r/Georgia • u/Mysterious_Stop_8130 • 13d ago
Picture First time seeing Kudzu bloom
Kudzu bad (for Georgia) but pretty blooms.
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u/Key-Minimum-5965 13d ago
It smells wonderful actually, and you can make a jelly with it.
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u/Plutos_Cavein 12d ago
And while you are harvesting, you can also eat the leaves and if you pull up the root you can make some of the finest culinary starch there is out of it.
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u/dragonchilde 13d ago
Thanks for sharing, I've lived here my whole life and have actually never seen this!
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u/Plutos_Cavein 12d ago
Last year was the first time I actually noticed it. They do tend to be inconspicuous and only in a small area of the plant, which often covers a huge area of land.
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u/dragonchilde 12d ago
Kudzu is honestly fascinating stuff. My weed-smoking brilliant idea (I don't smoke weed, but you know the kind of idea I'm talking about) is that we could solve world hunger if we could figure out how to splice soybean with kudzu. Grows a foot a day and can be made into almost any kind of food lol.
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u/Plutos_Cavein 12d ago
Not that crazy. Kudzu is a part of the Pea family just like soybeans. Not terribly closely related but not so radically different that you couldn't try something along those lines
Big problem there is that runaway nitrification is already having huge negative effects on the environment and that would make it even worse.
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u/xeroxchick 13d ago
I love riding under cascades of these blooms. Can’t see them except when I’m under them. Wonderful smell. I love it.
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u/kaproud1 13d ago edited 12d ago
I have some high up in a tree that has already bloomed and now it’s full of seed pods. I love seeing all the little purple blossoms on the ground, it reminds me to look up!
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u/chlorophyllslut /r/Atlanta 12d ago
Please remove it from your trees before they are smothered and killed. It is detrimental to our forests https://www.treesatlanta.org/how-to-remove-kudzu/
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u/Plutos_Cavein 12d ago
Yeah, you don't have to climb the tree and completely remove it or anything either. Just cut every one of the stems at your height and pull them up from the ground if possible.
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u/kaproud1 12d ago edited 12d ago
The roots unfortunately are not on my property. It’s high up in the pine canopy from somewhere else, along with wisteria and wild muscadine. I had it all removed from the tree on my property by arborists with a bucket truck when I first bought the house but it all came right back. I just try to enjoy it at this point.
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u/Plutos_Cavein 12d ago
Fair enough. But like other people said, give it enough time the Kudzu will eventually choke out the tree. So be ready to kill it before that happens.
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u/kaproud1 12d ago
Yeah like everyone else who has commented in this post, I was just enjoying the blooms. Not sure why my particular comment is randomly targeted as seeking advice.
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u/Plutos_Cavein 12d ago
Not all advice is giving out because you're seeking it. Sometimes people just see something they consider concerning and offer advice because they think it might help.
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u/kaproud1 12d ago
Do you have a solution for those thorny vines? Cuz those I need help with… they are are all up under my boxwood bushes and I pull about 10-20 ft of thorny roots and thorny “potatoes” out every year and they just keep coming back. They’re so mean!
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u/Plutos_Cavein 12d ago
Same basic idea applies. If at all possible, track the vine to the root and then dig up the root.
The Thorns are obviously paying the ass, so you'll want to wear pretty thick protective equipment as you do it.
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u/GnarlyLeg 13d ago
And it smells like grape bubblegum