girlie,
I have dealt with this situation also. Ditto to all that have been said. Warning on wasps. a few weeks ago they got me .
Little at a time. Snip ,pull.
Felix

Pulling out a vine infestation sucks. It's not quite as bad as ivy - at least so far. We'll see if I say the same thing by the time I get to the roots. I worked on it yesterday and this morning. I'm making progress but it's tiresome.

I wish they did debris pickup more than once a week - the four bins I have aren't quite enough between the GRT crap and the vines.

Thanks for the tip about the skunk vine. I've been making it a priority to get the seed pods just because I don't want anymore seeds making their way to the ground. Weeds... grrrr... vigilance needed.

Thanks for the support. :-) I need a cheerleading section about now.

Well consider me one of the cheerleaders. I have an even larger area to clear and we have been working through it over the last several years. The others are right. You have to be persistent. The weather has certainly improved so working through it isn't as bad.

The Force will be with you.

My parents had a similar situation in a large azalea bed in their front yard but with a lot more swamp/skunk vine. To make matters worse there was a lot of wild blackberry and Tread Softly (a very painful plant!) mixed in with the vines. After several failed attempts to remove the vines without damaging the azaleas they decided to cut the bushes down to about a 1 1/2 feet off the ground (at the time the azaleas were at least 6 feet tall). That gave them clear access to the vines roots and made it a lot easier to clean up the area. When the azaleas grew back they were fuller and better looking then they'd been in years!

A trick for dealing with swamp vine that's become established is to get some empty butter tubs with the lids. Mix up up some brush and vine killer (I prefer the Bayer products) and put it in the tubs. Then carefully uproot a section of the vine, make sure that it's still connected to the rest of the vines, and put it in the tub. Notch the lid so that when you put it on the tub it doesn't damage the vine. Then just leave the tub sitting under the bushes and within a week or two whole sections of the vine should be dead, making clean up so much easier.

Kara

Hehehehe... thanks gardencpa.

What a great trick Kara! :-) I plan on cutting down the azaleas anyway. I'm sure they're very woody and sparse after sitting under the thatch of vine. There are other things in there but azaleas take up the most square footage. When I get to that point I think I'm going to have to try that.

Felix, thanks for the heads up on the wasps. Because of your warning I had an eye out and saw a large nest before it saw me. It's been dealt with and I came out of it unscathed. :-)

Kara - I may have to try that trick too. Sometimes I will cut them off at the ground and let everything above die before pulling it out, but that would take care of the roots too. Hmmm.

Oh you poor thing...I feel your pain. I REALLY do! I cleared 90' of wild grape vine along our back fence when we first moved into our house. It was about 6-8 feet thick. Also had it covering most of the trees in a natural area we have. I took my loppers and started hacking away at it and pulled the vile beast out from everything it had covered (which was half of the back yard). I cut it back close to the ground, put full-strength Roundup in a plastic container and applied the Roundup to each cut stem with a small paint brush. Tedious but effective. Unfortunately there is one neighbor behind us (in another subdivision), who obviously doesn't give a darn about what his yard looks like, and hasn't had his 'yard people' remove it. So I still have a battle of about 16 feet of it growing over to our side, but it's better than all 90 feet of it.

I had no problem with bees but I did find myself eyeball to eyeball with a black racer...ewwww! Scared the begeebees out of me!

Good luck!

Carol

Thanks Carol. :-)

I have been working on it every day this week. The yard debris people took away five *full* bins this morning. I am making progress. I can actually see the azaleas now.

I'm discovering what makes skunk weed such a b*st*rd vine. The vine snaps off the root and the root remains in the ground. I'm going to have a beast of a time in spring when they start to show up again.

The disheartening thing is that by pulling off the surface layer I can see what is in the middle of the thicket. It's packed full with vine. Ugggghhhh. One bin at a time. Thank goodness the weather is so cooperative. I'll be going out in a bit to attack it some more. Lucky me! If you hear a madwoman shrieking in north Orlando, it'll probably be me. ;-)

I do feel for you, cause I have been there. And we battle poison ivy every year for the last ll years. ;o( In the spring, when yours starts to shoot up again why don't you spray it with round up or do as Kara suggested. It does work well.

I thought I'd post my progress... kind of use this thread as a vine removal diary as it were. :-D

View from drive way, further away, facing north.

View from lawn, closer up, facing north.

A particularly nasty thatch that's not able to be reached yet.

View from front, closer up, facing east.

Staring into the thicket... UGH.

One bright spot...

My azalea is blooming out of season but at least I can see the bloom now! :-D

This is after one week of concentrated effort. I have a lot further to go and the interior is just choked with vine. Once I get the outer layer off I am going to have to start some heavy pruning in order to get to the interior.

