Take Action on Your Own Property

Not only can invasive plants threaten your own property and turn it into a weedy mess, but their seeds also get carried by birds or washed downhill into our natural areas and other properties. BE A GOOD NEIGHBOR - TAKE OUT YOUR INVASIVE PLANTS!

Step 1 - Identify the invasive plants (and the natives!)

There are several ways to do this:

Use a mobile app such as iNaturalist, which is pretty good at identifying plants, if you upload a clear photo. Be careful, though - it doesn’t always get it right. Best to confirm before cutting.

Use the ID instructions for invasive vines on the Plant NOVA Trees website and the Blue Ridge PRISM fact sheets

Take a sample to a Master Gardener plant clinic for free advice.

Request a free Wildlife Sanctuary Program site visit. Those volunteers can point out the invasive plants.

Step 2 - Set your expectations

Except for tiny infestations, eradicating any given invasive species is typically a five-year project. Don’t expect it to look all that different by Year 2, especially if you are only using manual control methods! And for some well-established infestations, you may need to either resort to herbicides or keep weeding indefinitely. Learn more about invasive plant management to make your plans.

Step 3 - Prioritize

You can save your trees immediately simply by cutting the invasive (not the native) vines near the ground. Everything else will die back and eventually fall off. If it looks brown for a few months, consider that a mark of pride! The invasive vines will grow back, though, so at some point you’ll want to take care of the roots.

There’s so much to do that we must make choices with our time and energy. Prioritize saving the trees, removing plants before they go to seed, and eradicating any new invaders while they are still scarce enough for you to do that.

As you remove invasive plants, be careful not to disturb our wonderful native vines such as Virginia Creeper and native grapes. Native vines are very unlikely to hurt your trees and are valuable to the birds, whereas invasive vines such as English Ivy, Wintercreeper, and Porcelain Berry will, in time, injure trees, becoming an expensive-to-remove hazard. Don’t let that happen to your trees!

Step 4 - Get the work done

Controlling invasives is not that different from any other weeding task we face on our property. For those who use landscaping companies, you can either train them or hire a company that already has the expertise. A list of companies that have self-identified as having that capacity can be found on the Plant NOVA Natives website.

CAUTION!

Some invasive plants cannot simply be cut down, because doing that stimulates growth and makes the situation much, much worse. Always identify the plant and read about the proper control method. For example, if you simply cut down a Tree-of-Heaven, even if you grind the stump, it will send up a hundred new trees from its roots. You have to kill it before cutting it. Japanese Knotweed is another example where exact methods and timing are needed. 

Visit the Blue Ridge PRISM website for control methods for common invasive species.