The Familiar Plants and Animals That Invaded America's Landscape

[Botany]

https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/the-familiar-plants-and-animals-that-invaded-americas-landscape


Growing up, I loved honeysuckle. My friends and I couldn’t wait to pull at the blossoms and inhale their sweet smell. That was childhood life in crowded Midwestern suburbia. But now that I’ve spent the last 20 years surrounded by farmland, I’ve seen the dark side of bush honeysuckle, watching as my childhood favorite reaches across fence lines and chokes out our local woods.

I’ve also come to realize that many of the species I encounter every day are also not-so-friendly intruders. Those fat earthworms wriggling on my garden trowel, the honeybees buzzing in the flowers and the feral cats sheltering in my neighbor’s barn are also aliens among us. (Yep, even those sunny-faced interloping daffodils have escaped the garden gate.)

You probably encounter species every day that are not native to our shores. In general, a species in the U.S. is considered non-native if wasn’t here before European settlers arrived some 400 years ago. Today, every corner of the U.S. harbors impostors to its native ecosystems, regardless of whether they arrived on purpose or accidentally. These non-natives are considered invasive once they start to harm the environment or economy. Here are some of the most surprising offenders.

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Add to the list of non native invasive plants: Norway Maples (Crimson King), english ivy, winter creeper euonymus, burning bush ,
privet, rose of sharon, day lily, barberry, vinca, and buckthorn.

[SWBTATTReg]

1. Honeysuckle is very very invasive. Hard to pull up and kill out too.

[Botany]

2. Cut it off @ ground level and paint the cut with glyphosate or triclopyr.

I know those are "chemicals" but the damage done by non native ivassive plants is
much worse. This time of year you might have to treat the sump more than once.

It really is the devil and it kills off the supportive capacity of the ecosystem.

If you just have a few maybe your county extension has a root wrench you could use.

[SWBTATTReg]

3. Thanks. I'll give it a shot. I don't object to chemicals, after all, isn't everything pretty well

a chemical? It's just the amount used that one needs to be concerned w/, I'd imagine. If it were my grandmother or great grandmother, they'd use boiling salt water, or just salt water, which I'd prefer not to use. Take care and be safe!

[Botany]

4. If you are getting either the glyphosate or the triclopyr get the concentrate ...

... most "off the shelf" brands are 95% water. A foam paint brush is a good
way to apply it. BTW 2 things:

After you remove the honeysuckle pay attention to new sprouts from the seeds
coming back .... these can be gotten with a hoe.

always replant with a native plant too. If you send me where you live and the
conditions I can give you some suggestions.

[SWBTATTReg]

10. Thanks, I'm in the Ozarks, so I'm just going to let the native plants take back over...

I'm behind a state park, so the honeysuckle was an outsider from long ago. Too much to control (the honeysuckle) and it literally spread like wildfire. I have lots of native lilies and stuff like that, that I'll encourage to propagate instead. Lots of rocks, little soil, on a hillside (no surprise). Take care!

[Botany]

11. make sure that the plants that move back in are native ....

Last edited Sat May 30, 2020, 01:49 PM - Edit history (1)

... nature hates a vacuum and unfortunately non native invasive plants a quick to jump into
empty niches.

[SWBTATTReg]

12. Thanks, will do.

[Botany]

14. You might want to try some Blackjack Oaks

Start with small ones that are from acorns.

https://www.nps.gov/buff/learn/nature/treesandshrubs.htm

[SWBTATTReg]

15. Thank you! We have quite a selection of oaks, as well as hickory and ash, and other odds and ends.

I plan on leaving a bit open (a small, open field, surrounded by trees) being that I have quails (turkeys and deer of course too) around that area too, and they seem to like a little open space to venture out into, and munch on the goodies. We also have gooseberries, raspberries and blackberries in another part of that parcel of land, as well as walnuts. I enjoy the area very much for the wildlife it attracts, if anything.

Being that we're somewhat to the West of the Mark Twain National Forest (w/ its pines), I know that pine (short leaf) would be do good, but the deer love munching on it (the bark I guess), and they killed quite a few of the large assortment of pines I put in before.

Take care and thanks so much for your help. It's always so exciting to see how things turn out down the road, and of course I won't be around forever to see all of the changes, but at least future generations of our family will (we're on our fourth generation down there now). Be safe.

[Botany]

16. R you close to the Buffalo River?

Nice float, pretty country, and locals who still haven't gotten over the civil war.

[SWBTATTReg]

17. Located next to the Niangua river, about a mile from the back exit/entrance to Bennett Springs

state park. My family has been down there since I'm thinking the early 1920s. A beautiful area, chock full of wild life, crazy but neat neighbors (my immediate ones that brought some land from me live in a couple of old school buses (they are a couple of hippies into all kinds of living off the land/food/etc.). They are neat neighbors but most of them are (good neighbors). A couple are rednecks (pardon my use of this word) but heck, they are related to me from my Dad's side, go figure. The great aunt (their maw) used to run a bar down there in the boonies and wore a 6-shooter on her waist.

It is pretty country. Unfortunately (and this is my opinion), the canoes on the river have (during the summer in particular) overwhelmed everything else on the river. I remember one time that I was curious about how many canoes they were putting into the water there (on the Niangua), and I counted over 600 canoes being put in. Way too much if you ask me. Scares a lot of the wildlife away from the river.

That's an unfortunate thing that happens to these pristine areas...the economic demands outweigh the natural resources of the area, but the area needs the money ... there are few jobs, especially since this area is about 50 miles from Springfield MO and about 50 miles from the Lake of the Ozarks (the Niangua flows into the Lake). The area has lots of retirees around, I guess that they think that the cost of living is low, and I suppose that it could considered that, but then getting services done? Eh, kind of hard to get people up there in that area to work.

Sorry I dragged on and on...take care and be safe!

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

5. Buckthorn is a fucking scourge.

And don't get me started on creeping bellflower, another European import by the garden industry that has run rampant and is almost impossible to get rid of.

[Botany]

6. Another plant brought in by the landscape/nursery industry .... lesser celandine

cleaning up these green cancers will be generational project.

FYI Doug Tallamy's Reason to Hope is a good read.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

7. i've never seen that plant; I think we're too cold for it here.

But we do have greater celandine, which is also considered invasive. I've got a book, "Eradicate Invasive Plants," by Teri Chace, which is quite good, and lists some plants that I actually like and didn't know were invasive. I've also got Tallamy's other book, "Bringing Nature Home." Will look at the one you mentioned; he's a good writer.

[Botany]

8. Sorry it is "Nature's Best Hope." The Living Landscape is a good one too.

https://www.timberpress.com/authors/douglas-w-tallamy


Lesser Celandine ....
Where do you live? Cold doesn't seem to bother it in Northern OH.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

9. Minnesota, Zone 4.

I think you are in Zone 5. Greater celandine will grow even in Zone 3, it's kind of a pest up north.

[steventh]

13. Vinca is the unwelcome invader in my garden.

I don't dare to even try to compost it, it's so vigorous.

[csziggy]

18. Ardisia, Chinese tallow trees, and Mexican petunias are what I am fighting

We may have finally killed off the Mexican petunias - covered them with black plastic for a year to cook the roots. Sprayed the survivors coming up around the edges with herbicide - THREE times. So far they don't seem to be coming back.

Ardisia will be the next battle - they are sprouting anywhere the birds hang out - the people that have moved into the subdivisions that now surround us planted it and the Chinese tallow and the birds happily spread the seeds.

They are KNOWN to been invasive and the nurseries still sell the damn plants. As I replant, I am going all native plants. I need to join the local native plant group to get some advice.