Invasive Plants

Old guy on the block

2009-01-01T12:06:00.000-08:00

I found another guy like me! Only he's probably better than I am—it looks like he's been fighting the bad guys longer than I have. He's also a bit south of here (Virginia; I'm in Delaware). Haven't met him in person yet, but I think we will become friends. Check out his blog:

http://plantwhacker.blogspot.com/

I've already learned one thing from him—use more photos. Ahem, my next post will have a photo.

A few starting comments

2008-11-24T18:05:00.000-08:00

I'm writing this blog with some trepidation. On one hand I care a fair amount about getting rid of invasives, and on the other hand I have a daunting task before me to recruit others to help get rid of the bad guys. It's work. Rewarding, but work. Well, it's good exercise, too. And a place looks better when it's not overgrown with some nasty plant that chokes out the wild profusion of a native habitat.

I have a question: Why are so many invasives named Japanese? Japanese honeysuckle, Japanese stilt grass, Japanese knotweed, others. They can't all be from Japan...

What's an exotic invasive?

2008-11-16T14:29:00.000-08:00

All plants come from somewhere. If a species of plant has been here for as far back as we can tell, we say the plants are native. If someone brought the plant (or its ancestor) here, we say it's exotic. (We also say it's non-native, but you probably figured that out.)

A purist might feel that all non-native plants should be taken away, but some exotic plants fit in well. They behave—they grow where you put them, and that's the end of it. They don't take over. But some plants overgrow the native population and choke the locals out. That's invasive. Invasive is bad. (That's an indication of a native—it competes more or less equally with the other plants.)

Two other words you should know are weed and monoculture. A weed is any plant that's growing where you don't want it. Monoculture is when only one type of plant occupies an area. A really good example of a monoculture is your front yard, probably. At least most folks like their front yards to be monocultures.

In future posts my guests or I will talk (write) about invasive plants and how to deal with them. We'll cover some related topics, too, such as weeds and monocultures.