Wow. You have made lots of progress. It makes me tired just looking at it.

me toooooo...ditto above and also be careful not to snatch the vine as it can exfoliate the leaves off of the very plants/shrubs you are trying to save...good luck...bz

Wasps!
Be very careful as you reach into and cut into well established shrubs! The wasp population this year is huge (less competition from the disappearing bees?) and I've found several large nests around the house. Now, before pruning, I spray the shrub with the hose then wait to see if wasps start swarming out of it. If they do then I come back after dark and spray it well with wasp and hornet killer.

I thought I'd raise this back up... especially since gardencpa asked about it.

Who knows... it may inspire me to get me back out there and start pulling again.

This is where I left off after pulling a muscle in my arm.

I chopped about a half dozen saplings out of it - camphor and cherry laurel. The trunks still remain. On the very right is where the camphor tree stood that did my arm in.

On the tall tree on the left, there is a lot of dead vine now because of where I severed main 'trunks' of the grape vine.

I've gotten a bit farther along than when I started. But with progress comes set backs. I have discovered about a half dozen volunteers of an unknown variety of palm. Hopefully they won't be too beastly to dig out.

Congrats on the progress. Like always, gardening is a process. It takes time, work and patience. That and a stiff martini!

Time for an update... we've made real progress.

We pulled out two truck loads today. Dropped one off at the transfer center and will take another truck load tomorrow. They were closed by the time the second came out.

These go in sequence starting looking north and going clockwise around the mound.

We'll be attacking more of the palms tomorrow. We've severed the grape vines from the main trunk so that we can control any more growth from that point. The cherry laurels are almost all gone and we think that the camphors have all been pulled. The cherry laurels are a "gift" from my neighbor. We'll be fighting those for as long as the tree is there. Mulch will be our friend.

So far so good... hope the weather holds.

Wow! You have really made some progress. I know this is a big job for you, but you'll be so happy with the results. We are here to cheer you on. :o) So keep the pictures coming.

I'm ready for that martini now.

Thanks Katkin. :-)

800 pounds, 4 truck loads later... this is what we have.

And here is a pic of the grape vine trunks... it's a bit obscured but it's pretty noticeable.

It was a very productive weekend. Next weekend if the weather cooperates we'll start hacking away at the azaleas to trim them back and get the rest of the vine.

Oh... just as a note... the big stump that's in the pics was from the oak that fell in the hurricanes of 2004. When the tree guy counted the rings, he said it was 26 years old. Yikes! Talk about fast growing.

WOW! You are doing a fantastic job! Huge improvement! Way to go!

Thanks! :-)

We're both rightfully exhausted tonight. It was a lot of work but with the help of the truck and the transfer station it was a lot easier. We'll both be feeling it tomorrow though.

I am getting very anxious for it to be finished now that we're at this stage of it.

I'm very impressed! I was wondering how you were doing. We have been working on ours too. I'll take some pictures tomorrow. There are grape vines in there as thick as my wrist. I have pretty much given up on pulling them out of the tree canopy because it seems to do more damage to the trees. I am just leaving the vines I can't reach to die and cutting them off as high as I can reach. I have been paying by daughter 50 cents for each one gallon bucket of air potatoes she collects. Too bad you can't eat them. Once I can see everything, we will decide what trees to keep. There are a ton of camphors and I am not willing to cut them all down.

Good job though. You deserve to be tired. Have a beer on me.

Thanks! :-)

I'll take that beer after I get home from work today. *grin*

I'd like to see pics of your torture spot. Man I am sore today I tell ya. My arms feel like they've been lifting weights all weekend.

I am off of work this week so it means I will be working my tail off in the yard. We have been working on this clearing for several months and I expect we won't get done before it gets too hot. I forgot to take "before" pictures. It is why I sympathize so strongly with what you are going through. I am working in layers and just keep it up until I get tired and then go on to something more fun.

These two pictures pan from left to right.

Left - I just started on this:

Right - Looked like the left but is finished- mostly. You can still see plenty of vines in the canopy but I will let them just die off.

This is what it looks like behind:

And the latest pile of stuff. We are just burning it as we go since we can.

Holy cow!!! :-O :-O

All of a sudden I feel so much better about my 'little' thatch. :-D Yours makes mine look like a tiny little spot in comparison. You have my sympathy. I almost feel silly being so grumpy about mine after looking at yours. Teehee...

You've done a great job of clearing them out. :-)

You shouldn't feel silly. You inspired me to get started! One thing I have realized in this project is that the smaller vines are harder to work with and that is mostly what you have.

