The Hillside Strangler

You and me and a billion tiny spores 6

The older man with the Coke-bottle lenses at the Boston GreenFest had a simple table—just a poster with a few pictures taped to it, and a sprig of something green.  He looked grim and earnest, and although all the other booths were more alluring, full of enticing pamphlets about new green nonprofits, I went over to talk to him.

“Hey, I know that plant!” I said, picking up the sprig.

swallowwortLush looks can be deceiving.It’s a dark green vine, with pods that look like small reddish peppers.  A variety of Swallow-wort (Vincetoxicum), brought in as an ornamental plant from Ukraine and Russia at the turn of the last century, it’s known by several names, including my favorite, “Dog Strangling Vine.”  In the later summer, the pods burst and millions of white spores float out and reseed.

Once you begin to see it, you find it is everywhere—a New England kudzu, climbing trees along the highway, creeping along a neighbor’s fence, inhabiting every vacant lot. And it dominates the north side of the JP Green House yard, a small hillside with otherwise great potential for terraces of berries.  It takes root in any abandoned, neglected space (yep—that would be us!).

“I’ve been fighting this stuff all summer,” I told him cheerfully.  Just the weekend before we had hosted a work-party and ten friends had stripped the hillside of all visible green vines.  Uprooting it entirely, however, was almost impossible.  It was a rhizome and spread underground.

Invasive Plants Man shook his head wearily and began his tirade.  This stuff had to be stopped.  If it wasn’t contained now it would smother out all the native plants.  And the problem was, nobody knew what it was.  People looked around and they saw green and thought that all was well.  The knowledge of what was native and proper, and what was a ruthless killer, had been lost at least a generation ago.

He talked of his struggles with the upscale town of Brookline, where the seriousness of the threat was not recognized.  He gestured despairingly at his fellow tablers:  “They don’t take this seriously!”

“I take this seriously!”  I assured him, slipping into a soothing maternal attitude out of habit, since I’m used to being around worked-up environmentalists.

He reached over and grabbed my arm for emphasis:  “It’s just you and me against a billion tiny spores!”

Egads!

swallowwort rootsWith roots like these, who needs enemies?I became dutifully obsessed with this Hillside Strangler.  I plucked it out of people’s yards at parties and presented them with an ominous synopsis of the coming invasion.  I Googled late into the night, finding wonderful quotes like this one, from Canadian ecologist Waysel Bakowsky:  “We stand to lose our natural ecosystem, all our native plants.”

Various methods of conquering the DSV were suggested.  You can burn it, soak the seeds in alcohol or gasoline, or boil them.  (Why not dynamite, or arsenic?  Nuclear radiation?)

Amidst the hysteria, there were a few voices of reason, and I clung to them.  Just keep chopping it down, they said—it will eventually lose heart.  And till, till, till the soil, then plant native plants—tough ones.

It’s July, one year later, and we are still at war.  Our denuded hillside is covered with ugly blue tarps, through which Ken has hopefully planted raspberries.  The DSV bursts through in places—like the creature in Alien bursting out of its hapless victim’s stomach—looking animate, grotesquely healthy, ready to crawl up your legs.  It’s also spilling over the sides of the tarp, and displacing the rocks in Simon’s rock garden (“Hey, someone moved my rocks!”).

I arm myself with our six-foot scythe, and Kuba with the Japanese hedge-trimmers, and we hack off the pods before they burst into those “billion tiny spores.”  I think I will need to talk to the city before I decide to douse our brush pile with gasoline though.

If only Invasive Plants Man could see me and my 10-year-old putting our anger issues to work so constructively.  It’s all for love, really.  Go raspberries!

 

 

Andrée Zaleska is the co-founder of the JP Green House, and a community organizer who works for the Institute of Policy Studies. More information about the JP Green House can be found at jpgreenhouse.org.

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  1. atreyger Posted 10:13 am
    07 Jul 2009

    1. They're not 'spores', they're seeds.2. If you mow it, it will eventually become a dwarf version of a typical swallow-wart. It MAY work better, if you let it grow to about 2/3 of typical flowering adult size (or just before flowering) and then cut it down.3. One way for you to get rid of these is till to about a foot's depth and get rid of any root stock that you find, or find enough soil to cover it by about six inches.4. Another way is to spray an herbicide and kill these outright. I am not familiar with swallow-wart's ability to propagate via stalks, but if it's anything like Japanese knotweed, then the ONLY way to get rid of it is by spraying. I'm not saying that it is like knotweed, but if...

