11 ms·
Many invasive plants are still being sold at garden centers
- temp0826 5y ago>> Other invasive species being sold include Japanese barberry, Chinese privet, whitetop, Norway maple, Brazilian peppertree, Russian olive, garlic mustard, yellow star thistle, Canada thistle, kudzu and Johnsongrass, among others, the study states. Part of me wants to plant a garden containing all of these to see which one wins
- EGreg 5y agoUnderrated comment (And that’s saying a lot considering its upvotes lol)
- josh_today 5y agoThrow English ivy in there too
- gbrown 5y agoUnkillable.
- zabzonk 5y agoMy (late) parents had all sorts of ivy in their garden for about 40 years (that I know about) with few problems. Ivy is great for birds - home for insects for them to eat, berries to eat too, and places to nest.
- chrismcb 5y agoIvy may be great, but if it isn't native then it can be bad for the local ecosystem. I've got some in my backyard and it smothers everything else except the pine trees (and even those three ivy would eventually take down) I just finished removing the blackberries. The ivy is next and then maybe the holly
- zabzonk 5y agoMum and Dad had ivy, blackberries and holly. It all seemed to work out OK for them. And other smaller plants like borrage and grape hyacinth. But of course, YMMV. And it was a big garden.
- e40 5y agoBased on driving through lots of rural NC, SC.. kudzu will win. Hands down.
- Jgrubb 5y agoWhichever one wins, you and your neighbors lose.
- maxerickson 5y agoMy street is lined with Norway Maple and barely any seedlings at all come up. The Siberian elm next door and oak down the street end up with many more seedlings in the yard than the maples. I can see it being a different situation in a yard adjacent to a stand of more natural trees though.
- Alex3917 5y agoSome Norway Maple cultivars are more invasive than others. The main problem with them though is that they release allelopathic chemicals from their roots which inhibit the growth of other native plants, trees, and fungi.
- quercusa 5y agoI lost a number of shrubs planted under one before I thought to look that up. I am plotting its demise even now.
- cmrdporcupine 5y agoThe previous owners planted a bunch of them on our acreage here and they're also really annoyingly brittle vs the native maples. They get damaged in storms easier. I'm constantly cleaning up from them. I'm currently resting my legs on a coffee table made from the trunk of one that came down in a burst storm some years ago. It's a soft maple but quite nice for wood working. Just biding my time until the natives I planted next to them grow up a bit more and then I will take them all down and get them milled up.
- peanut_worm 5y agoMy money is on Kudzu
- jacobsievers 5y agoAdd Oriental Bittersweet, Black Swallow-wort, English ivy and Chinese Wisteria to this list and you've got my back yard. The winner every year is the Wisteria. It cannot be killed.
- technothrasher 5y agoI'm waging a constant war on my property with Oriental Bittersweet. It can't be reasoned with, it can't be bargained with... it doesn't feel pity or remorse or fear... and it absolutely will not stop. Ever. Until you are dead. My parents, on the other hand, thought it might be fun to plant a little bamboo patch about twenty years ago. They now have an entirely uncontrollable forest of the stuff.
- Arrath 5y agoA friend of mine lived in a house where the previous owner had struggled with bamboo. In some frantic, mad, last ditch effort they mixed some concrete and poured a half-assed slab over the bamboo stubs. This did not at all work, as the bamboo grew back and broke through the concrete as needed, effectively becoming an armored rootball of hate.
- abnry 5y agoCareful you don't get arrested for running a plant-fighting ring.
- sydd 5y agoDifferent weeds have different strategies. There is one that specializes in wildfires (cheatgrass): it has a large root system and burns very easily, so it "awaits" to be burned: no one but their root system survives the fire, so it can grow out quickly again after the fire.
- mixmastamyk 5y agoDon't forget the gorse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulex
- test1235 5y agoThis stuff is all over scotland where I am - it's like nature's barbed wire
- smcl 5y agoWhere I grew up too (NE Scotland). It does smell very nice every now and then then, like coconut
- robaato 5y agoA favourite in the golf community (I grew up in Hopeman - east of Inverness)
- Tagbert 5y agoOddly, one of the most common invasive plant around Seattle is Scotch Broom. That stuff cannot be controlled.
- pvaldes 5y agoGorse is a man made problem. The result of wrong fire management that in fact is the result of bad farming. Needs fire to sprout. Remove fire and cattle and Ulex will slowly retreat and dissapear
- thrill 5y agoKudzu enters the chat.
- alexpw 5y agoKudzu enters the chat. Kudzu enters the chat. Kudzu enters the chat. ... Uh oh
- ineedasername 5y agoRM43 enters the chat. RM43 has issued the KILL command; Kudzu has been disconnected. .... 20 years later: Cancer has entered the chat.
