City arborist Laurie Reid recalled a report of a fallen tree her team was called to last week as Tropical Storm Debby moved through the Carolinas. The tree was long dead.

“It looked like a living tree because it was completely green,” Reid said. “But it was just a very dead tree that was completely covered in ivy.”

The city of Charlotte has received 207 calls since Thursday. After the severe storms in May, the city received more than 400 calls. Reid says there could have been fewer – if more landowners had taken better care of their trees and, for example, removed ivy.

Healthy, mature trees provide benefits to surrounding communities, such as providing habitat and shade, sequestering carbon, and preventing erosion. However, when invasive climbing takes hold, tree health deteriorates.

Reid leads Charlotte’s tree care team, which takes care of the trees on the city’s public streets. Over 60% of the sites the team has visited since last week’s storm were on private property. The city takes action when those trees fall onto public property like streets.

A few days before the storm, arborist Heather Brent of TreesCharlotte helped lead a workshop to remove invasive vines such as ivy, kudzu and wisteria from trees surrounding a church and a home in the McCrorey Heights neighborhood, just northwest of Uptown.

These vines damage trees in different ways, depending on the species. Many problematic vines quickly creep up trees, completely covering them and reducing the amount of light the host tree can use for photosynthesis. Wisteria is an example of vines that wrap around a tree and constrict it through a process called girdling. All of these conditions favor a tree falling over in a severe storm.

“It also makes the tree much heavier,” Brent said. Grape vines collect water and that extra water can quickly become heavy, especially when it starts to freeze in the winter. That extra weight can also cause problems for the trees in high winds.

Reid said dense ivy can act like a sail, billowing in the wind and knocking down the tree.

Zachary Turner

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WFAE News

Brent said many of the vines come from homeowners who planted them on their own property.

However, there are native alternatives available commercially when it comes to creeping, scrambling plants. In North Carolina, many climbing plants have evolved to coexist with trees and shrubs without killing them. There are many native climbing plants, such as the wild grapevine and trumpet morning glory, that do not crowd out other endemic species.

Grants for ivy removal are available through the Keep Charlotte Beautiful program.