Mile-a-Minute Weed

Mile-a-minute weed is a scary plant. It can grow up to 6 inches per day, and it strangles anything in its path. If you live in the Northeast, beware.

Launch Gallery

In June , I trade my trowel and trimmer for a back pack and boot and place off for a yoke of weeks on the Appalachian Trail in Pennsylvania . I ’ve been hike up the AT for several years now , and along with the beautiful vistas , good society , and random surprises there have been some unsettlling experiences : crepitation electric storm , snakes , bear , and a few weirdos . All of that I took pretty much in footstep . Then I encountered Roman mile - a - minute weed .

I was making my way southwards along the ridgeline toward Swatara Gap . The rainwater had stopped , and I was enjoying the airy wildflowers and black raspberries as I rock - hop and tiptoed around the toxicant English ivy . Then I examine it : a basketball game - court - sized patch of unanimous fleeceable blanketing the ground and anything upright in its track .

Safe for now , but perchance not for longMile - a - minute vine ( Persicaria perfoliata , formerly know asPolygonum perfoliatum ) , a Chinese plant introduce incidentally to the United States as a contamination of ornamental stock . It first became established in Pennsylvania in the 1930s and has been circularise ever since . It has been account as invasive in Virginia , West Virginia , Delaware , Maryland , District of Columbia , New Jersey , New York , Massachusetts , and ( alas ) Connecticut .

•Biological Control of Mile - a - Minute Weeda 2009 University of Delaware report

in all likelihood it ’s just a affair of time until those scary pea green triangles show up in mywineberry patch . But when they do , I ’ll attack vigorously . Mile - a - mo Mary Jane is an one-year , not a perennial , so the caper is to get it before it dress seminal fluid , which will winter over and produce new vine the following twelvemonth . Small patches can be control by hand - pull or even mowing . Biocontrol experiment are underway in Maryland and Connecticut to root out the plant with the land mile - a - minute weevil ( Rhinoncomimus latipes Korotyaev ) .

Fine Gardening Recommended Products

A.M. Leonard Deluxe Soil Knife & Leather Sheath Combo

Get our modish tips , how - to articles , and instructional video send off to your inbox .

Signing you up …

Let’s take a field trip to FineGardening.com

Raised Beds: Who Has a Cool Design?

A Gardener’s Thanksgiving

Welcome, Cooks, to VegetableGardener.com

Join Fine Gardening for a barren engaging bouncy webinar sport Dr. Janna Beckerman , a renowned plant diagnostician as well as professor emerita at Purdue University and the ornamental technical manager …

When I spotted a particular backbone dollar cactus ( Astrophytum asterias ) at the Philadelphia Flower Show a few months ago , I knew I was in worry . With a delightful color pattern …

When we only prioritise flora we want over plants our landscape painting needs , each season is filled with a never - ending list of chores : pruning , pinching , lacrimation , treating , amending , and fertilizing , with …

Video

Touring an Eco-friendly, Shady Backyard Retreat

You must be measured when you enter the backyard of garden clothes designer Jeff Epping — not because you ’re potential to trip on something , but because you might be dive - bombed by a pair …