kudzu reshapes Georgia

December 19, 2004 9:04 AM

The many seasons of kudzu. In Georgia, the legend says that you must close your windows at night to keep it out of the house. Love it or run.
posted by madamjujujive (12 comments total)

For more on the worst agricultural import in American history, go here.
posted by grabbingsand at 9:07 AM on December 19, 2004

GM kudzu to produce THC and it will not grow fast enough.
posted by three blind mice at 9:13 AM on December 19, 2004

ah, grabbingsand - my apologies...my mefi google fu is failing me. Damn.
Loved your post tho, we must be kindred spirits ;-)

/ whips self with 40 lashes of kudzu.
posted by madamjujujive at 9:25 AM on December 19, 2004

It does have uses!

http://tinyurl.com/4lvoe

http://www.kudzucuisine.com/

http://tinyurl.com/4wtr2
posted by Postroad at 9:29 AM on December 19, 2004

Propagates like DPs.
Does Christo know about this stuff?
Why all the fuss? Looks very cool to me.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 9:57 AM on December 19, 2004

Even you're double-posts are classy, madam. Who'da thought someone would've beat you to kudzu anyway?

A favorite comment from the previous thread:
Humans are the mammalian kudzu.
posted by five fresh fish at 5:17 PM PST on November 11
posted by Shane at 10:24 AM on December 19, 2004

Good lord, Postroad. Deep-fried kudzu leaves? [shiver]

Anyway, 'tis hardly the season for kudzu posts. The huge mess of it next to our house has fallen back nicely since late August, when it came close to completely blanketing a stand of 100-foot-tall trees. One year, the mass of vines woven over the treetops got so heavy it collapsed a pine. I do like the shapes as it swallows hills, trees, telephone poles, wires and such, but watching the process is also kind of sad at the same time.

I once spent a satisfying afternoon with a hacksaw cutting thick vines near the ground around the worst-hit trees. Watching long trails of kudzu turn brown over the next few days was great fun. Two weeks later, you couldn't tell I'd done a thing.

Oh, and if you ever have the misfortune to be clawing your way over a kudzu-covered hill, pray that you're wearing long pants. It may look soft and cuddly from far away, but those bristly vines claw like sawgrass up close.
posted by mediareport at 2:27 PM on December 19, 2004

My childhood memories of driving through Tennessee are of kudzu. That's pretty much all I remember about the place, but I thought it was quite beautiful--nature reclaiming her land from us puny humans.
posted by zardoz at 4:50 PM on December 19, 2004

this looks like where I grew up (seriously). many, many houses around where I lived were just covered in kudzu...very LoTR looking...I figured any minute Bilbo would step out.

BUT THANK TEH GOD THAT WE HAD SUBURBAN SPRAWLZ AND GOT THE RID OF THAT SHIT!

Now all we have are carbon copy houses lined down the road with their soccer stickered SUV's in the driveway.

God bless mom, debt and people spending like a whore in a vibrator shop.

(I've since upgraded where I live now...I live in Atlanta....a much needed improvement...it's nice here... I must go slit my wrists...)
posted by Hands of Manos at 4:55 PM on December 19, 2004

What's all the fuss? For one, it eradicates native vegetation and, in the case of southern Kentucky at least, is destroying some beautiful habitat areas. Bad kudzu, bad.
posted by tizzie at 5:18 PM on December 19, 2004

There was a great short movie called Kudzu about the plant. James Dickey was interviewed and read from his poem, Kudzu. The lush green images were great. But my favorite sequence was a USDA agronomist and a Japanese agronomist. The USDA man went on in great detail at how useless Kudzu was, taking otherwise productive land out of cultivation, etc. The Japanese man then spoke at length as to how useful kudzu was, as a food additive and fiber.

The new problem is that kudzu is a carrier for soybean rust which, of course, doesn't hurt the kudzu.
posted by Dr. Grue at 5:36 PM on December 19, 2004

I went to Japan a couple of years ago, to Yoshino mountain close to Nara, where among other things I had a tasty chewy confectionary, delicious with green tea. I brought some back, elegantly wrapped, looked up the kanji (Japanese character) on the wrapper in my Japanese dictionary and sounded out the phonetic pronunciation ku...dzu.

Reminded me of the "my sister Sal" verse in the mountain dew campfire song.
posted by mono blanco at 2:25 AM on December 20, 2004