Killer Vine

My backyard is a real jungle. I gave up fighting the growth of wild and unruly vegetation simply because I have better things to do than to wage a losing battle. But in this kind of jungle, there is beauty too. Look at this vine with beautiful heart shaped leaves. This is a real killer. It is everywhere, climbing by making tentacles used as bridges to aggressively taking over all other growth. It has almost completely covered a dwarf poinciana (Caesalpinia pulcherrima) that can barely be seen anymore. Eventually, it will suffocate this poor small tree like a blanket taking away rain water, carbon dioxide and sun light. Over the years, it has attempted to climb the coconut trees like the one you see on the left without much success, and it has since succeeded in climbing my Ylang-Ylang tree very well, reaching the height of about 20 feet. But I think my Cananga odorata is growing far faster than this vine so it will fare well. Amazingly, this vine is winning over all the very bad invading Brazilian pepper trees and has slowed their growth considerably. Yeah! Go vine!