Friends, *I'm* the one who brought this deeply annoying, invasive, and aggressive vine to my place. I'm pretty certain I know how: it was probably in some coconuts I brought in from an ex-friend's property for use as mulch (I remember these vines growing amongst the coconuts at his place).

And now it's a huge problem. It grows so fast and covers everything and even if you get most of it in an area, it'll come back from the tiniest pieces. and it sends out vines underneath a bunch of other plants and puts up leaves where it finds an opening. The vine breaks very easily, so pieces of it easily remain in the soil. I honestly am not even sure everywhere that it's vined to at this point, and I just have to keep cleaning and cleaning till I can hopefully at least contain it.

It's fabaceae, and if it wasn't so aggressive in covering everything, it might even be tolerable. But it's very aggressive and since we don't have freezing temps, it'll just keep going...

It pains me so much to know that I, through my own ignorance and carelessness, brought this thing to my place, and now it hurts my other plants and is a huge problem for me - a problem I may not be able to contain.

Before I got here, this horrible invasive wasn't here...and now it is and I did it. So I work on it a bit at a time, and hopefully I'll eventually get rid of it and go back to zero. If I'm lucky.

#InvasiveSpecies #kuleana #hawaii #plants #gardening #environment #ecology #VineGang

@mk30 Don't beat yourself up too much about it. I suspect the world over invasive weeds are a horrendous problem and often planted originally by well meaning people who did not know. We are battling 'morning glory' in our neighbourhood. Once those invasive plants take root, they are sooo hard to eliminate.
@perkinsy that's a good perspective. Good luck with your morning glory!
@mk30 @perkinsy that sounds really frustrating and stressful. You're far from the first to accidentally propagate an invasive and at least you're doing something about it. Even if you can't eliminate it entirely any effort to hold it back is making a difference. Energy and time spent regrowing is energy and time it can't use to spread. Best of luck in clearing it out altogether! I've been battling Japanese Knotweed in a wooded lot near our place, trying to keep it from getting fully established.
@jacobcoffin @perkinsy thanks for the words of support, and good luck with your efforts.

@mk30 We have autumn clematis here. I thought it was so beautiful & didn't rip it out.

My husband calls it "chlamydia vine" so you see how that went.

Good hunting!

@mk30

One of the only ways I know that works on knotweed (another aggressive invasive) is to cover it all with heavy black plastic for five years.

@stepheneb 5 years! That's impressive.
@mk30 *purple/red sugar cane enters the chat* 😂