Well ken, if it’s Oriental Bittersweet as Peren suggests, you had better get it off your house and kill it in the ground. If it can wrap itself around trees and pull them down, I hate to think what it could do to your house. The leaves on your photo are much darker than the photos I saw when I looked it up so maybe there’s hope it’s something else? But I’m no help with that……I’m only here to give doomsday opinions! 😵‍💫😳😵

debra

" The leaves on your photo are much darker than the photos I saw ..."

I think that's a function of the photograph. All the colours look off.

Btw there's also a grape vine mixed into the tangle.

I, too, think it is Oriental bittersweet. It won't hurt YOU, ken, no worries there, but I wish you the best of luck in getting rid of every tiniest piece of the roots -- it is extremely tenacious. I also recommend bagging up any that you cut/pull into a trash bag and not toss it on your compost heap as it could happily re-root there... Gacckkk.

Oriental bittersweet is so pernicious!!! Ask me how I know... It has colonized mightily here on my property and I have been far too slow in using a brush dipped in Roundup ( I am scared of that product) to get rid of it. That project has been on my bucket list for the past five years but I continue to be a Nervous Nellie.

I have oriental bittersweet all over my yard and I don’t know how it got there but I see the whole street our country road is now covered with it and that was never the case. Love those birds, but they move seeds around.

My plan is to cut the bitter sweet off and then tie some red flagging to the stem or do it ahead of time. Then I will put some undiluted Brush killer on the cut remainder, close to the ground in the roots and hope that will go down to the roots and kill it. I suppose I need to find out if it is a systemic? is roundup sufficient? I don’t like playing with any of those herbicides and brush killers (Agent Orange like chemicals). I will use a disposable foam brush and then bag it and toss it into the trash.

I could bag and trash the bittersweet, but I’d like to toss it into Judge Eileen Cannon’s yard. /s

the color was dark because it was going to rain heavily ...

thx for the info except for the political carp....

ken

Petalique, please don't use Roundup/glyphosphate.

from Google:

" The surfactant ingredient in Roundup is more acutely toxic than glyphosate itself and the combination of the two is yet more toxic. Glyphosate is suspected of causing genetic damage. Glyphosate is acutely toxic to fish and birds and can kill beneficial insects and soil organisms that maintain ecological balance. "

If you do decide to use it, be sure to wear a mask.

We’ve got oriental bittersweet all over our yard too, Ken; it’s an absolute menace. My husband goes on what he calls ”vine patrol”, taking care of the bittersweet and the wild grape vines that overtake various trees on our property. It never ends. Good luck!

woodrose - I may be wrong, but your info is more directed to the crazy folks who SPRAY Roundup, not those of us who would use a foam paintbrush to apply it onto the cut stub only. Spraying that product is definitely NOT the way to use it, IMO.

Oh yeah? Native (US) clematus virginiana can challenge your vine's takeover attempt.

I'll see you and raise you porcelainberry and Japanese knotweed. We've battled both since we bought his house 13 years ago, and have managed to get them down to occasional shoots here and there. But if we relax our vigilance for a minute....

Oh Dear, I have a porcelain berry (ampelopsis) loitering behind a ceanothus. In year 3, it is still a small and delicate specimen (and rarely seen in the UK). Am I going to regret this?

It may not be as invasive in the UK as it is here. floraluk will no doubt know the details. (And is it Ampelopsis brevipedunculata? There are various varieties of ampelopsis, not all of them nasty.)

No A. brevipedunculata, nor any of the genus afaik, is not invasive here.

Yep, I believe the variegated one is not usually as vigorous as the plain green (stands to reason) but heh, mine is just green (brevipedunculata (I think...yet another of the collie label-herding triumphs (for her).

I can also boast japanese knotweed and trumpet vine (Campsis radicans), self-heal(Prunella vuglaris), ajuga, wild grape (“fox” grape — escaped Concord grape).

Oriental Bittersweet would definitely be the titleholder of worst invasive vine in this region, no contest. Some have called it the "kudzu of the north". It will consume (and kill) other vegetation, including mature trees:

I have porcelain berry growing in my back yard, zone 5a. I have learned that growing it in the sun it is a menace and was removed. I have one growing in the shade for a decade that is manageable, hasnt spread around the yard, and any seedlings, which are few, were easily removed.

Sherry

But @arbordave (SE MI), do you think oriental bittersweet can be weaponized to kill mature buckthorn trees?? 🤣

I will chime in again regarding Japanese Knotwood. I and my neighbors had some growing along a fence line. We are in the city. I did not know what it was until I took a cutting to a nursery. After hearing about how damaging it was, I started digging it up. Wow! Talk about a nightmare…. Bert and I dig and dug and I am pretty sure I dosed anything in the ground that we couldn’t get out. Over time it stopped showing up. I was just remembering about it the other day. I was lucky it was only a small patch.

debra

Wild grape is a massive spreader here, climbing sprawling and taking over everything in its path. Parthenocissus quinquefolia - Virginia creeper is another. I was happy though when it brought down an Acer negundo - Manitoba maple - Box elder. I thought "well you are finally useful" lol!

I don't know if this exists in the US, but on my place here in Oz, I have hundreds of Pandorea pandorana, which scrambles over rocks, up and down gullies and climbs huge trees before eventually strangling them to death...actually an attractive native in its own right, but totally destructive.

Ahhh, another thread about invasives, another filled with pseudoscientific hysteria about the chemicals that control them.

You realize the various GRAS flavorings added to your kids candies and sweets have been subject to far less safety testing than ANY modern herbicide, and certainly glyphosate?

https://civilwartalk.com/threads/poke-salad-with-southern-cornbread.84663/

Thanks for the recipes, Jay. I got a giant pokeweed growing behind my butterfly bush. It's so exuberant that I let it go.