We should both be proud of ourselves. I know I am.

strawberrygirlie, I am very proud of you! Half of my allotted garden plot looked that way when I decided to clear it. I started with loppers then pulled, then used the mattock (I love that tool) with hubby's help. Our Jack Russel Terrior loves to pull so he helped too.*S* At least I got most of it done before it got too hot and I have about a 60 sq ft place to garden. Cat's Claw vine, Virginia Creeper, Skunk Vine, Wild Grapes, wild blackberries, and the WORST, something we call ugly vine (don't know what it is except it has a billion thorns) all created a painful jungle. Also had to get rid of a couple of wild cherry trees and one clump of camphor. By the way, what is GRT?

Gardencpa, I said *almost*. :-D It's still a herculean task, but looking at yours just makes me thankful it's not as large. I am glad I inspired you. How is your progress this week? I'd love to see more pics.

Thanks sandygator. :-) GRT = golden rain tree. That nasty bugger that spreads seed pods hither and yon. If it were sterile it wouldn't be so bad, but alas it's not.

We don't have a mattock, but I am lovin' the chainsaw when it comes to the larger things. When you finished clearing, did you put down any weed barrier or mulch to keep your efforts intact?

I have not pulled the first vine this week. It looks exactly the same as it did on Monday. I have been off of work this week and have been planting/mulching around the house. I plan to post some progress pictures of that on Saturday or Sunday. Maybe I will get out and pull some more vines this weekend. Today we went canoeing on Juniper Run in the Ocala National Forest. Picture perfect weather. Not too windy with a nice cool breeze but enough sun. I feel verrrry relaxed right now.

gardencpa; I am jealous..juniper is so beautiful. Planning a mid-april camping trip there with family and really looking forward to it.
strawberry..no, too much space. I guess I'll just fight them as they come. I am using a lot of pine straw mulch which I hope is ok and will help. I do love my wild grapes tho and left them on the fence where they belong. They make the best syrup and jelly!

My son showed me this video of Rick and Dudley vs "The Vine"

Here is a link that might be useful: Rick and Dudley vs

That was funny! It also gives the second reason I stopped pulling vines out of the canopy. I did the same thing (except with no dog to help since they seem to be smarter than me). Tim burned up all the latest junk yesterday so I may have to go clear some more.

Gardenpca, I don't blame you. I kinda wondered about spending the whole week of your vacation fighting vines. ;-)

LOL, Sandy... what a cute little video. I can relate in a lot of ways.

Well, I was hoping to come here after a very productive weekend of lopping, hacking, trimming and possibly mulching. Unfortunately plans change. Friday night I came down with a beast of a head cold and have spent the past 72 hours divided between the couch and the bed. And from the feel of it, I've got at least one more day down.

At least they've had some good movies on TCM.

Well after recovering for a week, we were back at it today. My boyfriend and I both caught the head cold so neither of us were at 100% when we started yesterday. We only got one load out - about 100 pounds. All stick-y, bulky, cumbersome stuff. After that we were pretty much beat.

We're at the point of clearing out the azalea itself. It's ridiculously overgrown. Giant "S" shaped fountain growth off the trunk has spawned "baby" azalea bushes at the outer perimeter. We think that may be a bonus though when we're all done.

We went out and cleaned out a little more this morning, but just enough to fill the yard bins for pick up.

Closer...

Farther away...

Here's the center of the azalea thatch. I've never quite encountered something like this and we're both a bit curious how high/low to prune the multi armed trunk. So far we've just been cutting to be able to get in there, but it's going to need some cleaning up after we've gotten all the crap out.

My bright spot for the day. :-) Gazania is a marvelous plant for my yard. Heat/cold tolerant, bug/disease resistant, sterile, non-invasive, pretty flowers. The orange one here is a new addition, but the pink/violet one I put in a year ago is still going strong.

Moving right along. Another 260 pounds worth of debris out today. So far we're up to 1160 pounds.

We're really making progress now. We're thinking about transplanting the volunteer azaleas to the fence line for a hedge. The center still needs thinning out. The vine is pretty much gone at this point though. We cut out the rest of the vine trunks today because they were doing the spring sprouting thing.

When everything is pruned down and transplanted as it needs to be we'll lay newspaper layers down and cover them with mulch.

Then we can tackle the back yard. :-P

You guys are awesome! It is something else to scroll from the top to the bottom and see how much progress you have made. Marry that guy.

I have been in our mess cutting a bit but have not pulled anything more out so there is this big mat of vines on the ground that you have to walk over. I think that I may work tomorrow getting that out to burn but then I am calling it quits for a while. I have lost my enthusiasm for the project (not that I ever had much). I want to play with the plants and get some stuff started for nova's swap. I also need to re-work my micro-sprinklers a bit.

