Invasive Vines in the Lowcountry: How Kudzu, Wild Grapes and Ivy Threaten Trees and Landscapes

Creeping, coiling and climbing vines are coming for your trees

Story by Carolyn Males

Kudzu. It’s like a monster out of a horror movie. It slithers, it snakes, it twists, it spirals. It reaches out into the air and gloms onto neighboring trees, buildings, power lines, junked automobiles and any old thing it can lace its tendrils and hairy rootlets around and through. Glimpse kudzu from a South Carolina road, and it looks as if you’re viewing misshapen topiaries. Catch a clump on the edge of a forest, and it looks as if it’s cascading down like a leafy waterfall. But this aggressive three-lobed leaf infiltrator is actually advancing up, not down its “host” tree, blocking sunlight and weakening branches. And if this intrepid invader outgrows the treetops? It just keeps circling and building back upon itself. Kudzu threatens to take over the countryside and would if it could. (It’s been called “The Vine That Ate The South.”) Over decades there have been countless efforts to thwart its “progress” but it still slinks on. 

You don’t find too much of it here along the coast — our sandy soils are inhospitable to this pesky weed, explains Glen Payne, Clemson University’s urban horticulture agent for Beaufort County. Payne and I had braved heat and humidity to meet and view some invasive vines up close. We were standing mid-island on Hilton Head, but the clump of kudzu, he’d discovered, had been further north, twirling its way up into oaks along the Spanish Moss Trail in Beaufort and coiling around pines near the entrance to Parris Island. About 100 years ago the U.S. Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service encouraged people to plant this Asian import to stabilize creek banks and gullies. Then in the Depression-era South, where crops like cotton, corn and tobacco had depleted nutrients from the soil, kudzu was seen as a savior, replenishing nitrogen. Cash-poor farmers were paid $8 an acre to plant it in their fields. As a plus, kudzu was hardy and grew fast, dropping its numerous roots deep into the ground and growing at breakneck speeds of as much as a foot a day. 

It was used for livestock feed, and with its fragrant purple blooms it was pretty enough to serve as a “porch vine,” shading folks as they sat in their rockers on hot afternoons. But it’s rocket-paced growth threatened to overtake everything in its path. By 1954 kudzu was deemed a threat and removed from the list of acceptable cover crops. In the 1970s the USDA labeled it “a noxious weed.” In the meantime, it had captured the public imagination: Kudzu, a comic strip by Doug Mariette; a James Dickey poem; a Stephen King short story; kudzu beauty queens and kudzu-inspired horror movies. Attack of the Southern Fried Zombies, anyone? 

Nevertheless, kudzu still has its uses. Its vines can be peeled, cooked, pulped and molded into a textured paper. It can be woven into wreaths and hung on a wall or door. A member of the pea family, its roots are edible. In traditional Chinese medicine, they’re ground up to curb excessive drinking, ease fevers and colds and provide relief for a host of other ailments. They also can be processed into a starch for thickening sauces, breading, glazing and noodle-making in Japanese and South Asian dishes. 

Other viney Interlopers

So, if the killer kudzu we were discussing lay north of the Broad, what were Payne and I finding south of it on our brief island stroll? Wild grape vines, that’s what. Invasive woody vines that circle up the tree trunks into their canopies 60 feet or more above our heads. Sometimes the vines settle into a single tree; other times they reach across to another, kind of like an aerial carpetbagger greedily grabbing more territory. We sighted clumps of trees shrouded in this vine not far from the Hilton Head bridges as well as near houses abutting wooded areas and golf courses.

Now Payne was leaning over, pointing to a piece of vine that a groundskeeper had recently severed about four feet above its root, a tactic that works to curb wild grape and other vines with single shallow tap roots. I looked up. The severed grape vine still seemed to be thriving. “Shouldn’t it be removed?” I asked. Payne shook his head. Never pull on a vine to get it down,” he warns. Those vines are still twined around limbs, and if you tug them — and you’ll have to tug hard — a tree branch might come tumbling down, smacking you on the head. Blows from widowmakers, as the falling branches are known, can be deadly. “Leave vines in the tree, and they’ll dehydrate and die. Then the shriveled-up vines will eventually be blown away by winds and storms,” he assured me. And the root? “Dig that up if you want eradication. Otherwise, a new plant will grow.”

These dense vines block the sun, weigh down trees and smother other growth. But are there ever any upsides to their existence? “These vines are in fruit and have grapes now, so they’re a food source for birds as well as a habitat for other wildlife,” Glen replies. He shows me syrphid flies hovering among the leaves. “They eat gnats and other pesky bugs.” And the grapes? “These aren’t the kind of grapes we’d eat.” But, he adds, there are muscadine or scuppernong vines –– some cultivated, some wild, germinated from seeds birds have dropped. These grapes are edible and provide antitoxins. They also make a sweet dessert wine. 

Ivies, that aren’t necessarily prestigious…

Happily, we don’t encounter any poison ivy on our walk. However, we did find Virginia creeper, sometimes called woodbine, that can soar to 100 feet in the wild. With leaves composed of five tooth-edged leaflets and dark purplish berries, it’s been a garden ornamental, but today this superspreader is more like a weed. (Warning: If you meet up with a Virginia creeper, do not be tempted to chomp down on its fruit. Your kidneys will be grateful, and you may survive a few more years.)

We also didn’t come across English ivy in this particular spot, although I’ve seen some climbing up the front of houses here, giving their facades a hint of other times and places. Payne explains that as pretty as it looks, those thick, dark leafy plants are “a reservoir for bacterial leaf scorch that infects oaks and maples.” Meanwhile its aerial roots can work their way into cracks and crevices in facades and roofs, trapping moisture and wreaking more damage. But just ripping them off your walls won’t solve the problem, as those pesky embedded roots just hang on, firing up the cycle anew. Want to remove them? Call in the professionals. 

Enter the kudzu bug!

“Recently a kudzu bug showed up,” Payne says. “It eats kudzu, but unfortunately, it also eats bean plants. It’s invasive and closely related to a stink bug.” I wrinkle my nose. “So does it smell bad?” I ask. “I believe it does,” Glen replies. “So maybe you have the sweet smell of the kudzu and then the not so pleasant one of the kudzu bug.” 

Hey, it’s a jungle out there….

Plant problem solvers 

Got a plant or turf problem? Need to eradicate an invasive vine? Want to know what kind of grass grows best in your yard? Clemson University’s Cooperative Extension Master Gardener Program offers free in-person advice and plant identification. It also provides mailing bags and forms for more detailed analyses of soil, plant or insect samples at its agricultural laboratory and plant and pest diagnostic clinic.

South Carolina Master Gardeners

Hilton Head: 9:30-noon, Wednesdays, 539 William Hilton Parkway

Bluffton Farmers Market: 10 a.m.-2 p.m., Thursdays

Port Royal Farmers Market: 9 a.m.-1 p.m., Saturdays 

Beaufort County Extension Office: 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Monday-Friday, 18 John Galt Road, Beaufort 

Ridgeland: 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m., Monday-Friday, 1506 Grays Highway, Suite E 

Clemson University Home and Garden Information Center: hgic.clemson.edu