Discovery Communications, LLC (as our parent company prefers to be formally known) is all about employee and community enrichment stuff. Which is awesome. But, it also often entails additional *work* for us employees. Case in point: I forgot to log my daily steps when I got in this morning. Shoot. Let me do that now … OK, steps logged. That’s for our 4-month-long Global Corporate Challenge which encourages 375 companywide 7-member teams to strap on pedometers this summer and walk, walk, walk! We log our steps daily, track our team’s progress steadily and distrust our competitors wildly. How’s that for company camaraderie? I jest. I love free stuff. And competition. Keep it up, Discovery.

Like my hat? (Photo by Sa Su)

Anyway, in terms of community improvement, we also participate in an annual Discover Your Impact Day. This year’s was Friday, and I volunteered with 30 or so other coworkers to clean up a local park. It was hot and dirty, but it was also a lot of fun. At the park (which was thankfully shaded) the trees were positively enshrined by ivy. Think ropelike thick-as-your-thigh sized vines. In order to give the trees a little breathing room, we were tasked with clearing off the ivy as high up as we could reach, followed by clearing the ground cover around the base of each tree.

Sounds easy enough, I suppose, but those vines were tenacious! It took a variety of implements, from garden shears all the way to actual machetes, to make a dent in that jungle foliage. There were a few scraped shins and beestings before we were done, but we mostly escaped unscathed — a minor miracle in my mind.

I didn’t know in advance what our activities at the park would include, so I wasn’t very knowledgeable about what we were doing and why it was important. Since that was the case, I thought I’d spend some time researching why vine removal is worthwhile, even though it’s after the fact. Apparently, ivy and other trailing plants are problematic for a number of reasons. For starters, they can block other plants’ access to light and water, and can even smoother victims with their cumulative weight if left unchecked. They can also transmit bacteria to the plants they assault, and harbor rodents and other undesirable invasives. Should a fire break out in the area, the presence of vines can also make the blaze spread very quickly. So removing them makes sense from a fire safety perspective, too.

To combat an out of control ivy situation, you basically need to do what we did — strip the trees of as much ivy as you can, and clear a circular area around their trunks. Go for the roots of the vines whenever possible, and dispose of the resulting debris promptly and thoroughly. You don’t want it to resprout, after all. With dedication and diligence, you should be able to enjoy some vine-free green space, assuming you perform occasional rounds of follow-up maintenance. It can also be a good idea to replant some native species to attempt to discourage the nasty nonnatives from returning.

And last but not least, here’s a shout out to the folks from Park Pride in Atlanta for hooking us up with the tools we used to battle the massive ivy invasion. Thanks guys!

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