Dormant Season Foliar Spraying Slows the Spread of Wintercreeper, English Ivy, and Lesser Periwinkle in Wooded Natural Areas

摘要

Wintercreeper (Euonymus jortunet) is an evergreen trailing shrub or climbing vine introduced from Asia. It is an easily propagated ground cover that is widely used by landscapers (Dirr 1983). Wintercreeper seeds are eaten by birds which spread them into natural areas through their feces. As early as 1961, E. Lucy Braun noted that wintercreeper had escaped from cultivation in Ohio, US (Braun 1961). We have observed that over the past few years natural areas in Southwestern Ohio have experienced an explosive increase in wintercreeper. Wintercreeper is so aggressive that it can form a dense ground cover (Figure 1) that chokes out native species (Homoya 2012).