Kudzu assault!

[SouthernN'Proud]

does that stuff grow in winter weather?

Grow, no. Survive until next summer, ohhellyeah.

 

[tonksy]

It is deciduous which means that it dies back in the winter (or at least the leaves do) and returns in the spring with a vengeance.

 

[Dave]

i'll have to take a closer look at the leaves of the plant out back. i dont think its kudzu, but the damn plant is everywhere.

 

[tonksy]

It starts to bloom about this time or later so that might help you identify it.

 

[unclehobart]

Take a piccy and we'll all collectively play detective.

Kudzu does die off... rather, goes dormant. The leaves all fall off and the vines remain. The vines are still cable strong and prevent one from walking through an area. The whole morass works with the collective unity of a spiderweb. The vines are still quite alive and start fresh from that full extention the next spring. A single plant will run off in 6-8 directions and swarm an area of roughly 40X40. Each year wil quad that base of the original plant... but each plant coughs up a few 100 seeds giving one roughly 20-30 new root bases to work from doing its own 40x40 overlap of the original plants. The whole thing after two years makes for a 5-8 foot high bramble wall composed of vines ranging up to an inch thick. The whole thing happens year after year and just gets steadily higher and higher until you have compressed 15 foot high cable wall that nothing short of napalm will touch.

 

[Aunty Em]

read a rotten.com article on it, the fact the US gov't brought it to the US as a "wonder plant" to halt erosion, and how it destroys everything, showed one valley 4 photos over a year, ate the entire valley and pulled down house.

Kudzu by rotten.com

OOh... the plant that won the south... and the north and the east and the west...

 

[highwayman]

and the north and the east and the west...

Not out here, we still can use weed killers...