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  2. Kiara Posted 8:16 pm
    07 Jul 2009

    No no Atreyger we do not use herbicides. I have gotten rid of a good size strand of Japanese knotweeds by first digging out the root clumps, planting grass seeds and, over several years (perhaps 3 or 4), systematically pulling out by hand the reddish shoots sprouting from the remaining roots. No plant can live indefinitely without photosynthesis. Their reserve of nutrients stored in the roots eventually becomes depleted. So, good for the "voices of reason."To my knowledge swallow-wort has not become a problem in my neighborhood which is not too far from Jamaica Plain.Please remember that a good many of our common landscape plants are of foreign origin.  This includes most of the grasses used for lawns--and earthworms.

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  3. atreyger Posted 8:55 am
    08 Jul 2009

    "No no Atreyger we do not use herbicides."We = you?

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  4. Andrée Zaleska's avatar

    Andrée Zaleska Posted 4:06 pm
    08 Jul 2009

    It's an interesting discussion about herbicides.  My kneejerk reaction is also "of course we do not use herbicides".  But is that really the obvious moral response?  Would a little Roundup, appropriately and minimally applied, really be worse than letting a non-native plant threaten native flora?  I'm not at all sure...What I believe is what I'm told by experts: There is no effective herbicide against a serious Vincetoxicum invasion.  The slow and steady methods of suffocation (depriving of light, really), burying the upper parts of the plant, pitting strong native plants against it, and patiently mowing over and over again seem both safer and more effective.(Oh, and spores is actually a synonym of seeds.  I liked the word better because it implies wispy floating things, which they are....) 

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  5. katmainomad Posted 3:34 pm
    09 Jul 2009

    Not that I discount the viscious and exasperating nature of invasives, and I am not familiar with this one, but is there good evidence that these actually invade pristine wilderness and take over? Most of the invasives up here in Alaska are not so good at invading pristine native ecosystems. What they are good at is invading disturbed roadsides and streambanks, yards, farms, etc. So then usually the issue becomes one of human interests against the invasive, more than pristine nature against the invasives. Though I am opening a whole can of worms by even saying this, down to the moral roots of given that humans do affect the whole earth, that pristine nature absent humans is not really extant, that the earth itself probably doesn't care a whole lot what form the future takes (permian-triassic extinctions and all), but that most of us agree to a moral imperative to lessen the death and destruction wrought by ourselves on living beings and natural beauty.I agree that you seem to be following the prudent course to increasing the biodiversity and human utility of your yard. The roots can not live forever if the tops are consistently chopped off. At least you have winter to rest!
    Whatever happened with the lack of a foundation? Are foundation constructing activities underway? Just curious!

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  6. Andrée Zaleska's avatar

    Andrée Zaleska Posted 6:17 am
    10 Jul 2009

    Katmainomad,You are right -- the invasives get a foothold in the parts of our environment already disrupted by humans.  The problem is--and you allude to this--that there is less and less pristine nature to hold ground against them. I also agree that the earth itself does not care what form the future takes.  Life's only clear intent is to further itself, and weeds have as much "right" to do so as any other plant, animal or human.  They are evolution's victors, after all.I also do not believe that God cares what form the future takes--or cares whether humans survive as a species.  One of our great self-delusions is to think that God protects us.  But I do believe in the Divine.  But that's a post for another day.And oh yes--breaking news! -- WE HAVE A FOUNDATION!  It was finished last week and looks great.  All things now seem possible. 

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Series Intro
In which we chronicle the creation of a groundbreaking eco-home 5
How we found 133 Bourne St., and how we almost lost it 3
Fighting climate chaos with a hammer and a heart 4
Getting to know the neighborhood -- through its trash 0
Fourth of July musings on symbols, patriotism, and identity 3
You and me and a billion tiny spores 6
Treasure hunting during building demo 1
Love in a time of cataclysm 5
The amazing promise and many challenges of passivhaus construction 4
Should Kuba have a puppy? 19
Puppies and bunnies and carnivorous eco-curmudgeons 7
The fight to save childhood 8
Therapy on the Titanic 4
Roselle's Rollicking Tale & Moral of the Story 0
The best part about climate change 1
Eve of Destruction (New Millennium) 5
Simple people 6
Slideshow: Reinventing the JP Green House 0
Home Economics of the JP Green House, Part 1 0
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