PlantFiles: Mile-a-minute Weed, Asiatic Tear Thumb
Polygonum perfoliatum

This nasty weed was nowhere to be seen when I first moved here. Now it is everywhere. It chokes out native species such as wild asters and goldenrod (Solidago).

ERADICATE on sight!

This stuff in nasty, and will cover over almost anything given sun. It grows fast, and can be a pain to eradicate. Pull it (it does pull easily) before it seeds starting in July through first frost. It's easiest to pull in the early spring before the thorns harden, but with gloves can be pulled anytime; some will germinate later in the season, or resprout from roots left when pulling. It likes sun, and will climb 20-30' up trees to get it. Forms thick mats in sun; a railing I have 3' off the ground was totally obscured by a 6-10" thick mat of mile-a-minute. It can totally cover entire slopes.

Stop it from getting established at all costs; once established it will be hard to get rid of. Seeds can be viable in the soil for up to 4 years; it's spread by birds and also by water. It will often show up near things like raspberries and where birds sit near feeders.

I have these vines growing every where and in such vast quantities, it's impossible to deal with.

They're named mile a minute because they put on inches of growth per day.

Vines have little thorns, climb up anything, choke other plants and make little milky blue berries in late summer.

I don't know of any redeeming qualities.

Polygonum perfoliatum is an annual vine native to China. According to some sources, this prickly, fast-growing vine was accidentally introduced into Pennsylvania in the mid-1940s and is quickly becoming the "Kudzu" Pueraria lobota of the northeastern U.S.