Invasive Vine Solutions

03/10/2026

02/01/2026

Winter is doing its winter thing! ❄️😢 keep checking back for more vendors joining the parking lot pop up with preorders.

12/06/2025

OVER-RUN BY VINES? Increase your Property Value. Save healthy trees. We eradicate invasive Vines, Weeds, Briars. Specialist with Oriental Bittersweet.

08/01/2023

INVASIVE VINE SOLUTIONS
is a small, locally-owned business specializing in the removal of invasive species of vines. The owner is R. Jude Wilber of Hatchville Village - Town of Falmouth. I have been doing this work since 2013 with many satisfied clients. I have worked for private residents as well as commercial properties and public holdings. I work mainly in the 4 towns of the Upper Cape but have traveled as far as Taunton and Middleboro. I taught two courses on Invasive Vines for Falmouth Night School and have been featured in news articles.
I call my business Invasive Vine Solutions because I address each job with three strategies in mind: 1) Prevention, 2) Mitigation and 3 ) Eradication. In actual practice my work involves all three and the goal is to always enhance my clients properties by saving and nurturing mature trees and other desirable plantings. By eliminating aerial vines and their hidden rhizome systems I open up new space for landscaping decisions.
My work has been described as a “slow makeover” of infested areas as I work with the seasonality of growth and invasion. There are no quick fixes for heavily invaded properties. I use mostly hand tools, and e-tools (battery and corded-electric) in order to be exact in my work and to minimize damage to the overall environment and landscape.
If you are having problems with any of the species listed below, please contact me. I will perform a full Assessment of your property with a complete Work Plan at no cost or obligation.

Sincerely - R. Jude Wilber

These are the chief offenders that are present on the Upper Cape
Oriental Bittersweet = Celastrus orbiculatus
Porcelain Berry = Ampelopsis brevipedunculata
Hanging, Bull and Green Briars = Smilax spp.
English Ivy = Hedera helix
Virginia Creeper = Parthenocissus quinquefolia
Poison Ivy = Toxicodendron radicans
Japanese Knotweed = Fallopia japonica
Wild Grape = Vitris vinifera
Wisteria = Wisteria spp.

I also deal with the following “Nuisance” species:
Bamboo = Bambusa sp. etc
Japanese Honeysuckle - Lonerica japonica
Honey Locust - Gleditsia triacanthos
Japanese Barberry - Berberis thunbergii
Nuisance Forsythia - Forsythia sp.
Nuisance Sumac - Rhus typhina

OVER-RUN BY VINES? Increase your Property Value. Save healthy trees. We eradicate invasive Vines, Weeds, Briars. Specialist with Oriental Bittersweet.

07/25/2023

Opportunity at IVS

IVS is looking to hire one or more Good Workers for removal of Invasive Vines from Residential and Commercial Properties. IVS is the #1 Vine removal Business on Cape Cod - now with 10 years experience. The work will be part-time to start and the workers will be subcontractors. As such IVS can offer higher-then-normal wages. IVS will supply tools and in some cases transportation. The right person will be in line to share or take-over the business in 4 years. I prefer to interview applicants 50 years or older, in good shape with an understanding of this term: "Work Ethic". In general Millennials and especially Gen-Z'ers need not apply. Email interest to [email protected].

07/21/2023

Understanding Invasive Vines - Part 6

I have described some of what is involved in killing and stripping the AERIAL portion of the invasive vines. But for every foot of vine that can be seen above ground there is an UNDERGROUND system of roots known as “rhizomes”. Unlike the roots of trees which run deep - but not far- and provide water and nutrients for a single plant, vine rhizomes are different. They are a helter-skelter array of fast growing segments leading to “growth nodes”. Each node serves as a site for a new aerial vine to spring up and also as a hub for secondary rhizomes to spread in all directions.
The pictures shows a computer generated pattern of rhizomes. a large growth node of Japanese Knotweed and the immense rhizomes that can come with bamboo.
Unless the rhizomes are also brought under control cutting of the aerial vines merely serves to cultivate the whole vine system. Killing all those unseen rhizomes is at first an impossible task. But there are patterns to the rhizomes that can be used to stop them. Usually an infestation can be traced back to one very old and very large vine. On a recent job - truly a bittersweet jungle - I discovered the mother vine which was 5 inches in diameter and had 50 annular growth rings. It's kinda a nightmare but the key to stopping the underground spread is tracking down the major nodes or “growth centers”. Once the mass of aerial vines is removed these nodes are quite obvious. In my next post I will talk of techniques for getting at the rhizomes.

07/14/2023

Experimenting with a new look...

