Kudzu: The Amazing Vine That Ate the South

"Cotton isn't king in the South anymore.

Kudzu is king!"

Channing Cope

In Georgia, the legend says

That you must close your windows

At night to keep it out of the house.

The glass is tinged with green, even so...

From the poem, "Kudzu,"

by James Dickey 

Photo Credit: Jack Anthony

Read more about kudzu at at Anthony's web page here 

I have planned for some time to write a blog about Kudzu, that noxious weed that grows so rampantly throughout the Southeastern United States, where hot summers provide ideal growing conditions.

It climbs over trees and shrubs, utility poles, abandoned buildings and sometimes creates an eerie fantasy by growing into shapes which look like familiar animals and objects.

This fast-growing plan covers and kills any competing vegetation over a period of several years by blocking the sunlight.


Kudzu was introduced to the United States in 1876 at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Countries were invited to build exhibits to celebrate the 100th birthday of the U.S. The Japanese government constructed a beautiful garden filled with plants from their country. The large leaves and sweet-smelling blooms of kudzu captured the imagination of American gardeners who used the plant for ornamental purposes.

The following is from Max Shores, a University of Alabama filmmaker, who produced a film, The Amazing Story of Kudzu, for public television:

"Florida nursery operators, Charles and Lillie Pleas, discovered that animals would eat the plant and promoted its use for forage in the 1920s. Their Glen Arden Nursery in Chipley sold kudzu plants through the mail. A historical marker there proudly proclaims "Kudzu Developed Here."

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the Soil Conservation Service promoted kudzu for erosion control. Hundreds of young men were given work planting kudzu through the Civilian Conservation Corps. Farmers were paid as much as eight dollars an acre as incentive to plant fields of the vines in the 1940s.

Kudzu's most vocal advocate was Channing Cope of Covington, Georgia who promoted use of the vine to control erosion. Cope wrote about kudzu in articles for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and talked about its virtues frequently on his daily WSB-AM radio program broadcast from his front porch. During the 1940s, he traveled across the southeast starting Kudzu Clubs to honor what he called "the miracle vine."

Cope was very disappointed when the U.S. government stopped advocating the use of kudzu in 1953. 

It is said that Kudzu grows 12 inches each day on a hot summer day, sixty feet each year. Science Daily reports that it spreads at the rate of 150,000 acres annually. It now covers more than seven million acres of the deep South.

It is mostly seen around riverbanks, in wooded areas around streams and areas not under cultivation.

Today I shot a few of my own photographs around Elk River, not very far from where I live:

There are many commercial uses for Kudzu, including medicine, food, animal feed, health tonics, basket making, clothing and paper.

Photo Credit:  Max Shores
Ruth Duncan of Greenville, Ala., makes more than 200 kudzu baskets each year and says she doesn't mind that people call her the "Queen of Kudzu."

If anyone out there is interested in commercially developing a product made from Kudzu, come on down South; we have lots and will willingly provide you with an ample supply. Just be careful and don't stand in one place too long or it may grow right over you!