- tyingq 5y agoI didn't see bamboo mentioned. It grows crazy fast. I don't know if it's technically "invasive", but I imagine it's fueled quite a few neighbor feuds.
- vlozko 5y agoI assume you mean Japanese Knotweed? That stuff is nearly impossible to fully remove.
- meepmorp 5y agoI assume they mean actual bamboo, some species of which grow over a meter per day. It’s also incredibly hard to remove and spreads very fast.
- hkt 5y agoSimple solution, get a pet panda. The circle of life!
- MichaelGroves 5y agoI doubt many, if any, would confuse the two. Bamboo is notorious for being hard to kill. It spreads underground using shoots, and those shoots can reemerge again and again every time you chop down the bamboo patch.
- vlozko 5y agoI've had to deal with some on my own property. The best solution I found, short of replacing the layer of infested dirt, is to inject some concentrated glyphosate into its hollow center stalk closer to the root. It tends to be resilient when just spraying the leaves.
- asquabventured 5y agoCan confirm, once rented a house with bamboo in the backyard, it’s awful awful stuff and will spread very easily The only way to keep it from moving further into yards or gardens is to pour concrete trenches it can’t grow thru. impossible to eradicate entirely and while it’s shooting new sprouts up from the ground after its first day or two of softness starts to get more wood like and are wicked sharp easily being able to pierce through skin/clothes/shoes and cause some nasty cuts. No one should ever plant that stuff voluntarily!
- bawolff 5y agoFinally, a plant i can keep alive!
- pvaldes 5y agoYou need a little more confidence in yourself, that's all. Don't be tempted by the dark side of gardening.
- Alex3917 5y agoIf you can't keep your property free of invasive plants, the government should seize it and auction it off. Right now a big part of the reason why real estate is overpriced is that the costs of maintaining it are artificially low, because the government allows people to push externalities like this onto their neighbors. The government shouldn't be forcing the poor to subsidize the rich.
- bavell 5y agoThe horror of nature must be subdued! Down with our plant overlords!
- gruez 5y ago>Right now a big part of the reason why real estate is overpriced is that the costs of maintaining it are artificially low, because the government allows people to push externalities like this onto their neighbors. Sounds like a HOA would be prefect for you.
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 5y ago> If you can't keep your property free of invasive plants, the government should seize it and auction it off Don't take this the wrong way, but that's a little unhinged. It's a terrible idea to give any governing body this much power.
- technothrasher 5y agoI have about seven acres of woodlands on my property that are littered with invasive plants. If the government is auctioning off my property because of them, they're either going to be auctioning it off over and over, or somebody is going to have to strip the entire forest bare.
- Alex3917 5y agoOr it'll get split up. The point is that people shouldn't be allowed to own more property than they can steward responsibly. That said, if everyone in an area gets rid of all their invasive plants, then it'll be vastly easier to keep them from coming back.
- ourmandave 5y ago...the study concludes that consumers need to be more aware of what they are buying. “...it’s clear we as a public also lack awareness about which plants are invasive and how they spread to new areas,” Beaury says. One good thing: the study is generating interest by enforcement agencies who want to crack down on illegal sales. "Whoa, I just saw old widow Johnson down the street doing the perp walk. What was her crime?" "Opening planting cogongrass in her front yard." Speaks directly up at US AG dept drone hovering nearby, "Uh, I never did like her."
- JadeNB 5y ago> One good thing: the study is generating interest by enforcement agencies who want to crack down on illegal sales. > "Whoa, I just saw old widow Johnson down the street doing the perp walk. What was her crime?" > "Opening planting cogongrass in her front yard." Cracking down on illegal sales is highly appropriate, and very different from cracking down on people who (presumably unaware of the risks) plant it.
- EGreg 5y agoBy the way, I would like to make this linguistic comment: While the headline is misleading, it is also technically correct in an interesting way The article says “ONE OF the world’s most invasive weeds.” Let’s suppose it was #22 on the list of all known invasive weeds ranked by invasiveness But as a MEMBER of that group, one can legitimately label it as “A world’s worst invasive weed” and then drop the “A” Interesting techique to make hyperbolic claims that are technically true due to the rules of English! Do people do this elsewhere?
- leephillips 5y agoHuh? Dropping the "A" changes the meaning.
- EGreg 5y agoYes it does but it is often acceptable “The rockettes have done xyz” “A rockette has done xyz” “Rockette does xyz” Rockette here is used as a category of people, a label. She is a member of “The Rockettes” Similarly, “most invasive weed” is a member of “THE MOST INVASIVE WEEDS” group, and dropping the “a” is done in newspaper headlines a lot, things are often contracted such as Politico or Prez or POTUS etc.
- kyralis 5y agoThis is false. This would be true for "invasive weed", but adding the "most" qualifier without another modifier indicates a specific member, not any member of a set.
