Vines up trees? Yes or no poll?

Eric Frei

Just tie a prussik around the vine and up ya go!

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OsAGe85

I have had the weekend end from hell in this concern. I had a job for the Arkansas Game and Fish and I had to clear some vines remove some small trees and cut some lower limbs. I can honestly say it was the biggest pain I've ever encountered. Thank fully I was able to just drop the removals. But We had to pull a lot of the vines out of the trees and cut them at the ground......rediculous! It was so tedious it just seemed like nothing was getting done. So NO! from me, for sure.

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mdvaden

About 4 years ago, I looked at some 200 year old (or so) Douglas fir trees in Portland. Probably 140 feet tall, and weak near the top, from topping.

The homeowners - new ones - wanted an estimate for removal of 2 of the trees.

I was going to pass the work to another arborist, but decided to stop by and take a peek first.

The trees were in the back yard, in the back corner. No way to get bucket trucks in, medium slope and just a path to walk branches out to the street in the front.

One tree, over-hung 3 other yards by about 15 to 20 feet.

Both tree had ENGLISH IVY VINES. Very old established English Ivy vines, where the entire trunk was covered up to about 50' high, with lots of thick shaggy leaves.

I had not idea how an arborist was going to climb the trunk. I guessed they would have to get a line up to about 70' and work their way up with that line.

DBS

Speeking of ivy on trees,

but only for a short while...

What do you as a climber to not catch poison ivy

i) when you are highly allergic to poison ivy and it encases the entire trunk of the tree.
ii) the tree is a full removal
iii) it cannot be felled (safety reasons)
iv) no access to tree w/ bucket or man lift.
v) for removal to take place it must be climbed


Thanks
-Daryl

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dguntertrees

You could try purchasing a "stinger suit". Snorkellers use them here to combat deadly jellyfish stings, they are also UV protective! Try wearing one under your normal gear. They fit a bit like a wetsuit, but are made of a lycra type material so are light and easy to move around in. Might work.
Alternatively, contract the job to someone who IS'NT allergic!

DRANO

no vines please!!for me doing utility work,for some reason the vines i have cut,have hid someones telephone line too well!!!also make chipping the low grow a real pain!!! hello all been gone a while hope all are well,winters coming here in vermont!!

bigshea13

youll see that alot in southern ny deep into a utility right of way. the trees have been trimmed and the vines now get more light.they flourish until the next trimming cycle occures. 5-10years.

newguy18

I voted no.I hate climbing vine infested trees.i like the wild muskadines but only when you trellis them and they aren't on trees.

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old schooler

Eric Frei

I did an Alex palm and it had the itchy vine, scratch for days.

Vines suck.

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newguy18

+1 I hate vines too.






They can make you itch and I've had them make trees fall over away from where I wanted them to land.

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old schooler

ropensaddle

Not all vines are equal musqadines are wild vines that provide a staple
to wildlife vines of this nature are better left to thrive as to help diversification
in the ecosystem.

newguy18

I'm not saying they're always bad just when you have to climb through them then again a snack on the way up.

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old schooler

windthrown

English ivy is the scurge (well, one of them anyway) of the PNW, and no longer legal to sell in nurseries in Oregon. Here and in CA I pulled a lot of that crap off a lot of trees. We have none here, fortunately. I yank a lot of blackberry vines down here (also illegal to sell Hymalayan blackberry in OR) and poison oak. PO is not so bad for a live tree, but it tends to mound over spars and stumps. We pull that more for human exposure than for tree health.

windthrown

PO or PI, if allergic and exposed, shower within 8 hours with Tecnu, or cheap shampoo like Suave. Wash all clothes with detergent. Clean gloves and saw handles. Avoid cutting stems with saws, as chips will have the oil on them. Cut with loppers or shears. Here when I have a tree with PO vines groing on them that I am going to fell, I cut the stems at the ground and at about 5 ft off the ground. Then I fell the tree and pull the vines from the tree by hand if I am going to buck it into firewood. The vines (or trees with vines) go into special designated non-burn piles on the property here. We let them rot, as PO (and PI) smoke can be quite lethal. I am not very sensitive to PO though. My girlfriend is HIGHLY sensitive to PO. She turns into an alien mutent invader from another planet if exposed to even the smallest amount (eyes swell shut, breaks out in hives, rash lasts for a week and we go through gobs of cortisone cream). I have a collection of PO photos from around here after last year's AS conversaion on the subject with the MD up in PDX.

arbdog

I hate anything growing in/on the tree. We work for a construction firm and an ecologist who before any tree can be felled must have all ivy removed! chainsaws are not to be used only hand saws. We got an entire wood to fell soon for them. That should be great fun (not) , oh by the way were looking for bats under ivy. and every tree is smothered in it.

Eric Frei

IS it that itchy ivy?

