Of Vines and Villains

January 10, 2024 5:25 AM

“Where the summers are warm and moist, it grows with great luxuriance.”
posted by Kitteh (7 comments total)

This reminded me of "Trees and Other Entanglements" on HBO.
posted by DJZouke at 5:34 AM on January 10

Fascinating article/history! One thing I heard about kudzu is that we non-Southerners have a misapprehension about the amount of kudzu in the South, because it grows especially well in roadside areas. That is, it thrives in areas cleared of forest, places with a lot of sunlight. And some of us just drive through this part of the country. But, then, some natives to Kudzu Land might be prone to the same misunderstanding, because the stuff takes over cleared areas like homesteads.
posted by kozad at 6:11 AM on January 10

Having just traveled up and back through the Nantahala Gorge, kudzu it's a real shame what kudzu has done to the forest there.

“Tangled Up in Kudzu,” Tamara Marshall Whiting, The Appalachian Voice, 01 August 2019

“Answer Man: Is kudzu a problem inside national forests, parks near Asheville?” Joel Burgess, Asheville Citizen Times, 20 December 2022
posted by ob1quixote at 9:23 AM on January 10

After living in Memphis for about a year, my then-wife and I bought a house. The yard had kudzu in the back, and much of the backyard was in a sort of perpetual twilight because kudzu had grown up the guy wire for the utility pole, then grown out across the utility wire itself and dropped down in a sort of green curtain. I cleared it out--leaving a pile out front for the trash collection that was larger than our car--and before that was picked up, new kudzu had started growing up the guy wire. So, I very, very carefully excavated the roots from both our yard and the neighbors', and finally exterminated that particular patch of it.
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:15 AM on January 10 [2 favorites]

Even in Japan, where presumably there are other creatures around to help keep kudzu in check it still does a good job of taking things over. By my in-laws' place there's a hillside with an abandoned metal building and who knows what else that's covered in kudzu. It probably makes the building less of an eyesore than it would be otherwise.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 11:17 AM on January 10

This article does talk an awful lot about basket-weaving with kudzu...
posted by kozad at 4:41 PM on January 10

IMO all vines are terrible. The 'ivy league' English ivy is only spoken of fondly because they can afford an army of gardeners to control it.

And if there are any solutions that work to get rid of it I've never heard of them. Animal feed? Nah, only hardcore poison works which I'm sure is equally great for the environment as an invasive that you can almost watch grow.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:39 AM on January 11