To combat an invasive plant, a Peaks Island woman has persuaded her neighbors to adopt endangered trees

MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • December 8, 2024

The Asiatic (or oriental) bittersweet vine is highly invasive and a grave threat to native trees, shrubs and entire ecosystems. Thaea Lloyd, a retired landscape architect, lives on Peaks Island, where she is founder, organizer and force of nature behind an unusual adopt-a-tree-in-perpetuity program aimed at saving island trees from this same deadly vine. She launched the program in May with 16 volunteers. Seven months later, she has nearly 115 volunteers with almost 400 trees under their care. She calls the effort “tree-age – urgent care for the trees.”