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Local volunteer urges active stewardship to halt invasive vines choking trees and stone walls
Summary
Conservationist Luke Driver told the Little Compton council that multiflora rose, bittersweet and grapevine are smothering native plants and historic stone walls across preserved land and urged immediate root removal and coordinated town support.
Luke Driver urged the Little Compton Town Council to back active stewardship to control invasive plants he said are killing native trees and wiping out historic stone walls.
Driver, introduced by the council, described decades of overgrowth of multiflora rose, bittersweet and grapevine in town edges and preserved land, saying the invasives can girdle trunks and eliminate understory plants. "If you dig it out, you're setting that plant back 50 years," Driver said, describing excavations that restored a late-19th-century stone wall and adjacent meadow.
The presentation focused on visible damage along road edges and the loss of native habitat. Driver said he used iNaturalist to document infestations and showed photos from 30 locations along West Main Road and other sites. He recommended pulling invasives out by the roots rather than relying on chemicals and offered eight hours of time and equipment to work on property chosen by the Little Compton Agricultural and Conservation Trust.
David Wexler, who said he served on the Ag Trust for 16 years, urged the council to acknowledge the problem and support Driver's work, noting that coordination with existing preservation groups and the tree committee would make efforts easier. "This guy is actually a Brown graduate...he's a great asset to this community," Wexler said.
Council members did not take an immediate vote but the chair said the presentation could be brought back for a motion at a future meeting. The council also discussed potential coordination with the Ag Trust, the tree committee and state agencies to scale any work.
The presentation closed with an appeal for town endorsement and practical next steps: documentation, prioritizing actively farmed field edges, and combining volunteer labor with town support. The council did not authorize a program or funding at the meeting; next steps were left for future discussion.
