Ruth Amundsen retired a few years ago and decided to renovate her backyard in Norfolk with native plants. She quickly became embroiled in a battle against invasive ivy.
“I grew to hate English ivy over the next two months,” she said. “Then I started seeing it everywhere, and I started seeing trees that just had hundreds of pounds of English ivy on them, and were obviously going to die.”
She began researching the issue and eventually connected with Melissa Teates, a member of the Norfolk Tree Commission who was similarly concerned.
The pair recently launched the Coastal Invasive Removal Team, or CIRT, to save trees around Hampton Roads from plant invaders.
“We’re in tree rescue mode,” Teates said.
She and Amundsen estimate that tens of thousands of trees are threatened by invasives.
The team’s main focus is ivy, which is harmful in several ways. It weighs down trees, siphons away their resources, bores holes in the bark and holds in moisture that can accelerate fungal infections.
“I have seen trees dying, where you get the ivy off the tree and away from the bottom, that have come back to life,” Teates said. “They were literally dying because they were starving to death.”
Hampton Roads needs more trees, with benefits such as helping to absorb flooding and provide shade and animal habitat, Teates said.
That starts with preserving what’s already there. But efforts to control invasive plants are somewhat “fragmented.”
Cities manage trees on public property, but can’t keep up with the ivy everywhere. Local environmental nonprofits, such as the Elizabeth River Project and Chesapeake Bay Foundation, tend to focus on clearing out species along shorelines, such as invasive phragmites, she said.
Teates and Amundsen partnered with the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, which provides tools for removal.
Hampton Roads organizer Michelle Ueltschi said trees are key to the nonprofit’s mission of fighting climate change.
When trees grow and thrive, they absorb carbon dioxide and “hold it in their bodies for the length of their lifetime,” Ueltschi said.
“However, when the vines completely take over a tree and cause it to succumb to an early death, that releases all of that carbon back into the atmosphere and contributes to climate change.”
CIRT has been holding volunteer cleanup events on weekends this fall at sites in Norfolk, including Elmwood Cemetery and Lakewood Park.
The group hopes to expand to other cities, and wants to hear from residents or organizations about sites to target, even private backyards.
On Sunday, a small crew tackled a thicket of trees behind Honda of Norfolk along bustling Tidewater Drive, including volunteer Morgan Willett.
“I don't think English ivy is something we'll ever be able to eradicate, but we can at least mitigate its harmful effects on the plants that we do want to keep around,” Willett said. “It’s kind of cathartic, because you can see the progress as you go along.”
Amundsen trudged through overgrowth to get at one tree, using a hammer and crowbar to pry thick vines off the trunk. It’s hard work, she said, but satisfying.
“If I stand next to a tree that's going to live 10 or 20 years longer and be providing shade and housing for wildlife because I got in there and sweated, it's just a huge sense of personal joy.
“I swear I can feel the tree relax.”
CIRT has one more cleanup scheduled for this season on Nov. 14 at the Hermitage Museum & Gardens, from 9 a.m. to noon. You can learn more on the organization’s website.
