RIPE
Redwood Invasive Plant Eradicators
Our Service
As of Feb 27, 2025:
We are restricting our free service to
-Eureka and nearby areas:
email us at riperadicators@gmail.com
or text 812-514-9060
-Sunny Brae and nearby areas: email Ron at riperadicators2@gmail.com
-Trinidad / Westhaven and nearby areas: email Carol at riperadicators3@gmail.com
Our goal is to expand our free service to other nearby towns once we have more volunteers in them.
Our main focus at the moment is to eradicate fruiting ivy. Much of this occurs on private property.
If you have fruiting invasive ivy in trees on your property, we will come kill it for free.
We will do this by cutting the ivy around the base of the tree so the ivy has no connection to the ground. Everything above the cut will die.
We will
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fill out a liability waiver so you can be comfortable with us on your property. We will bring a hardcopy to your house, but you can read the waiver here.
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only enter your property on times/dates you specify.
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not alter anything without permission.
Though not required, it can be very helpful if you send us a picture of the ivy infestation you'd like us to target.
Contact: Carl Klarner at 812-514-9060 or riperadicators@gmail.com
We do not eradicate ivy if:
-on the ground, fences or deadfalls, even if fruiting.
-the ivy is embedded in bushes or hedges
-none of your tree ivy is fruiting.
If you have lots of trees with ivy, and some of it is fruiting and some isn’t, we will girdle the ivy on all your trees.
Invasive ivy fruits roughly from as early as January to as late as June. “Fruiting” means that black berries are being produced.
If you can’t see the berries, especially in the second half of the year, there are many other ways to see that the ivy will fruit in the upcoming season. The most tell-tale sign is if the plant has umbels on it. “Umbels” are the structures underneath the berries, or that will produce berries when berry season arrives.
Another sign is if the ivy in a tree is extremely abundant, with spindle like branches fanning out from the tree.
Upper highlight:
The ivy is branching out away from the trunk
The shape of leaves also changes when ivy becomes sexually mature.
Lower highlight:
The ivy is flat against the trunk of the tree
Immature "normal" Ivy
Mature Ivy
Generally, if you have a tree that doesn’t have much ivy in it, the ivy probably isn’t fruiting. The following pictures show perfect examples of the kind of trees we’d like to save. Don't worry if your trees don't look this bad; if the ivy is fruiting, we want to kill it.
help me
We don’t require anything from you for this service, we want to kill the fruiting ivy. However, if you’d like to help us, here are some things you can do.
#1 Find us more targets
Find other properties with fruiting ivy in trees.
Obtain permission for us to go there.
Give us the contact information of the property owners if they agree. If they tell you they’ll contact us, they might lose our number.
#2 Spread the word
This just means telling others in the community about what we’re doing and posting on social media.
#3 Combat invasive plants on your land
We know that time is limited, but if you were to gradually remove the invasive plants from your land, it would go a long way. If you want to work with us when we are there, we may be able to show you techniques that will save you time. However, we understand that many people have physical limitations that would make this impossible.