Clearing Woods - Vines - Part 2

root cluster is located, it is a matter of scraping back soil until enough root is exposed to cut, then excavating some more to expose the next one, all the while prying at the ground stem to loosen it and reveal more roots and so on until the entire cluster is severed. This exercise is repeated down the stem. After several feet of ground stem is loosened, I saw it off because the weight of the vine makes shifting it to reveal more roots difficult. It's a slow, laborious job, but if you concentrate, you can work up sufficient antagonism against the vine to provide fuel for energy to combat it...a duel to the death.

More native vines next time. See ya' later!

More Information

• Alexander J. Keenan's Hostaenvironment site is sells test kits of Agroliners, but along with the offer are several pages devoted to explaining how tree roots function, why they are invasive and how to deal with them as well as how to build beds or plant where soil is full of tree roots. The pages are a bit awkward to navigate, but well worth the effort. There are many line drawing illustrations of his points. Everybody who plants under trees should make a point of reading these pages.

• For a detailed description of Japanese honeysuckle; what it is doing to our woodlands and how to combat it, see the Nature Conservancy's Element Stewardship Abstract, Lonicera japonica.

• An excellent site for locating information and photos of woody plants is Oregon State's Landscape Plants

Image Credits

Title image and all photos and scans are by Marge.

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