Vine Removal

Climbing vines like English ivy, Virginia creeper, and wisteria are beautiful plants, but are very bad for trees. Vines are best kept in check, but sometimes they get out of hand. If they haven't grown up the trunk yet, pull them back whenever you get the chance. If they have consumed the trunk, we can still perform a sucessful vine removal without damaging the host tree.

Before

After

Reasons for Vine removal

1: Vines compete with a tree for crucial sunlight. Competing vines tend to kill interior growth, sometimes killing the whole canopy.

2: As vines climb a tree, they can girdle the trunk. This can cut off circulation and choke a tree.

3: The foliar mass and trunk weight of the vine can overburden the tree causing damage. The extra foliar mass also catches a lot of wind and snow.

4: Vines grow thick and obscure the tree. It becomes difficult to impossible to inspect the tree's health.