GreenbriarSmilax bona-nox
SnailseedCocculus carolinus
I'm sorry, but I really despise these two vines. One has awful thorns, and the other spreads with a vengeance. I've been pulling snailseed runners (I never knew it had a real name...duh!) for years. Now that we're working on the Meadow (our adjoining lot), we've started removing the snailseed, greenbriar and Japanese honeysuckle. The snailseed has an amazing underground network of runners that send up foliage every foot or so. It's kinda fun yanking them up and seeing how long of a vine you end up with.
However, I also wondered if we were doing the right thing to remove the snailseed. So I e-mailed Mike Reagan, our regional biologist with Texas Parks and Wildlife, and here's what he offered: "You can pull up the greenbriar and snailseed vines if you want to, even though they are natives to this area. Both vines produce fruit that birds eat so they can work well in a Wildscape. However, if you are trying to grow more colorful flowering plants, the vines might take up a lot of your garden space. You might want to consider just removing a good portion of the vines and leaving some in the garden."
That's the problem: the snailseed in particular acts like a darn invasive plant! It goes EVERYWHERE. In its place, we've already planted coral honeysuckle and pipevine (host plant for pipevine swallowtails).
In the meantime, I Googled snailseed and learned how it got its unusual name. Check out the photo of the snailseed seed, compliments of the Image Archive of Central Texas Plants.
Snailseed wrapped around greenbriarAccording to Wildflowers, Trees, and Shrubs of Texas (Lone Star Field Guide series), snailseed's red, shiny fruit is not edible (for humans?) and the vine is used in landscaping (really???). Likewise, says the guide, greenbriar's blue-black berries are inedible. However, "berries and roots yield dyes for wool, new leaves are edible," the guide states.
Salad, anyone?
Snailseed and greenbriar
28 comments:
And here's the difference between a garden and the great outdoors. If it's a garden, you can choose what you like. Good luck!
(I have some native spurge that I hunt with a passion in spring. One or two always get away...and they reseed like the weeds they are)
Cheryl, we're YANKING them! So a little at a time....
these two are our nemesis as well...the greenbriar comes up everywhere and all of a sudden too. the other one is less of a pain, but my hubby shakes his fist at it when it starts smothering our other plants..;)
One way to get rid of Snailseed that I have successfully used is to take a small plastic vial 1 to 3 ml or so in volume and duct tape it to a landscape flag (a wire 18" or so long with a small plastic flag). Find the end of a Snailseed runner and strip several leaves off. Cut the runner back leaving approximately 3 or 4 inches of bare runner. Put the bare runner end into the plastic vial and duct tape it to the landscape flag just above the plastic vial in order to hold the Snailseed runner in the vial. secure the landscape flag in the ground and fill the vial with concentrated brush killer. Leave for one day. In about three days, the entire vine will be a lovely brown or black. If you see any green Snailseed vines mixed in with the brown, you can treat it the same way, as it is a separate plant. After years of neglect, last year I treated 150 feet of hedge with 60 to 80 plants. This year I have found 3. The method is non-intrusive to surrounding plants as you can forget pulling up the runners.
I've spent all morning (and the last 17 years) pulling both the snailseed and the greenbriar out of parts of my garden.
I wouldn't worry too much about killing it off. You may be able to fight it the plants that they smother but it will be back.
If you do find a way of getting rid of it permanently, let me know.
I wonder how far down root system the vines will be killed doing the method anonymous described on July 12. I think I would like to try that, as the vine's roots system has taken over my entire yard, and I've gotten to the point where I am thinking of just growing my entire yard in pots instead of in the dirt where it just seems to be encouraging that drastly snailseed vine.
We've had problems with the same vines, especially the greenbrier. The problem with trying to pull up the greenbrier is that if you leave one of the big "node" tuber roots, it will grow right back. We only found two ways of controlling it - find and dig up the nodes or repeatedly cut the vines off at ground level until the nodes and roots die.
Has anyone tried what Anonymous wrote in July 12, 2009? Does anyone know what kind of brush killer to use?
Be warned, some people get a poison oak/ivy like rash when handling the snail seed vine. Be careful.