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arbdog

na just normal horrid english ivy. still very time consuming with just a silky!

quercus

As you can see on my avatar I seem very happy in that tree untill the owner asked me to remove all of the vines... a 2 day job no less!!!
I voted bad and should be removed for following reasons...
1)creates a sail so wind has a larger effect on the tree
2)after a while it grows over foliage so that branches die...
3)In some cases they suffocate the tree
4)an arborist cannot see structural defects in the stem or branches so tying in is a very hazardous situation
5)Spiking the tree becomes very difficult because of stems of the vine. Spikes are sometimes not long enough to reach the stem of the tree.
6)Branches can break under the weight of the vine. especially in snowy and windy conditions

When people ask me to asses a tree for safety and it has a vine of some sort I never give a good report unless the vine is removed.
The first 10 feet is not a problem but when it has climbed all the way up it becomes a serious hazard. It's not rare to get 5000 lb of vines out of a 50 foot tree...

azrael

Mmmm. I've seen some terrible disfigurement from Lantana too. Terrible rubbing erosions on banches and trunk and in the forks (sometimes gets rooted into forks). I call it Lantana "trauma"

It can get right up the trees. forcing etiolated development, diminutive crowns, and overall poor form.

Eric Frei

This is a pic of one of the worst we have here.

It has really done lots of damage on in the Sunshine Coast hinterland. Looks terrible when I last drove through.

The culprit is called Morning Glory.

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azrael

Same thing down here in the Ilawarra... especilly around creeks with reliable moisture...growns a couple of metres in a week, and pretty hard to kill off (this my Bush Regenrator hat on here).
It does dies off in winter down here though... but probably not in your sub-tropical climate. Do you have the both Common (Blue) & Coastal (Pink) M.G's...we do!
Another shocker here is Madeira Vine (it's THE worst weed in the Illawarra). Havent seen too much damage to trees but it can get up to the tops pretty quickly. The worst is...its so eaily spread from aerial tubers, and so you cant use re-use mulch anywhere. Its gets in to water-ways so easily via stormwater... & ya cant get the bugger out of gabbion mattress...no way. Very big problem.
Oh... that reminds me of something else.. we are about 10-15 yrs behind you in the sunny tropical north with regard to weeds...over the last 5 yrs or so, theres been a massive outbreak of Tecoma stans...colonising so much R.T.A. land ... roadsides, freeways, cuttings, crib-walls, and even the centre islands.
It's satellites out from the parent plant like I've never seen before. Pretty flower though.
Mmmm!

quercus

jeezes christ... I have never seen something like that before. The little stem on the left side of the trunk, would that be the stem of the vine?

treeseer

quercus I understand your reasons except:How does this suffocation take place?

If you are spiking a tree to remove it, vines can hold up a climber if you spike right into the vine, at least english ivy is very strong. I know you are not spiking to prune, since Belgian have the reputation of being good arborists!

Vines in trees can be maintained to cause the trees no problem. More work, true, but what is wrong with that?

here in the se usa, morning glory blue or pink does not climb more than 3m, and lantana is a valued subshrub, not a vine.

mdvaden

Treeseer...

I think I know what he's referring to about trouble with spiking for removals if there are vines. English ivy is the more common one here, and the leaves frequently cloak the vine so that a climber can't tell if they are stabbing the vine or a void space between the vines.

Ekka...

We have some morning glory here that covers and cloaks as thickly, but I can't recall if I've seen any that high.

In northern Oregon by Portland, there is a wild Clematis vine that seems to be one of the more nuisance vines in trees, along with English Ivy, which is sometimes naked stem along the trunk with foliage above, but other times foliage from ground to as high as it reaches up the trunk.

newguy18

normally when I remove a vine infested tree I'll either rope climb it and cut the vines off on my way up and then have my dad send my gaffs up or i'll cut the vines at the base and give them a couple weeks to dry out some so I can just spike up them.

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old schooler

windthrown

Morning glory was a scurge here about 50 years ago. An invasive plant, it nearly wiped out the California tree fruit industry. I get it here as weeds. Also had in California, and it grew under my house and underminded the foundation by roots widening the cracks created in the big Bay Area earthquake.

I spray that stuff whenever and wherever I see it. Bad stuff.

quercus

I'm a dutch guy so excuse me if I can't always find the right words or form the right way of saying it correctly...

of course I'm not pruning with spikes. I find it rather difficult because of the facts MDVADEN said.

Suffocation might not be the right word. I've seen several cases of a Wisteria branch strangle a thick branch off of a green beech for example... The vines wraps around the branch and because of the fact that they become thicker in time they cut off juice circulation to ultimately weaken and strangle that branch. These words may be more accurate...

To say it in a few words... I think that vines and other climbing plants are a real threat to the health of a tree.

newguy18

i agree and whenever I bid a tree for trimming or pruneing and it has a vine I recomend immediate removal of the vine.

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old schooler

R.Boreal

Tell me more about "Bougainvillea" and that "cactus crappy" vine.

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Jeff Darby

I'll start with the Bougainvillea, It's a beutiful vine once a year to look at,But that's where it's stops from a TD piont of view,The first thing it's will do it will add hours onto your job, it has large razor sharp spurs that will prick the living daylights out of you as you work and it's strong enough to bugger up a re direct,if you havent severed all vines properly, Then your got to drag this vine to the chipper were it fights all the way ripping and pricking all over as you go..lastly it's vindictive it will drag you into the chipper given half the chance,Apart from this it's a beutiful vine once a year but not up a Tree, IMO.

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