Pulling vines out of trees

[1bush2hog]

I feel your pain -

I'm still fighting a mess of invasives, although there aren't quite as many now as there were. I have been pulling out the roots on the oriental bittersweet whenever and wherever I can. A choker chain works pretty good in moist soil. I haven't tried Roundup yet, but will this spring when I can see what I missed.

Pulling live vines out of the tops of trees is VERY risky, as usually there are dead branches and tops that can come down with the vine. They don't call them widowmakers for nothing!

I prefer to cut the vines and pull and/or spray the remaining roots.

I planted appx. 800 seedlings this past weekend in the areas I have reclaimed, and used tree mats around many of them - hopefully I can reduce my herbicide usage soon.

 

[LBrown59]

Post canceled.

 

[widmn]

I just walk through the woods and cut em with a machete or a pruning "lopper". They die and never seem to come back. I have done this with some that are 3 to 4" in diameter.

 

[1bush2hog]

Some people have all the luck /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

If oriental bittersweet is just cut back, it will come back with a vengence! The roots usually aren't too deep, so I cut about 3 ft up and try to pull the larger ones out of the ground after cutting. The top portion up in the tree dies, and I hit remaining ground sprouts with herbicide and hope... /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif

 

[jtfx6552]

Is there a good place online that shows pictures of invasive plant species?

I have lots of what I have been told is poison ivy vines, and lots of another type which I don't know what they are. I have just been cutting them off, but not applying any herbicide.

This later vine gets real thick, I have many that wont fit in the jaws of my loppers, need to get the saw for them.

 

[rox]

We get some vines aroudn here that are so thick we actually sue them for firewood! Seriously. Hwever it is coming on 2 years of owning the olvie farm so we ahve taken care of almost all the big huge vines. I know what you mean about needing to saw them off.

We have an ivy type vine with stickers on the sides and it wants to crawl up into the olive trees. We do a lot of vine cutting and pulling around here.

 

[LeadPoison]

Don't know if it has been said yet, but what I do is take a machete to the base and let them turn brown and lose their leaves. Usually they pull out a lot easier.

 

[1bush2hog]

Here is a link to invasive plants found in the south -

www.invasive.org/seweeds.cfm


And here is another one: http://plants.nrcs.usda.gov/cgi_bin/topics.cgi?earl=noxious.cgi

 

[daTeacha]

Depending on where you are (hint, hint), you could easily have wild grapevine, which gets to be pretty good size and can kill a big tree. The smaller ones, if they have 5 leaves, are probably Virginia Creeper. Around here in Ohio, those two plus Poison Ivy are the main larger vine, but we also a thing called Greenbriar, which has thorns like sewing needles, even on some of the roots.

When you cut them off, a product called Tardon or something like that, is very effective. Just paint the cut stem with it and it will kill the roots.

 

[jinman]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( I have lots of what I have been told is poison ivy vines, and lots of another type which I don't know what they are. I have just been cutting them off, but not applying any herbicide.

)</font>

Check out my attachment for a quick look at poison ivy. The virginia creeper is a common invasive vine, but it will not hurt you. Hint...count the leaves. If there are more than three, don't worry.