Hate to be the odd duck... but I love green-briar. I have goats so it is not an issue in the fence... but I have large thickets of the stuff. Vines with diameters of 1.5 inches at the base (I'm guessing the plants are older than me).... the cover the back of my property, and keep intruders out.
It keeps coming through the fence for my goats and is very nutritious. I have yet to eat it, but I am not against the idea, there is so darn much of it.
If you want to get rid of it where it is not wanted, goats will do the job... short of that... well it would be a pain. I do like having it in the right place though, it is a nice conversation peice as it looks really wicked and mean.
I am praying to god for a way to get rid of the snailseed vine it has spread everywhere, I brushed the brush killer on a section of vine about 18 in long and that killed part of the vine, but I can tell the same runner has grown back now that its fall. Any possibility I could use old prescription bottles to put brush killer into and then put the plant runner into the bottle? and then put the lid on.
I have no clue.
So I have read of two different ways to use the brush killer, I am wanting to know if you paint the chemical on the part of the vine that is green and sticking out of the ground, (growing from root tuber)...or do you dig up the end of the tuber/root and strip off the bark and put this in a bottle or container with the chemical... I have tried both methods and neither seems to be working well. What is meant by basal stem treatment...
Go to any florist shop and ask to purchase a few of their little water tubes that go on the bottom of individual flower stems. I got 10 of them for 25 cents each. Cut the thorns down so that only a few inches stick up from the soil. Fill the florist tube with a concentrated brush killer with GLYPHOSATE as its main ingredient. It's important to put these on the freshly cut portion of the vine as soon as possible after cutting. I prepared the tubes first then cut the vines and immediately placed the tubes. I've heard of a lot of people having great success using this method on the thorny vines. As for the snailseed, mixed. I put a couple of tubes on the cut underground roots of a snailseed runner just to see how it does. I just did all these today so we'll see... I can't wait to start seeing results. So sick of these things!
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10203343847733118&set=a.2032239321800.120032.1118662801&type=1&theater
Copy and paste this to see an example photo i took this afternoon.
Any update on if this worked at killing the snailseed vine? So you cut off the green part of the vine and put the underground tubor into the tube?
Nothing yet. I'm not trying it out myself.
I am still trying to figure out whether to put the brush killer on the green that is above ground or put the underground runner in a container with the brush killer? Basel stem, does that mean to try to find the original plant which all others are growing from? The Basel stem seems like would work only if you had a very new invasion, after its been in an area for several years I don't know if there is just one Basel stem
Sorry--I am CLUELESS. :-)
I am now finding this vine at my moms house, this is going to become a big problem anyone know of any way to get rid of these please post, I was using brush killer mixed with diesel gasoline. Turns out that the mixture made its way to the roots of surrounding plants, so I don't know if painting on the base stem is a good idea either as this method will also kill nearby plants
Please, has anyone found a way to get rid of these vines....nothing works...I don't want to go out and dig up my entire flowerbeds only to find that I didn't get all of the roots and the whole process start over again..
I'm afraid you're just going to have to pull pull pull. :-(
Hi Sheryl. I've been dealing with these vines for 10 years now. I alternate between yanking the greenbriar out and cutting them at the ground. Decided to google this morning to see if there was an alternative and saw your article first! Thabks for the info.
Hi, Gretchen. This is my most read post. :-)
DO NOT SPRAY GASOLINE!
Oh my gosh-this has a real name? Around here we call it "gator-vine" for the scars you get walking through a patch of it. I read about the florist water tube method of killing this plant, but they used bleach instead if weedkiller. They swore it did the job.
What I have been doing is to uncover and expose the root about 6 inches and then cover the exposed part with a paper towel, spray the paper towel with Pasture Pro Brush Killer (For Hard-to-kill Brush), and cover it with a plastic bag. I use masking tape to hold the plastic bag in place. Then cover the whole thing.
I discovered this vine, and have been fighting it for about a year but has now overtaken my entire front and back yard. All my St Agustine grass has died due to Extremetly hot summer (Way south Texas!) I pulled up enough runners to make a nice wreath! Next is “roundup". A landscaper came by and I asked him about what to do with the vine. He said till up the yard.
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