Submitted by: Lisa Hedgecock
Date Submitted: 6/2/2003
Location: Central North Carolina
Question Asked: First picture: A picture of a 3 leaf vine that came up with a transplanted amarylis plant. Central North Carolina.
Second picture: This big vine is growing up the side of an huge oak tree in our back yard in central North Carolina. Regular (english) ivy hugs the trunk and this stuff, poison ivy? is growing out ward. How do I kill it without killing the tree. I don't care if the english ivy dies, I just don't want to kill the tree.
Answer: Hi Lisa -
UPDATED The first and second picture are of that same mystery plant. If you look closely, you'll see thorns / bristles along the vine. This is a scrambler sometimes commonly called "brambles" or "briers". Likely is wild raspberry. Wild blackberry is generally more erect.
I'm familiar with the poison ivy in your area and the third picture definitely shows poison ivy vine(s) up the nice tree.
As for getting rid of the poison ivy vine on the tree, it's pretty easy though does require a bit of patience. The safest method for the tree is to cut a large chunk out of the poison ivy vine and pry the chunk off the trunk of the tree and dispose of properly. This will kill off the rest of the vine. You may end up with a few sprouts from the bit of vine left at the ground but those are easy to take care of. Be sure to not use power tools to cut the chunk as you don't want to send bits of leaf, stem, vine, and urushiol oil into the air and onto you. |
