• Weed of the Year - Climbing Asparagus
• War on Weeds in Piha:
• Ginger or Hedychium gardnerianum

Weeds in Piha

Weed of the Year - Climbing Asparagus

We need your help to beat climbing asparagus

Climbing asparagus is a scrambling and climbing plant (weed) with slender, branched stems which wrap around and smother small trees and saplings.  It has fine, fern-like foliage with small, delicate leaves attached to hook vines.  Tiny white flowers grow from September to December and it has round berries that open green to red-orange.  Its roots are small, white tubers.

Photos below: 

a. this shows the asparagus's tuber roots.  If these are not dug out the weed will continue its growth uninterupted.

b climbing asparagus smothering a plant. 

 a                b

If you would like to see an example of the smothering behaviour of this weed in Piha then cross over the eel bridge heading toward the beach.  At the end of the eel bridge turn left and climb up over the banks of the stream.  Climbing asparagus is everywhere there, smothering and hindering all efforts of other plants to see the light of day.

Climbing asparagus is one of the worse weeds at Piha.  It kills host plants by smothering or ring barking them.  It also carpets the forest floor, preventing regrowth of native seedlings.  It can grow in shady areas, and grows quickly taking over an area.  It is spread by birds dispersing the seeds and can therefore spread quicky into native forest.

You can control this plant (weed) by digging out the tubers and disposing of them safely (put in the weed bin in the Piha Domain) or spraying the plant with glyphosate (Roundup). 

Piha Residents are welcome to contact Mary Stewart at the ARC for advice and support and to borrow equipment.  Herbicide will also be made available for use on private land.

This project is supported by:  Piha CoastCare, ARC, WCC, PPH, Weedfree Waitakere Trust, Waitakere Ranges Protecton Society, the Beach Valley Road Project and the Piha Ratepayers and Residents Assn.

For more information online:  visit ARC website here

If we all work on this together we can beat it.  TOC

Feb '10: WCC and Weedfree Trust are looking to work towards getting every community weed bin fully composted.  This save huge costs so WCC can provide more bins - now that's a happy thing uh?   So please . . . .

YES - into the bin: Ginger, Jasmine, Tradescantia (wandering jew), Climbing Asparagus, Plectranthus, Month Plant, Blue Morining Glory, Woolly Nightshade and Japanese Honeysuckle.

NO - not in the bin please: Household waste, inorganics (concrete, steel etc), flaxes, cabbage tree, palm Trees, Bamboo, Garden Waste and Lawn Clippings.

  TOC

Extremely shade-tolerant, tolerates most soil types, good or poor drainage and fertility, and is drought and frost tolerant once established. Long-lived, fast growing and forms deep rhizome beds. Moderate amount of seed produced that are dispersed widely, and rhizomes resprout from any fragment and can survive immersion in the sea, crushing, and years away from soil. 

Dense rhizome beds replace all other species, and are shallow rooted, so when they become heavy with rain they can slip on steep sites and streambanks, causing erosion. Succeeded only by weedy vines. 

More information on this weed here on WeedBusters TOC