Monday, July 24, 2006

Invasion!


Kudzu
Originally uploaded by paynehollow.

9 comments:

lené said...

I had heard about this stuff but never seen it before your photo. Holy Moly! Thanks for posting it.

D.Daddio Al-Ozarka said...

I know kudzu is invasive. I know it is harmful to the plants it overtakes.

But I can't help it! I love to see the roadsides when they are covered. It gives places an other-worldly character--jungle-like.

Ther's not much of it up here in the hills of Arkansas. Some, but not much. I lived in west-tennesse for a couple of years and--MAN! From June to August there is not much other vegitation even visible along roads like US 100!

Dan Trabue said...

Lene, this is nothing. I'd need a wide angle shot to show some of the more pervasive areas. Whole stretches of hillsides for a mile, covered with kudzu - over trees, over telephone poles, everything.

They say it grows at something like 3-6 inches a day, so you don't want to fall asleep in a kudzu patch...

Pam in Tucson said...

That's amazing! I've read about kudzu but I've never seen it.

tracifish said...

Thank you for the beautiful photo. I'd love to see a wide angle shot.

lené said...

Oh my. The only thing that I've ever seen grow at such a rate, and probably not that fast, are the ferns in Vermont (hardly a kudzu-like threat).

Dan Trabue said...

I was wrong. It doesn't grow 3-6 inches a day...it grows up to a foot a day!! Up to 60 feet in a season.

You could just about watch it grow.

Maybe if it could be used as biomass for an alternative energy source...?

Here's a link to a place that is using kudzu for art:

http://www.kudzu-art.com/

And welcome to Payne Hollow, tracifish.

Dan Trabue said...

Or check out a kudzu bale building!

http://www.nancybasket.com/gpage3.html

lené said...

I wonder if you stuck a stethoscope (sp?) to it if you could hear it grow. There was a really cool show on NPR years ago where they talked about listening to your vegetables grow--the way you can hear cherry tomatoes gurgle until you pick them from the vine. Crazy, ha? I'll have to check out your links.