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| Porcelainberry, Ampelopsis brevipedunculata, is a
human-spawned menace. It entered the USA from Asia in the
1870's disguised as a desirable, if not miraculous, garden
plant -- soooo pretty, soooo easy to grow, and the wildlife
liked it too. Big mistake; like the one that the sorcerer’s
apprentice made. In the lead for the “kudzu of the north”
award, porcelainberry has spread out-of-control, smothering
its hapless neighbors with a thick shroud of light-blocking
vines, then pulling them down with its weight. So why do we
care about this intra-plant war? |
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Picture: The dangerous being
in the picture is the porcelainberry; not the wasp.
Hoyt Street Alley Stamford CT 2004 |
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In the age of malls and condos, our sub/urban
gardens, industrial parks, and tiny left-over spaces
between lots are the only available home for not
only the birds and squirrels, but also the skunks,
woodchucks, possum, raccoons, chipmunks, and deer;
not to mention a
feral cat or two; or even a family of red foxes
or coyotes.
My favorite tiny nature sanctuary is the Hoyt
Street Alley, source of many The Monday Garden
photos.
It’s not a real street, so it doesn’t have a
real street name; it’s sort of the long
parking lot/access way at the back of an
apartment complex with exits at each end
connecting to parallel streets. When I was
in high school in the 1960’s, I walked down
the alley to catch my bus; today I live
around the corner. Along one side, there’s a
patch 25 vertical parking spaces long and
about 4 car lengths wide that’s an
undevelopable wooded gully between the alley
and the next lot. |
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Picture: Hoyt Street
Alley Stamford CT 2004 engulfed in porcelain
berry |
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I’ve called this tiny gully “the squirrels’
garden” because everything here came by
squirrel, bird or wind. A proper garden in
the Biblical sense, it teems with an awesome
array of life. The far-distant ancestors of
the resident squirrels, I’m sure, planted
the prolific and majestic red oak at the
east end of the patch, and the almost as
grand, and squirrel-beloved, shaggy bark
hickory at the west end. (I away know it’s
autumn by the sound of nuts bouncing off the
parked cars.)
The wind definitely brought the winged
seeds of the
Norway maple, the ash, and, probably,
the aspen, ailanthus, elm and catalpa. The
jays, crows, mockingbirds, catbirds,
sparrows, robins, finches, woodpeckers, and
cardinals are the likely donators of the
choke cherry, crabapple, mulberry, wineberry,
rosa multiflora, Asiatic bittersweet, horse
nettle, nightshade, woodbine, poison ivy ,
pokeberry,
Queen Anne's Lace, loosestrife, asters,
jewelweed, Goldenrod, Ragweed, Mugwort and
other assorted weeds of summer.
I don’t know who contributed the garlic
mustard ’cause no one’s quite sure how it
spreads - just that it most certainly does;
it might have come by car tire.
This little Eden is suffering slow death
by porcelainberry. Year-by-year, the vine is
overwhelming everything else, even the other
invaders. Under the thick mat of vines,
there’s a rouges’ gallery of invasives that
deserve smoothing, in my not-so-humble
opinion. (Although, it must be admitted that
outgrowing rosa mulitflora, wineberry,
Asiatic bittersweet and ailanthus is
impressive.) Unfortunately, there’s also
crabapple, chokecherry, catalpa, aspen. |
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Pictures:
porcelainberry "drowning" the adult catalpa
and of its two babies. |
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| Now, here’s the squirrel’s problem. Porcelain berry
fruit ripens early fall and it’s gone in a month. In another
year or two, only the red oak and hickory will be above
“flood level”. These stalwart trees will feed the squirrels
with early spring buds and fall nuts but what about the rest
of the year? And what about the birds? The vines provide
plenty of habitat but what’s to eat? |
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Picture: A
hard-working, family-oriented Hoyt Street
Alley squirrel pauses to be interviewed for
this article |
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So if what we do in our gardens ruins the
wild ones’ garden, what then? Birds and
squirrels can’t tell deadly invaders from
“play nicely with others” natives. So if you
and I don’t control what’s in our garden and
help clean up the uncultivated areas, what
then? Won’t be Eden any more. |
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Picture: porcelainberry
spring leaf samples |
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Picture: porcelainberry
summer leaf samples; leaves and stems feel hairy to the
touch. |
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You might first see a porcelainberry
seedling in your garden and think “How nice,
a wild grape”. Don’t be fooled! While the
foliage looks a bit like its grape
relatives, porcelainberry leaves are
smaller, with rounder and more deeply cut
sinuses (the concave indentations in the
leaf’s border). If you don’t pull
porcelainberry up immediately, it develops
long, thick, drought-proof taproots that are
hard to dig out.
Porcelainberry, also known as amur
peppervine, a member of the grape family, is
hardy zone 4 to 8; and doesn’t care about
soil conditions but prefers a bit of shade
and moisture. It’s supposed to grow “only”
15” vines but I’ve seen it much longer.
Japanese beetles eat it (for them, it’s food
from home) but don’t do nearly enough damage
to be useful control.
Despite having become the kudzu for the
Northeastern USA, unbelievably, the stuff’s
still being sold to the unsuspecting by
nurseries and on-line. Porcelainberry has
two native cousins in the Southeast,
Ampelopsis arborea (peppervine) and
Ampelopsis cordata (heartleaf peppervine,
possum grape or raccoon grape). There’s an
Asian cousin Ampelopsis aconitifolia
(monkshood vine) being widely sold as an
ornamental; but who’s to say that it won’t
become as dangerous as porcelainberry?
Since porcelainberry spreads between
locations only by seed, if you keep it cut
down so that it can’t flower, you can at
least contain it. Large plants can’t be
effectively dug since each root fragment
left behind starts a new plant. Mowing it to
the ground 3 or 4 times a season can be
effective. See The Monday Garden
Issue 110 (Japanese Knotweed), Issue
112(Barberry and Winged Euonymus). and Issue
126 (Asiatic Bittersweet) on controlling
invasives with black plastic (best early in
season) and with herbicides (best in early
fall).
For The Monday Garden "Eat
An Invader Today" club, porcelainberry buds,
leaves and fruit are said to be edible, if
you can find them growing in an unpolluted
place. |
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Pictures: ripening
porcelainberry fruit |
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Pictures:
TOP: ripe porcelainberry fruit
BOTTOM: porcelainberry in Hoyt Street Alley
July 2004 |
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| Caution: Never eat any plant grown near a road or
driveway. Heavy metals from car exhausts poison the ground
and end up in the plants for decades. Equally dangerous are
plants grown near industrial sites, dumps, and the like. |
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Picture: hope: someone's
eating a few of the leaves |
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