What's a kudzu ?

Kudzu is the vine that ate the south. It was brought from Japan to help with erosion here in the south and liked the climate. As you see it covers everything- Those are trees that the vine has covered. It can grow a foot a day and does so gladly.

Nice picture!...Interesting!
Konrad

Wow! I had to laugh when you said it 'ate the south'...Nice photo with all that green and it looks like they're topiary style! Do they consider it invasive?

Wow, thanks for posting that! It's kind of eerie seeing it like that. How on earth do you control that stuff? Round Up? That would kill the trees, too.

You've really got me curious about that stuff now. I'm wondering if there are potential benefits from that other than controlling soil erosion, like the roots breaking up clay soils, etc., if only you can get rid of it later.

Aliska and juanital, it is now banned in some states, if not all, from being planted. Yes, it is very invasive. Roundup will kill it eventually but it is quite persistent. I read somewhere that cows will give very rich milk when they eat it, I'm sure goats would love it. Google 'kudzu' and you will find out all about it. One day I will learn how to post a link to other sites.

That is interesting. I asked and asked and never got an answer on how to post an external link, even looked at the source code. I know how to code hyper links but it doesn't work here for some reason. I even turned to the help files, and then finally figured it out for myself.

Look under the message box. See where it says optional link url? Copy and paste the url of the page you want to people to see there. In the name of the link box, say something descriptive.

You will see that the link will now show up when you hit preview prefixed by the words "Here is a link that may be useful" (may not have quoted it to the letter) we see so much on the board.

Of course, the rules apply about commercialism and other no no's; I haven't quite figured out what the fine line is for some things. Sometimes it is useful to post a link to a nursery or other commercial site whether supported by this site or not to get opinions about them, or to tell people where they can buy certain hard-to-find items they need for their gardening, etc.

I'm trying- hope it works.
Gee, thanks. It worked after the second try. That is so simple.

Here is a link that might be useful: Kudzu

That link with photos is simply amazing. I don't see much good about the stuff. If I had to look at some of those scenes every day, I'd get claustrophobic and think it was coming to get me lol.

I've never been in the deep south, and sometimes I think it would be quite pleasant but now I don't know. Even the spanish moss which looks quite pretty in pictures might get to me.

I'm fighting Virginia Creeper and another unknown vine that kind of looks like poison oak but isn't, it covers peoples' houses and garages here if you let it get the upper hand. Round Up to the rescue. We are rid of most of it thank heaven and now I have a paint swab, rubber gloves, and a full-strength can and will go after the rest of it that missed the purge. It is awful. I can only imagine what kudzu would be like. It must have a vast underground network root system like my stuff, and that is one battle when you want to plant things, you have to cut through that first.

I've never liked spraying anything for years now, but finally capitulated. Enough was enough.

So I'm guessing the kudzu kills everything it covers? One advantage of cold winters, we don't have stuff like that.
At our winter place in FL, my son and DH's daughter were creeped out by the Spanish moss hanging from the trees, particularly the way it looks in the dark. They said it looked like a scene from a bad movie.
JoanMN

The one good thing I can possibly see from it is that after a bad infestation of the stuff, when you finally get rid of it, the root systems may have broken down hard soils, especially clay, but that is just a conjecture.