By Burt Glover
May 27, 2023
During the 1960s, Clarks Hill was our family’s playground, and our houseboat at Fishing Village was our home away from home. The announcement that we were going to “the lake” always generated so much excitement! The 50-minute drive between Aiken and Plum Branch, however, was merely to be endured.
Nothing much to see but the occasional old country store with its “hubcap” coke signs and “Colonial Is Good Bread” screen doors and, here and there, a large old house with weathered paint. In-between were peach orchards, loblollies, banks of red clay, and kudzu. Lots of kudzu: kudzu consuming electric poles, old houses, entire trees, rusted cars and, here and there, massive kudzu topiaries as far as the eye could see. This was the South as I knew it. I assumed it would always be this way.
Kudzu was first introduced by the Japanese at the big US Centennial Exposition in 1876 Philadelphia. What a wonderful vine — by 1900, many Southerners were lured into planting a vine or two to provide shade for their sunny porches. How quickly they grow! The government soon got involved. From the 1930s to the 1950s, the virtues of kudzu were extolled. It could control erosion on depleted Southern cotton field soils, and to provide a feed crop for livestock (so much superior to alfalfa!) Depression era farmers were paid $8 per acre to plant it, and the Civilian Conservation Corps planted 85 million plants throughout the South. Kudzu clubs and festivals with Kudzu Queens were formed. Such a noble vine! A miracle! What could go wrong?
As time progressed into the 1950’s, the shine began to wear off of the miracle vine. Kudzu became regarded as the “mile-a-minute” vine. Stories emerged of the vines growing into houses and snatching babies out of their cribs in the night. With its rapid spread, kudzu became known as “the vine that ate the South.” This savior of the South had consumed 7 million acres, and was advancing another 100,000 acres per year when the government finally declared it to be a weed in 1972 then, in the 1990’s, an “invasive” weed.
I became interested in Kudzu in the 1990’s. There were many large patches of it around, most notably on Pine Log Road. I had read that Kudzu flour, made from the roots of the vine (some of those approaching the size and weight of a 200 to 300 lb. man), was selling for $20-$30 per pound. I never found any giant roots in those almost impenetrable masses of vines. My only consolation was being inundated with the delicious grape-like scent of their wine-colored flowers as I toiled away.
Some people, especially the current Kudzu Queen of Rutherfordton, North Carolina, extol the virtues of the plant. Her suggestion — boil the hairy leaves in salt water, then batter and deep fry to make a delicious potato chip-like snack. (Might battered, deep-fried tree bark be palatable, as well?) If you can somehow manage to singe or peel the hairs off of its fast growing shoots, you may end up with a very nutritious green bean-tasting vegetable dish. Smaller roots can be roasted like potatoes.The blossoms can be used to make a tea, or a grape, Jolly Rancher-flavored jelly. Kudzu is in the legume family of plants, along with soybeans and peanuts. Ironically, kudzu pods and seeds are the only part of the plant that isn’t edible.
Medicinally, kudzu has been used for centuries as a remedy for treating diabetes, heart disease, cluster headaches, diarrhea, psoriasis, muscle pain, menopause symptoms, sinus infections and anxiety. Harvard Medical has isolated the compound Daidzin from the vine– useful for reducing cravings for alcohol. With proper study, this plant could prove to be a valuable source of useful compounds.
Kudzu may never completely disappear from the South, but its former prevalence does seem to be waning. Traditional herbicides have proven to be mostly ineffective at control, but a few years of grazing goats have been found to keep the plant at bay. Human development seems to be the most successful eradication of kudzu. Simply scalp the land, then plant a Dollar General and a parking lot, or a housing development.
Interestingly, in 2009, there were a few bugs that hitchhiked on a plane from Asia to Atlanta. Kudzu bugs — a natural control for kudzu! The bugs have been spreading outward since. Time to rejoice? Well, not quite. Though they do a number on the vines, they are also attracted to other legume crops, such as beans, soybeans, peas, peanuts, and in the wintertime, they will find cracks in your home and congregate to escape cold weather. Kudzu bugs are members of the stinkbug family, and if you inadvertently squish one, you’ll wish you hadn’t. Nowadays, if you look online, the articles on controlling kudzu are quickly being outnumbered by the articles on how to control kudzu bugs. Be careful what you wish for.
With climate disruption and eradication efforts, Kudzu seems to be migrating out of the South and heading northward… even as far north as Canada. I hope that it will never completely disappear from our environs. That would certainly diminish the heritage that is truly ours.
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Contributor Burt Glover became an accidental naturalist during his earliest childhood days exploring the dirt roads, backyards, polo field and barns of the Magnolia-Knox-Mead neighborhood of 1950s Aiken. Birds are his first love, and he can identify an impressive range by song alone. He asserts that he is an observer, not an expert, on the topics of his writings, which range from birds, box turtles, frogs and foraging, to wasps, weeds, weather and beyond
