Winter Is The Time To Confront The Misery Of Wisteria

Wisteria is one miserable invasive plant. As it grows, it strangles trees, its weight snapping off branches. It can grow over thirty feet up a tree or send runners out 50 feet or more, rerooting every six inches. Now that it\’s winter, and sitting dormant in the ground, and quite visible in the leafless woods, it\’s an optimal time to remove it.

Understand though that one is a bear to eradicate (So please don\’t plant it in the first place). Originally from Japan (Wisteria floribunda) and China (Wisteria sinensis) this invasive has escaped from our gardens into our woods and is destroying open space throughout Long Island.

The Long Island Conservancy put in hundreds of man-hours in 2021 removing wisteria from our open spaces, but the sheer amount of it once you start to look is mind boggling.

Here\’s how you need to go about removing it, keeping in mind that the Long Island Conservancy recommends not using herbicides. Also note that getting rid of wisteria, like a number of invasive plants, is not a one time effort, but requires regular revisits, as the roots (and the seeds) will still be around. Translated — you\’ll be weeding for years. But then one could also be planting natives at the same time, reestablishing habitat and making it harder for invasive plants to establish themselves.

1. Wear gloves and a long sleeve shirt that is rugged / that you don\’t care about. Standard advice.
2. Cut all the vines at the base of the tree, using a lopper, a hand saw or for the big jobs, an electric saw.
3. As tempting as it may be, resist the urge to play \”Tarzan\” by hanging on the vine. That is bound to damage the tree.
   

4. Do your best to dig up the roots. A good lopper combined with a shovel is my preferred approach. This will be hard work, and it will re-sprout over the years until finally it\’s eliminated.

5. Be sure throw the roots, vines and clippings in the trash rather than composting them, for it will re-sprout from that otherwise.

The way things are now on Long Island, it is almost a certainty it\’s growing in a local park or woods, or frighteningly even in your yard. Some find the flowers pretty, but at the end of the day this is an alien plant that has no natural enemies, no native insects to curb its growth. It contributes nothing to the local biome. In fact, wisteria and other invasive plants steal light and nutrients from our native plants, and trigger local collapses of ecosystems.

We need to kill these plants now, or accept our capitulation. They are on the way to destroying what\’s left of Long Island\’s native habitats. Our yards and parks have grown more silent over the years. Having less and less native growing in them is the main reason.

We need to help Nature take our land back. We need to restore what should be there.