The Hillside
I spent a couple of hours in the back of the house clearing the tangle of growth that yearly covers the hillside. (I hesitate to call it a yard as it is only a thin, six to twelve foot strip of earth with my tool shed at the widest part. Behind the strip is the hill side ascending steeply and held back by a monster rock wall. It could not be less yard-like...) Knots of tough vines, low-growing bushes and ground cover, including brambles, wild roses, golden rod, poison ivy, etc.
The vines include wild grape and my least favorite plant, bitter sweet. This tough vine puts out tough, orange colored roots that form a web under the soil. It sends its shoots out from the roots and the shoots seek the sun, climbing whatever vertical ladder it can find. Trees, buildings and fences-it winds around its host and climbs. As the bitter sweet winds around the host, creeping up to the light, its spiral hold chokes and shapes the tree like a boa constrictor(this takes place over a year or two or ten) and the tree trunk takes on a cork-screw shape. The vine thickens and can be two or three inches thick if left uncut. Eventually the weight of the vine drags the host down to the floor of the forest. If one can pull the young vines out of the ground and get the tough, orange root the growth can be checked, but that is nearly impossible. The young shoots are soft and break off easily. The plant sacrifices the shoot to save the tough root system. Next year the shoots will sprout profusely from the old roots.
The wild grape and poison ivy grow in similar ways to the bittersweet. It is easy to walk by a huge old tree and not notice that the leaves that fill out the tree are not those of an oak or hickory or buttonwood it is a canopy of vine leaves. It is easy to miss the thick, hairy looking vine that clings like a cancer onto the trunk and spreads out into the branches. Closer inspection (not too close!) will show it to be old-growth poison ivy. It is easy to see in the fall when the magnificent colors of the ivy are on display, usually before the host tree takes on it’s own fall colors. If you try to chop the mature vine off of the side of the tree you risk major contamination by the poison sap that oozes from the root. It will, in time, also kill the host with the weight and blocking the sun and rain but the poison ivy takes its time.
Far easier to control is the wild grape. Young vines come loose when you pull them away from the rocks and soil. This vine is a house cat where the ivy and the bittersweet are tigers. Even when it grows old it does not poison and its thick, mature vines can be cut and sometimes pulled out of the host tree. Make no mistake though, it kills its host too and the forest around here is full of grape vine.
The smelly Ginko trees(Sumac) sprout and grow, soft and bright green, until they reach six or eight feet high-which they can and do within one or two growing seasons if left uncut. After a couple of years the Ginko hardens and is a hearty growing tree that can double in size each year. It is a mistake to ignore it because in a few seasons one will have a tree removal problem. Better to get it while still young and soft and easily cut. After cutting it down it is good to get the roots too but if you don’t it will wither in a season or two of consistent chopping. The roots will probably die off but don’t ignore it one year or it will come back. I have them return year after year with persistence.
Sycamore, Tulip, Locust and Black Birch are among the other trees that grow like weeds if unattended. Best to cut them with a vengeance. I love the smell of the Black (Sweet) Birch when you cut it. It smells like root beer and I have memories of this smell from my child hood (Royal Castle birch beer!) and from the Black Birch trees on the first piece of property I ever owned (Mountaindale N.Y.). These memories make it difficult for me to chop down a sweet birch tree but they must be cut. They grow like the Sumac-in leaps and bounds-and it is easy to end up with a huge tree where it is not wanted. I have several right now that will take a tactical assault to remove as they huge and are near electrical wires and growing out of rock walls. Best to get them gone while they are young.
Along with the trees and the vines the low-growing plants-weeds and flowers proliferate on the sunny hillside. I have a love/hate relationship with the flowering, thorny wild roses . Stubborn and dangerous, wild rose can snag your flesh and tear it like a sharp saw blade. The thorns are curved and long like a cat’s claws and if you get snagged it is difficult to extricate oneself from the barbs. And Oh so painful! (One of these tore our dog’s ear once and the bleeding would not stop. Finally had to staunch the flow by suturing the ear with crazy glue and tissue paper. It did the job) It is impossible to pull the roots of the rose out so cutting them back is a yearly ritual. I try to stay away from the thorns by pulling at the branches with a long-handled, stiff-toothed rake and lopping off the branches as close to the roots as I can possibly-and safely-reach. They come back stronger and stronger each year because of the pruning , but the exercise is rewarded with the smell of pungent wild rose.
Another thorn-bearing hazard is the raspberry (or maybe it is a black berry-I am not sure?). I try to leave them alone as they are less invasive on the hillside and they give me wonderful fruit. I prune them gently and carefully and reap quarts of sweet (but seedy)fruit.
The weeds (such as golden rod and mint) are controlled by cutting before they “bolt” or pulling them out roots and all. The golden rod comes out very easy. The mint clings and breaks leaving the roots which just continue to grow. Nothing is really easy on the hillside. Up until recently I used to use my scythe and rake and lopping shears and clear off the hill in a day by myself. My age has caught up with me and now I think it will take me two or three partial days work. Yesterday I cleaned about a 1/3 and I will go out again today for another session. The vines and thorns are merciless and do not give an inch even as I grow older. I feel like a huge, old tree with giant vines hanging from my branches, pulling me earthward. The work shapes my actions and I must spend my effort and energy wisely. Eventually the hillside and the other travails of life will pull me down. Until I can no longer do it, I will clean the hillside.
