Volunteers rescue trees choked by vines
Northern Virginia’s oldest and best-loved trees are in mortal danger. Unless people can get rid of the vines choking their trunks, the trees will die.
Tree Rescuers, an outreach program that educates the public about the risks of non-native vines, is saving trees and spreading life-saving information throughout neighborhoods.
The program is part of Plant NOVA Trees, a five-year campaign by local governments and nonprofit organizations to increase tree cover in Northern Virginia.
Tree Rescuers volunteers learn how to identify problematic vines, such as English ivy, then walk their neighborhoods spotting trees that need help.
They don’t remove vines from private property. Instead, they talk to homeowners about the problem and drop off a brochure explaining how non-native vines gradually kill mature trees and how to get rid of them.
Plant NOVA Trees believes it’s important to save native trees as they help improve air and water quality, help delay the impact of climate change, and provide a home for birds and other wildlife.
“The public response to the message about rescuing trees has been astonishing,” said Margaret Fisher, one of the coordinators of Plant NOVA Trees. Only four months into the campaign, more than 197 volunteers have organized to warn their neighbors about the threat, covering more than five square miles of neighborhoods.
Even better, people are already cutting back vines to save their trees or volunteering to rescue trees in parks. So far, 2,550 trees have been saved.
In one Falls Church neighborhood, volunteers distributed brochures to 72 households that had trees at risk from invasive vines, Fisher said. Within a few weeks, the team re-checked the route and found that at least 13 trees on four properties had already been freed from the grip of choking vines.
Data gathered by Tree Rescuers will also help improve knowledge of the actual number of trees at risk, since the collected data is being aggregated and mapped.
A map of neighborhoods surveyed can be viewed here. Sign up to be a Tree Rescuer volunteer here.
6 responses to “Volunteers rescue trees choked by vines”
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How do I learn about invasive vines
https://www.plantnovatrees.org/tree-rescuers-volunteer-program
The board should outlaw these invasive vines. This will work as well as the bamboo edict.
I sense just an itsy-bitsy teeny tiny bit of skepticism in your comment Johnny.
But in all seriousness Johnny, why not outlaw all weeds?
Let’s try “No Weed Zones” marked by prominent signs which are not enforced by the government; especially on the owners of the properties identified by the government as posing the greatest risk?
This approach has been adopted in other areas of public policy; why not try it with weeds and other invasive species? Let’s be innovative.
Not to get in the weeds, but let this one grown on you:
It was the government that introduced kudzu to mitigate soil erosion. Damned be government kudzu. Government bamboo creeps from county land onto my property, and now I’m at risk for a fine because of it.
Stop invasive government growth!
Are the trees choked by the vines, or are the vines limited in their potential by the greedy trees? Melt your mind with that one for a week.