Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

permaculture - Re: [permaculture] The March of Kudzu.

permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: permaculture

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Marimike6@cs.com
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] The March of Kudzu.
  • Date: Mon, 21 Apr 2008 16:06:27 EDT

Waehner,

I think your experience of kudzu may be different from mine here in North
Carolina.

"I think the ideal place for kudzu is on a green roof- its roots could live
in a single container (possibly hydroponic) and spread all over the roof.
The single container would weigh much less than covering the roof with soil,
and could be removed before winter snow weighed down the roof."

An intriguing idea. Before putting it on your roof though, better try it in a
container for a year, training it as best you can. That way you can come to
understand the beast first, seeing what it does before letting it get at your
roof, gutters and downspouts. The notion that you could remove your kudzu
simply by taking down the tub you're growing it in does not compute, in my
universe.

Wisteria might be the model. Around here it's a pest when it gets loose-- it
can pull down a barn, given a couple of years to wrap itself around the wood.
But isolated on a front lawn and tamed, it provides a nice flowering bush.
One
needing constant trimming, of course, but very pleasant when braided back
into itself.

"It may be dificult to eradicate kudzu, but it isn't hard to prevent it from
choking trees- vines thinner than about 3 inches are easily cut with a
serrated pocketknife, evern the older woodier vines can be carved with a
knife. On a hot day, the vines "gasp" when cut- you can hear them sucking
in air as they try to bring water to the leaves. Of course, the kudzu grows
back, but in five minutes you can give a tree another year of life."

I have never seen anything like a 3" stalk. Around here a half inch is pretty
normal. Normally the young ones don't even need to be cut, you can snap them
by hand. The problem is, if you don't get the root out intact you've done
nothing. They can regrow from the root overnight, and put out about 12" of
new
growth each day under good growing conditions.

This would make of it a good fodder plant, if your goats were hungry enough
to eat it. But if your plan is to continually snap the shoots off at ground
level, try once a week. Once a year, around here, is not a viable approach.

"Landscapes overcome by kudzu are a testament to our culture not caring for
the land."

Turn your back on a property for one year and it can be hard to ever finally
eradicate this pest from hell (sorry, Lawrence... I tried to love it). It
puts
out runners and each new runner sinks a line of new roots, one every four or
five feet. If you're retired and have the time to chase down every new root,
fine. A mattock is the tool of preference for bringing it up. Otherwise,
avoid
buying property with the Weed on it.

At least in my experience. My stand had run rampant for five or six years by
the time I got the property. And since then I've yet to do more than fight it
to a draw. It would require daily battle for an entire summer-- time I just
don't have. And I'm only talking a quarter to a half acre at best. The best
I've
been able to do is to contain it in one place, keeping it from spreading.

Michael




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page