AS MUCH AS I LOVE ALL PLANTS...

Some are simply too much of a nuisance and some so hazordous they must be dealt with. In my situation I am left with little choice other than to remove my particular invasive species.

Source

THE KUDZU VINE HAS BEEN KILLING MY FOREST

And I intend to put a stop to that. The erradication of said pest began today. We made our way into the forest at the homestead armed with our machete and a radio to have some music. The vines are particularly bad in one part we have named "Vineland"...this is where we head today.

If these vines were to be left unchecked, they will grow so large, they will pull over 50 to 100 ft(15-30 meter) tall trees! In order for me to have a healthy Forest, to allow all of my wild life to thrive, these vines must go. But how did they get here?

THE HISTORY

The Kudzu Vine is native to Asian countries and was brought to Southeastern America in 1876 to be used as an ornamental plant for shading porches. But it did not take long for the vines to spread out of control and begin taking over yards and then entire forests. It has spread over large parts of America since.

Source

DOING MY PART

After we got our music set up we started hacking away. Evan, my son, loves doing this as it involves destroying stuff. So I let him slash at them until I could tell he was wearing out. He knocked out several before I took over.

That above is one of the larger ones we cut through. Like I said these things are out of control and I plan on putting each and every one of them in their place to protect my trees and wildlife.

A SAD DISCOVERY

As we finished up and began our trek back to the truck our hearts were broken as we found the vines had claimed a new victim. A young Ash tree, maybe twenty years old. Taken out by the weight of the vines pulling down on her. It was too much and she snapped.

The vines responsible for this damage are highlighted in yellow and as you may see in the picture, Evan started in on their destruction immediately...however I let him know we would have to cut the whole tree down, so the vines would come done with it. I believe as much as he wanted to hack those vines up for what they did to his tree, he was relieved to not have to do the work.

Below is a very tall Cottonwood Tree(the fastest growing tree in North America). It is probably near 100 feet(30 meters) tall in danger of being pulled over like the last tree.

We definitely have our work cut out for us but if we do a little at a time we will get there soon. Maybe in about a year we should have the vine problem under control. In the near future we hope to get a used chainsaw to help speed the process up a lot.

Thanks for checking in on our homestead progress and as always we send our love to all our friends out in Steemland!

ALL PHOTOS ARE MINE EXCEPT THOSE SOURCED. ALL PHOTOS WERE TAKEN WITH MY KYOCERA DURAFORCE PHONE.