PlantFiles: Skunk-vine
Paederia foetida

For 6 years I have battled this nefarious vine. I am just starting to get on level footing meaning I am not loosing ground to it at the moment. It will live longer than I will however.

The vine comes from runners and in its' mature stage "weed grenades" as my wife calls them. The runners when hitting soil (or a thatched/low soil above ground area as well) can sprout roots which radiate out rather shallowly in the 1st -2nd years. By the 3rd year, it is able to readily project more runner vines. I am beginning to suspect that it also can begin to grow roots if it is cut and comes in contact with soil. Which means, if you cut it-cut it all out. I have fooled myself for 2 years thinking I got it when in reality, I just spured it on.

I used roundup on the leaves after cutting it back (about 1' from the ground) then a week later coming back to wipe the remaining lower leaves with roundup. (Remember you must leave green leaves for roundup to work-just minimize the work the herbicide must do by cutting it back-not down to the ground). This helps to control it by 1/2. The other half is getting out there after in and ensuring it gets several hits in about 2 months. This is the plan this year anyway.

The vines in their mature stage have put a serious hurt on even the palm trees. One Chinese fan was so bound that the new palms couldn't burst through and had to be cut out from up there. ground plants and especially shrubbery like Chinese boxwood, Hawthorne and podocarpus cannot really compete and will be severely hindered in development and enjoyment.

For a test, my wife put a bucket of collected weed gernades out on the driveway. 4 months later the bucket was full of thriving pig taters (as they are called in Polk County, FL) there was no soil and water was either overflowing or non existent.

If a good use can ever come to these plants they will be great to grow with few problems. Unfortunately that is no the state of things in my yard.

yes I see this vine beginning to spread into shubbery around the neighborhood.

Although it is a very pretty vine it smells awful and immediately grows over anything in it's path. I pulled it up by the roots - hopefully it won't come back next year.

This is a Category I Exotic Pest Plant in north and central Florida. Though the flowers are not unattractive, everything possible should be done to eradicate it everywhere in this state.

If only I had a solution to get rid of this. It is even taking over my trumpet vine. We mowed (it clogged up the mower) it over the ferns it took over, poured a thick layer of mulch over it and it's still popping up through. Plus, it can now be found in lots of areas on my acre. I pull it out and it comes back.

I consider this a nightmare weed! I live in Citrus county in Florida and this vine was introduced to my yard in a load of mulch we got at the county landfill. That was the first and last time we got mulch from there! The vine keeps covering my azalea and camelia bushes and nothing I do seems to permanently get rid of it. It's even migrating into the lawn! Any suggestions for how to get rid of it would be very welcome.

Paederia foetida (skunk vine) is even worse than it sounds. It really is nasty smelling, rank growing, agressive, and climbing to the treetops and smothering mature trees. Amazingly, even though it is so invasive in a few counties near and just north of Tampa, Florida, it does not seem to have spread much beyond this region. I suspect that this could be because it may prefer neutral to alkaline pH soils, in contrast to the acid soils of most of Florida. I believe it is also invasive in some other parts of the subtropics.