I could live w/ this if it just stayed in the woods but this damn thing took over our border fence, yard heading towards house and starting to suffocate our garden! All I can say is Kill Kill Kill! I've pulled up vines and roots. I've pulled it of fence in the winter and hubby cut main stems, my husbands run over the yard ones w/ blade at lowest position. But this invader is still thriving grrrr! Don't nobody say round up or I'll never talk to you again I'm organic and only thing I'd like to do w/ round up is drown its inventors and sellers in it! (jk'n I would never but the anger is the same) Will dawn and vinegar straight not diluted work? How bout if vines are cut to the ground then covered in fresh manure... will that work?

Not sure because I have only started the killing process... but what I found online was to cut each plant at the base, gather up the vegetation and burn (if allowed where you live), then pour boiling water on the roots. The last part of the process is to cover the roots with something that will exclude light and water and wait about a year. I'm not all that sure if the boiling water actually does anything but time will tell.

Virginia Creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) is such a lovely vine in the fall but it takes over everything in site here in Florida too, at least in my backyard ... it even pops up in the lawn! I don't think it's possible to totally eradicate it when there is so much of it.

greene said:Not sure because I have only started the killing process... but what I found online was to cut each plant at the base, gather up the vegetation and burn (if allowed where you live), then pour boiling water on the roots. The last part of the process is to cover the roots with something that will exclude light and water and wait about a year. I'm not all that sure if the boiling water actually does anything but time will tell.

Ok will try Do you do this in the winter before new growth comes? TY very much for reply

plantladylin said:http://garden.org/plants/view/71491/Virginia-Creeper-Parthenocissus-quinquefolia/ is such a lovely vine in the fall but it takes over everything in site here in Florida too, at least in my backyard ... it even pops up in the lawn! I don't think it's possible to totally eradicate it when there is so much of it.

NOOOOO don't tell me I can't get rid of it!!! LOL I know what you mean though. Heavy sigh my hubbies out there right now mowing over the ground creepers. I know God created everything for a reason. But can't its reason be outta my yard On a mini farm we had when me and my hubby 1st got together the vine stayed in the woods. I wonder why it did there but not here? TY very much for your reply

WARYR1 said:
Do you do this in the winter before new growth comes?

Garden chores happen whenever I am able to do the work; no set schedule. Someone may chime in with a "best time" to do this job. Thinking about it though, I personally would wait until I could be sure where the Poison Ivy was before I started cutting and pulling the Virginia Creeper. In my yard the two grow very close to each other and I would not want to handle or burn the wrong plant.

The Virginia Creeper moved from the woods to your yard because it is upwardly mobile and saw an opportunity to better its situation!

I know of no way of killing it that will not also kill everything growing around it. Smothering it with plastic sounds like the best option to me.

porkpal said:The Virginia Creeper moved from the woods to your yard because it is upwardly mobile and saw an opportunity to better its situation!

I know of no way of killing it that will not also kill everything growing around it. Smothering it with plastic sounds like the best option to me.

Ok TY I will try that too TY for your reply

Rrriiiip! (That's the sound of the V.C. being dragged out of the garden and off the walls.)

Michele, my favorite method is covering with plastic, too. If you can seal down the edges of the plastic with boards, mulch bags, rocks or whatever to keep the air from circulating under it, it will work well.

But, sadly you will always have to be vigilant, because it seeds itself generously and the birds eat and spread the seeds. So you could kill every single bit of it, and it will still come back. Don't let this discourage you, we're all in this fight along with you.

DaisyI said:Rrriiiip! (That's the sound of the V.C. being dragged out of the garden and off the walls.)

IKR thats what we do every winter Scott cuts the main stems then we pull it off of everything TY for your reply

dyzzypyxxy said:Michele, my favorite method is covering with plastic, too. If you can seal down the edges of the plastic with boards, mulch bags, rocks or whatever to keep the air from circulating under it, it will work well.

But, sadly you will always have to be vigilant, because it seeds itself generously and the birds eat and spread the seeds. So you could kill every single bit of it, and it will still come back. Don't let this discourage you, we're all in this fight along with you.

