The Hastings volunteer Vine Squad removes invasive vines from public trees throughout Hastings, including in Hillside Woods, from November to March. Visit the Hastings Conservation Commission's Vine Squad page for more info and schedule. The Vine Squad supplies equipment and training and can award students community service hours. Questions? Email us! vinesquad@hohny.gov.
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Saving trees since 2012
JOIN OUR MAILING LIST by emailing vinesquad@hohny.gov
Invasive vines choke and smother trees - ultimately killing them.
The Hastings Vine Squad is a group of resident volunteers seeking to preserve the health of our trees (and ourselves!) by removing invasive vines. Come join us for productive fun and exercise. No experience necessary: we provide training and equipment. In two hours, you'll feel good about making a difference and saving a tree. You'll meet new people and learn about the plants in our ecosystem.
All lops are Saturday mornings, 11 am to 1 pm.
The Vine Squad lops November to April.
You can refer or subscribe to our CALENDAR for locations.
The Vine Squad trains volunteers to recognize what to cut back and how to do so safely – valuable knowledge one can bring home to one's own property. Even small children can participate! The Vine Squad also picks up litter during its sessions. All are welcome.
The Vine Squad is supported and was trained by the Saw Mill River Coalition of Groundwork Hudson Valley. Groundwork also conducts lops throughout the winter along the Saw Mill River - try a lop with them, too!
More About Vines
More About Vines
The most common vines in Hastings are porcelain berry and Asiatic bittersweet, which were both imported from Asia over a century ago, and English ivy, imported from Europe in the 1700s. Porcelain berry takes over huge swaths of land, suffocating trees and extirpating native flora, while the fauna that relied on the native plants now face a landscape barren of the vegetation they need to survive. Bittersweet and English ivy strangle, weaken and eventually fell trees. Birds eat these vines' colorful berries, spreading them along their flyways and expanding the infestation. While it's good for berry-eating birds to have food to eat, these vines don't support the insects other birds eat. Also, the berry-eating birds lose on nutrition, as fast-growing porcelain berries and asiatic bittersweet have more sugar and less fat than, for example, the native dogwood berries they've crowded out.
Learn more about invasive species that threaten our ecosystem on the Hastings Invasive Plant Removal Initiative, a project by HHS students Reuben Belasco and Nickola Horozov. Some of the other invasive vines choking Hastings, each with its own set of impacts are:
Asiatic wisteria
Japanese honeysuckle
Fiveleaf akebia, or chocolate vine
Mile-a-minute
Come on a lop and learn to identify these plants and more!
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