07/04/2023

UNDERSTANDING INVASIVE VINES - PART 5
Invasive Vines and their allies - Bamboo and Japanese Knotweed - work in two ways. In my last post I described the basic kill-cutting of the AERIAL portion of the invaders. In serious infestations this is just the start of getting rid of all the aerial vine biomass. Even after die-back the vines remain a burden on trees and bushes and they need to be “stripped.” Stripping produces a tremendous amount of vine biomass which can be burned during the January-April burn season. Otherwise it has to be shredded and/or transported to a proper disposal facility. But how do you get a 65 foot vine out of the crown or a 65 foot tree? I will hold onto that as a “trade secret”. I have a success rate of approximately 75%. For those anastomosing vine uppers that just will not come down I cut them at a height of 34 feet and let them dry and eventually drop out on their own. My ability to clear high trees and NOT leave a lot of Tarzan vines hanging down is one of the things that sets IVS apart from other vine services.

The Photos show "high-trellising" of Bittersweet and Wild Grape to upper crowns of tall (60-70') Oak Trees and how these vines look (on the ground) after being successfully removed by IVS.

06/17/2023

Understanding Invasive Vines - Part 4 - The Hateful Smilax

One of the nastier invasive vines goes by the genus name of Smilax. I always refer to it as the Hateful Smilax. Why? Because of the extremely sharp and abundant thorns on this plant. It is probably the one invasive that stops homeowners in their tracks when attempting to cut back vines on their own. Smilax has a number of different “looks” or varieties. It can appear as a woody plant - a large shrub or even a small tree where the thorns are particularly dangerous. I have had them shred me many times before I learned how to deal with them. Smilax can form extensive low-level assemblages in forests where it appears during summer as a “green haze”. This green haze it impenetrable! On the other hand when Smilax gets the chance it will climb nearly any sort of “trellis” plant that is available and is capable of invading the upper story and crown of tall (>60’) trees such as Maples and Oaks. Its preferred climbing style is to stay in the lower to middle story of such trees as cherry and maple and cedar where it forms mesh-like nets of hanging briars. These become traps for birds. The endgame for Smilax is to literally wire together adjacent trees while killing them. Smilax has a very high tensile strength when alive - and is a sort of living barbed wire. In the case where Smilax has wired together trees and they have to be removed it is common to cut 2, 3, 4 trees in a row and have them just hang there in space - all tied to adjacent trees. So you can see why I call it The Hateful Smilax.
How to prepare to deal with this invasive? I wrap my forearms in a heavy material and use wrist braces on both arms. I then use heavy leather welding gloves to cut and grab. Similarly I wear heavy pants and reinforce them with industrial knee pads because the most painful thing in the vine business is to kneel on a Smilax thorn. Finally I wear an arborist helmet with the face shield down because Smilax is always looking for a way to attack the head. Smilax is one of the 3 most common invasive vines on Cape Cod. It commonly works in conjunction with Oriental Bittersweet and Wild Grape. The photos show Smilax invading a pond-side meadow (Woods Hole), “popping up” only days after being cut by a homeowner (Sandwich), forming “hanging nets” (Hatchville) and wiring trees together (Sippewissett).

If you are having troubles with the Big 3 - or any of the other invasive plants I deal with (listed below) please contact me - Jude Wilber - via this page (comment or messenger) or [email protected] or 774-392-0715 or 774-392-0915.

Chief offenders
Oriental Bittersweet = Celastrus orbiculatus
Porcelain Berry = Ampelopsis brevipedunculata
Hanging, Bull and Green Briars = Smilax sp.
English Ivy = Hedera helix
Virginia Creeper = Parthenocissus quinquefolia
Japanese Knotweed = Reynoutria japonica
Wild Grape = Vitis vulpina

I also deal with:
Bamboo = Bambusa sp. etc
Poison Ivy - Toxicodendron radicans
Japanese Honeysuckle - Lonerica japonica
Honey Locust - Gleditsia triacanthos
Japanese Barberry - Berberis thunbergii
Nuisance Forsythia - Forsythia sp.
Nuisance (Staghorn) Sumac - Rhus typhina

06/10/2023

UNDERSTANDING INVASIVE VINES - PART 3
Invasive Vines and their allies - Bamboo and Japanese Knotweed - work in two ways. The AERIAL part of the plants is that which you can see sprouting, winding up trunks, running out on limbs, pulling sumacs and rhododendrons down to the turf. When I address an infestation the first rule is to “stop the bleeding” which means kill-cutting all the aerial portions of the invasives. This may seem to be a daunting task but over the years I have compiled an advanced tool kit such that I can kill-cut well over 20 vines in a minute. Kill-cutting can be as simple as running The Blade of Death over a patch of knotweed. If this is done in the mid-to late summer that is the end of knotweed for the year. But not the end of knotweed. Kill-cutting a meshwork of English Ivy on a cedar tree is a much more difficult task. Where vines have created such a “death grip” on a tree the procedure is to “girdle and moat” the trunk. In doing this the vines are severed all around the trunk at Approx 6 feet and then at the base of the trunk. The vines are then stripped leaving a newly revealed bark surface. This is the “girdle”. Further, all the vines are cut back away from the base of the trunk for a distance of 18 inches. This is the “moat”. The girdle-and-moat successfully stops the vine attack on the tree. After some die-back the tree is then stripped of all vines to a height of approx. 30 feet.