🔴 Invasive - Remove
Kudzu
Pueraria montana var. lobata
This is an invasive species that harms native ecosystems. It should be removed when found to protect local plant and wildlife habitats.
Pueraria montana var. lobata
This is an invasive species that harms native ecosystems. It should be removed when found to protect local plant and wildlife habitats.
The vine that ate the South, now well established in Baltimore. Large three-part leaves on hairy stems that can grow a foot a day, draping trees, poles and buildings in a solid green blanket.
Native to: Japan and China
Shown at the 1876 Philadelphia exposition as an ornamental, then planted by the millions in the 1930s and 40s for erosion control on Southern farmland. It has been spreading north ever since.
Kills trees by blocking all light and by sheer weight. A patch spreads by runners that root at every node, each becoming a new crown, so a stand grows outward in every direction until something stops it.
Colour and texture: Mid to dark green with hairy undersides; the whole plant is coarse and furry to the touch.
Leaves: alternate, compound with three broad leaflets, often lobed, up to 6 inches, hairy underneath.
Stems: hairy, up to 100 feet long, rooting where they touch soil.
Flowers: upright purple clusters, grape-scented, July–September, often hidden under the leaves.
Pods: flat, hairy, brown, in autumn.
Pods September–October.
Flat, brown, conspicuously hairy bean pods in short clusters, following purple pea-like flowers.
Why it matters: Here it travels by runners and root crowns far more than by seed, which is why the work is finding and cutting every rooted node, not chasing pods.
A plant that travels sideways and roots where it touches: kudzu, Japanese honeysuckle, ivy runners.
A woody vine climbing a tree. This is the safe way to free a tree: you never pull a vine down out of a canopy.
It can stay on site. Cut vine can stay, but never flat on the soil. Kudzu roots at every node that touches ground, so a pile left lying is a planting. Stack it on stumps, rock or a tarp.
Poison ivy also has three leaflets. Kudzu’s leaflets are much larger, lobed and hairy, and the vine is not woody-rooted to bark the way poison ivy is. When in doubt, gloves on and ask.
Avoid: Do not haul the vine down. It is tangled into the branches, and pulling brings down deadwood on top of you.
Before the first cut: Every rooted node is a crown, and the crowns are what regrow. Follow the runners to each knuckle at soil level and cut it out below the surface.
Cut it back, then take the crowns. Kudzu regrows from a woody root crown at every rooted node, so cutting the vines only buys time — the crowns have to come out. The good news from the extension services: it cannot regrow from below the crown and does not sprout from lateral roots, so a crown cut out just below the soil is dead. Expect three to five seasons of return visits on an established patch.
Mature crowns can be deeper than a spade — mark those for the coordinator rather than exhausting yourself on one.