TY for your reply for all in our battle! When I was contemplating on using the plastic I thought my Gosh I'd need an aweful lot of plastic! The fence thats covered is probably 100 ft by 4 ft high, then the sprawls in the yard cover an area 30' x 25' Garden area I gotta wait cuz some of the squash vines are wrapped around the VC. Glad most of my squash over power it! THATS IT! Maybe grow a whole fence line of aggressive squash to Starve it of light?

Michelle-- I understand you do not want to use round-up, and I support that. I am going to explain it first and then maybe brainstorm to substitute. You take 5 gallon buckets or trash cans, pull the vines and make sure the lead/top of the vine is cut open and put the vines in the bottom, anchor the vines in stones or bricks, pour round-up in (We need to find a substitute for this step) cover so animals do not get in. Let it sit at least a week. You want the entire vine to drink it. So we need something for it to drink. First off I am thinking hot boiling water to start, maybe if you have a propane heater. Salt could be added to it, maybe let it evaporate as you are doing this so you do not have to pour the salt water anywhere. Something else could be a commercially available stronger chlorine to add, pretty quickly the sun eats the chlorine so you would not have to deal with disposal of that. I am sure there are other options and someone else could give us some ideas along this route of getting whole vines. Many blessings to you and your family!

Once you pull/cut the vines there's no need to use chemicals on them. Stuff them in black plastic trash bags, seal up and leave them in the sun. Then send those bags to the land fill, NOT to your compost bin. Seeds may still be viable.

Note, though! If you pull or cut or otherwise kill the vines and just leave them laying, they certainly will set seeds and start up again. You do need to remove them completely.Same with after they die back in the fall. Still need to remove as much of the vines as possible.

Is there any hope for me??

Well, maybe a really really cold winter? You guys had a very warm, wet winter and also a very rainy spring so stuff like Virginia Creeper (and those infernal perennial morning glories) really went to town this year.

They put on a really pretty show of color in the fall, so I'd wait until after that's done and then go to town on yanking those puppies outa there.

In the meantime, if you see flowers or seed heads cut them off as quick as you can! You don't want the seeds dropping or the birds eating them.

I think Sharon's idea was to put as much of the vine into the bucket as possible without separating it from its roots so that the unmentionable chemical could kill it roots and all. I have successfully used this technique with vines growing up inside my huge rose bushes. It is important not to get carried away and use a stronger than recommended solution or it will just burn the tops rapidly and never be transferred down the rest of the vine. You can then pull up the dead vine. Done correctly, this technique never releases any chemicals into the environment.

SpringGreenThumb said:

• Virginia Creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia)
• Uploaded by SpringGreenThumb

• Virginia Creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia)
• Uploaded by SpringGreenThumb

Is there any hope for me??

Beautiful!

I don't have much virginia creeper at my house, it's too dry.

Where I garden in town, pulling virginia creeper, I find that it pulls easily.
Pull it out of the garden, and toss on burn pile... or even the compost pile... if the pile dries out.

Agree that the birds spread it around, but the birds gotta eat...

When it's just a seedling, it pulls very easily.... seems to have a good germination rate in a mulched woodland garden.

WARYR1 said: How bout if vines are cut to the ground then covered in fresh manure... will that work?

I seriously doubt that this would work...
When I've spread mulch over existing vines, they grew even better.

Instead of cutting.... wait for the soil to be moist before pulling, and be glad that you are fighting a wildlife-friendly native, and not that gawd-awful english ivy, or even worse.... chinese wisteria.

dyzzypyxxy said:Well, maybe a really really cold winter?

It grows wild all over the place around here in zone 4a - listed as hardy to zone 3 (-30 to -40F).

AAck! What an amazingly adaptable plant, though. It grows fabulously here in Florida, too. I am just beginning my usual late-summer routine of rousting it out of my hedge along the east side.

In Utah though, it's not often a problem because it's such a dry climate (usually). We lived there for 21 years before moving here, and my kids still live there so I visit often. If Becky's overgrown spots in her pictures didn't get so darned much rain this spring, I'll bet she'd never notice a little wisp or two of Virginia Creeper there.