of this. I wanted to ask yall some questions before I got too far along:

1. Is it a bad idea to remove every last honeysuckle plant? Should I phase it? Or leave a few? My understanding is that they're invasive and something to be removed, but I wonder if there is some ecological imbalance reason against just wiping them all out in one wild weekend. If you add it up it will be over an acre of area where this will be cleared. One potential concern is erosion after these all get torn out - They get pulled out roots and all and its turned up bare ground afterwards.

2. Im looking for suggestions on what to plant in the place of these honeysuckle forests. As I said, there is a decent canopy of locust and walnut over these areas and its not the sunniest areas. Other stuff that tends to grow in the same area if it hasn't been shaded out by the honeysuckle is wild raspberry and other thorny briar patch stuff, wild grape vines (another wild weekend to get those out), and some waist high wild flowers. Ive read that redbud is a decent tree to plant in the place of honeysuckle, and it looks cool in bloom, but I doubt it would do well in this 50-75% shade area. Any suggestions for trees or shrubs that may do well in an area like this?

 

[ATH]

I'm also a Forester and have worked with quite a few woodland owners on honeysuckle projects. Here are my thoughts for what they are worth:
1) yes...remove it all. Then do it again next year, the following year, and the year after that too. Them plan to make foliar spraying of honeysuckle a fall tradition for many years to come. It gets easier. I suggest fall because it is easy to see when not else is green and not much concet about killing desirable stuff because it is not green.

2). Don't plant anything. See if good things come in. They often will. While I don't want to walk through an raspberry patch, this is a good woodland understory plant. It will die off in the shade (unlike honeysuckle)...but in the meat I think it is a good thing to have. What else to plant/encourage depends on soil. Drier sites.may do well with flowering dogwood and serviceberry. A hydric soil is a great home for spice bush. Many many other options. Also see if you can find sources for native woodland wildflower seeds.