"Our invasive Plant Crew has been hard at work." Local group shares powerful before-and-after photos of invasive species removal: 'A collaborative approach' first appeared on The Cool Down.

sucking the plants’ vital juices. In places where it was once relatively easy to get a photograph of kudzu, the bug-infested vines are so crippled they can’t keep up with the other roadside weeds.

What is kudzu? Did you know that this plant isn't actually from the southern US? These are fast-growing, invasive vines native to Japan and southeast China that have become a major ecological concern.

The deep south of the U.S. has been invaded by kudzu (Pueraria montana), a climbing vine with severe ecological effects. The plant is native to Japan and southeast China and was introduced in the ...

while invasive insects such as the spotted lanternfly can actually kill crop plants. In forest systems, kudzu — a highly invasive vine in the United States — grows rapidly and smothers trees ...

Furthermore, movement of introduced plants, albeit over much larger distances, is exactly how the problem of invasive species began -- think of kudzu-choked forests, wetlands taken over by purple ...