It is a good thing to see the saving of trees with the cutting away of the vines that slowly can strangle trees. Last Friday there were 15 “hardworking, divine volunteers that answered the Friends of Greenwich Point’s (FOGP) call for help and showed up at the Point to SAVE THE TREES!” says Diana Klingner of the FOGP’s Conservation Committee.
She reports this as the sixth vine cutting workday of the winter at Greenwich Point. “We have targeted a number of areas with invasive vines in trees so large they were pulling down and killing the trees. Many vines were thick enough to need saws today. The Town Parks Department helped us previously with a chainsaw for the very large 6-inches across invasive vines.” Those volunteers had “fun,” says Klingner, “and felt fulfilled being able to help out like that.”
She is surprised she says of “what willing volunteers were capable of, that we could even put a dent in the invasive vines killing so many trees but think we have gotten almost every corner of the Greenwich Point with a few exceptions. We will go back for one more walkabout to be sure.”
One wonders if Native Americans ever woke to this slow strangulation. Surely colonists didn’t and present-day Americans seemingly have yet to learn how to save their trees. Years ago, when I lived in England my love interest had a habit of keeping a hacksaw in the car and would stop along the road when he saw a thick carpet of ivy choking a lovely oak tree. He would quickly proceed to the base of the tree and commence his cutting, then jump back into the car and drive off. Don’t think he was ever arrested for such.
This reporter occasionally stops and takes iPhone photos of gorgeous trees doing their best to grow, to weep, to bloom, though their trunks are fully encased in thick vines. Those photos sit in my iPhone as I figure I am liable for going “over the line” if I report the strangulations. And very often I find someone opining on the green cloak around the trunk, “It’s good for the trees!” Please!
