The Gourd That Ate the World

I think that my yard and garden may be consumed by the dipper gourd we planted.

We planted two kinds of gourds: bottle neck (hoping to make bird houses) and dipper gourds. The bird house gourds took off at first, producing a maybe seven or eight medium-size gourds. Meanwhile, the dipper gourd slowly crept along, not doing much of anything. Until a few weeks ago.

The bird house gourds have died off and started drying out while the dippers have expanded beyond the confines of the garden. I have been moving them from the garden rows back along the fence for several weeks now, but I hadn't realized that they were creeping outside the fence and had begun to climb the small tree that sits about six feet from the garden. The vines have spread out in all directions and seem to be growing at an alarming rate. This picture I took yesterday and today they are visibly larger. I really don't want to pull them out of the tree. I want to see how much they will entwine into the branches.