Pulling vines out of trees

Chuck52 · Mar 31, 2002

I spent last Saturday whacking grape vines. They had pretty much destroyed a nice clump of wild plum trees. I ended up cutting out all the trees because they were so mis-shapened by the vines it didn't look like they'd recover. Then I tried pulling one of the larger vines from a still healthy water oak by hand. The tree stayed up, but I had to dodge about fifty pounds of wrything vine as it fell. At least my son found the dance step I did amusing. I've got some vines that are so thick I thought they were the trees. Sure is fun to whack them with my machete. My son and I were having a contest to see who could cut the biggest vine with a single stroke.

Chuck

GregGG · Apr 1, 2002

ah, male bonding. Better yet, productive male bonding

djradz · Apr 2, 2002

Will, save yourself a lot of trouble and just cut them off near the ground. I like to leave enough sticking up so you can be sure at a later date that they truly are cut, and just leave them alone. In a very short time the vines dry out and put no burden on the tree whatsoever. The vines fall out in a couple of years. Seems they deteriorate very quickly. This time of year, if your referring to wild grape vines, you'll be truly amazed at how much water is flowing in the vine. You truly could get a small drink just from all the water that is running out of the cut.

Chuck52 · Apr 2, 2002

You're sure right about the sap. Since I had just read a thread about maple sugaring I tasted the stuff. It's probably sweet enough to concentrate....wonder if it would taste of grapes.

I leave a lot of them in the trees simply because you pull too many limbs off trying to get them down. However, this oak I refer to as a water oak has small but tough limbs that make pulling the vine out a bit easier, at least until it falls on you.

Chuck

LBrown59 · Dec 31, 2004

I dug up 8 or 10 2 to 6 inch diameter trees last fall with the BH.
Every one of them was full of honeysuckle vines top to bottom.
They were tough to dig up casu you could hardly see through then to dig around the trunk. On about the 3 rd tree I caught a Bh hose in the vines and small branches & bent the tubing and had to replace it.
Thought I would try getting the vines out but that proved an exercise in futility.
So I dug the rest of the trees out making sure I kept the BH hoses out of the branches and vines.

Gatorboy · Dec 31, 2004

So I dug the rest of the trees out making sure I kept the BH hoses out of the branches and vines. 

So, your solution to getting vines out of trees is to dig them up? If you are going to bring back to life a post nearly 3 years old, I would hope you would have something useful to add to the conversation.

LBrown59 · Dec 31, 2004

That's not what I said or implied.

You missed the point of the post is why to you it was usless.

To others it might or may have some value.

JerryG · Dec 31, 2004

Dave,
That's how I read it also.

LBrown59 · Dec 31, 2004

( Dave,
That's how I read it also. )

You read it wrong

OkeeDon · Dec 31, 2004

We have a thread about the best way to remove vines. We have a reader who once dug up some trees. His vines got in the way, causing some damage, so he tried to remove the vines. He wasn't able to remove them ("...an exercise in futility"), so he finished the job of digging out the trees with a little more care.

The point is clear -- if you are digging out trees, and the vines get in the way and damage your backhoe, and you can't remove the vines, then be more careful so your backhoe won't get any more damage.