Rock on vine-girl!

Hehehehe... vine girl. Do I get a cape with that? :-D

It just feels so good to be at this point. I don't want to be battling vine again next year. Since this thatch is in the front of the house I'd like to see it all prettied up. :-)

Time for an update. Another 140 pounds out.

A change of tactic. Originally we were going to dig up the edge of azaleas that had volunteered from the rooting wood that had fountained out. However when I inspected it this morning and spent some quality time out there I decided it was a fruitless pursuit because of all the vine and other garbage inside the edge of azaleas. Instead we dug up a half dozen viable azaleas and transplanted them into pots and then clipped out the rest bit by bit. We're going to spread black plastic or create a lasagna bed to "cook" the bed to prepare it for planting a little later in the season.

The first and second shots are the cleared bed. We are going to keep the original four azalea bushes that were at the heart of the mound and clean them up so they can grow and be healthy.

The third shot is of the azaleas that we dug and saved for later planting.

It's all a bit messy but it still looks a heck of a lot better than that huge vine ridden patch that it started as.

Wow, that looks fantastic. I know it was a lot of hard work, but you must really feel satisfaction now. :o)

Wow - great job. I've been following your progress since your first post. I went through a similar vine experience when I bought my home 8 years ago. When I was done, I even found a citrus tree that was ccompletely engulfed by vines that I didn't even know was there.

Awesome job.

Thanks guys. :-)

It has been a lot of work and a 'long journey'. *grin*

I'm just so glad to have it at this point I could do cartwheels... well that is if my arms weren't killing me from pulling, lifting and toting. :-p

Now I'm excited to post the final shot when it's all done. That's still a little bit off, but it feels like it's so much closer than it was last fall.

Good job! You finally conquered it!!! I know that is a wonderful feeling.

~Betsy

Well... we're there. Okay, almost there. But I'm saying we're there just because we're so dang close that 20 minutes of mulch laying doesn't mean much work.

summary:

7 months time
10 trips to the transfer station
about 30 bins of debris to the curb
about 2000 pounds of debris removed
about a 6 foot stack of newspaper
5 cubic yards of mulch
6 pulled muscles
about 10 days spent limping and whimpering ;o)
lots of blood, sweat, tears and grunts

and this is what you get...

A *HUGE* thank you to all of you that were cheering me on. Trust me when I say that it really helped me continue on with this project. When I lost heart, I came to this thread and with your words of encouragement I was able to persevere and get to this point.

Hoozah!!!

The e-beer is on me! *grin*

Wow that looks super. I hope your neighbors stop by every day and tell you how much better the place looks. It increases the value of their homes too.

I just happen to have a beer in my hand right this minute so I'm raising it to you and all the hard work you've done. Congrats! (Little 'clink' of the bottle on the edge of the monitor.) It looks so much better and everything you did was worth the effort.

Now I can hardly wait to see the transformation as you start to plant around this bed. It's a blank canvas!

Kate

Strawberrygirlie,

You did an outstanding job! What a transformation from wild to wonderful!

Linda Leaf

Thanks everyone. :o)

Barb, I had the same thought. There's more to tackle on the property but that was the biggest and worst of it. It's good to have it at this stage. And actually, my boyfriend was outside the other day (between mulch batches). A neighbor stopped on her way while strollering with her grandchild just to compliment us on all our hard work.

Cheers, Kate. LOL I have to wait to plant anything. The bed has to bake a while. there's so much woody debris in the soil from the roots, stems and all the nonsense that came out. We'll see what it's like after the rains of the summer. Guaranteed though that the azalea will NEVER get like it was in that first pic. I'm thinking some smaller ornamental grasses or something around the border. I have the summer to do some research though.

Linda, thanks so much. :o) I look out from the porch and it's like a full body sigh of relief seeing it at this point. I drive up the street coming home and I feel like giggling not to have to contend with that vine et al anymore.

There's still 2-3 cubic yards of mulch that needs to be spread but it looks 1800 times better at this point that I just had to share! :o)

Fantastic! Have you looked at the 'before pics' lately?

Just about everyday lakeron. *grin*

Way to go, Girlie! Looks fabulous. Part of what I cleared has started to grow back because it can't be mowed yet. Between the chiggers and the heat, it can all wait. We did pull out some of the camphors so Tim could mow so not all is lost. I know that when the weather cools down, it won't be so bad to get in there again.

Consider doing this when you go to plant - Rake back the mulch (don't tell BF this part yet) and throw down a layer of mushrooms compost or something organic and rich before planting. It will make your life easier. You won't have to dig too far into the woody stuff to plant then. Then rake the mulch back over.