- EGreg 5y agoHere, I just got an email with a subject “ Securitize recognized as top blockchain company, and more news” Not “a top” but “top”. But really, they dropped the “a”. Get it?
- EGreg 5y agoNo, the adjective can sometimes be part of the name of the group, if it becomes well known. “Best Western Hotel offers discounts starting in May” Does this mean this is really the best Western Hotel?
- ineedasername 5y agoI thought it would be Kudzu, but nope. Though Kudzu is still mentioned. It's kind of amazing that weeds are a real life example of where "kill it with fire" is actually a realistic and appropriate response, and less harmful than herbicides.
- taylorfinley 5y agoI'm particularly sensitive to this as a native plant nerd here in Hawaii. Home Depot and Walmart are filled with (beautiful) invasive plants like Medinilla magnifica, Kahili ginger, Lantana, so many others. I've spoken to the managers about it from time to time but nothing changes. I used to work at a botanical garden here on Hawaii Island that boasted of their 6 different species of Medinilla, even selling a fridge magnet in the gift shop. I tried and tried to explain how backwards this was and how these magnets would be viewed by anyone who knew or cared about fragile native ecosystems. Their response always came down to something like "but these ones are prettier." They also sold little bagged starts of two horribly invasive plants! (Bamboo orchid and Kahili ginger)
- RosanaAnaDana 5y agoOn oahu the two biggest issues I see are with field bind weed and Acacia confusa, but I am dry side. Neither are horticulture atrocities, but t hff they are problems nonetheless. There really is no excuse for HD to continue to sell these high invasibility plants. States and local governments should be able to sue suppliers like HD for damages considering the millions that it costs to control these plants once they escape. If I see Andean pampas grass at a home depot again, I might have a problem.
- quercus 5y agoHawaii's "fragile native ecosystems" exist only in your fantasies of the past, or way up in the mountains where nobody lives or farms. If Medinilla wants to invade an Albizia grove, who cares?
- legohead 5y agoRussian Hogweed [1] [2], which the Russians actually bred and initially controlled, is a huge problem over there. Interesting plant, which burns you if you get the sap on your skin (reacts to sunlight), so you can't just go chopping them down willy nilly. And even if you do, it grows back. They have to be destroyed methodically. They grow at an incredible rate and dominate whatever is around them. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/03/opinion/sunday/russia-hogweed.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/03/opinion/sunday/russia-hog... [2] http://www.russiaknowledge.com/2020/07/14/the-day-of-the-giant-hogweed/ http://www.russiaknowledge.com/2020/07/14/the-day-of-the-gia...
- zabzonk 5y agoMore commonly (at least in the UK) known as "giant hogweed" - they are very toxic and unpleasant.
- flycaliguy 5y agoThe seeds spread during floods and can last 15 years before sprouting. What a nightmare. We’ve got it down river, not much in my town. I’d actually love to see it in person.
- quercusa 5y agoGiant Hogweed: https://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/39809.html https://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/39809.html
- godelski 5y agoI didn't know this plant would burn you. I've seen a lot of it around the Pacific Northwest. It grows like crazy and is really tall.
- wiml 5y agoIf it is giant hogweed, the invasive plants people in the area usually appreciate it if you let them know. On the other hand, poison hemlock looks pretty similar, and although it is a non-native weed, it isn't noxious enough that the county will send someone out to destroy it. In my experience it's a little more common than hogweed.
- ahnick 5y agoI'll see your cogongrass and raise you trumpet vine. I kid you not, every 3 weeks during the summer I am out cutting back the vine on top of my pergola that is a good 6 feet from my house and it still feels like I'm losing the war. This thing drops seeds all over the place and vines start sprouting from all the beds and grass. If it reaches a tree it starts to climb it like crazy and if it touches the house for long enough it will suction on to the mortar/woodwork and you will have a devil of a time getting it off. (https://www.botanicalamy.com/warning-about-invasive-plants/ https://www.botanicalamy.com/warning-about-invasive-plants/)
- thebeardisred 5y agoThey lost me at: > However, the study concludes that consumers need to be more aware of what they are buying. I can't "slow clap" enough for this statement.
- pvaldes 5y ago> consumers need to be more aware of what they are buying. As a general rule, If is in Aliexpress is 1) the wrong species, 2) strongly invasive
- susiecambria 5y agoMy HOA recently approved an environmental stewardship policy and plan. Among the requirements: plant natives first. You'd have thought the people supporting the plan were proposing to kill members' grandchildren. The rhetoric was unreal for such an issue that no one had ever really thought about. It doesn't help that local hardware stores and the biggies sell fewer natives than non-natives. Both the policy and the plant sales significantly matter here: we are in Virginia a stone's throw from the Chesapeake Bay. Doing right by the environment (plants, wildlife, water) is important in its own right but the beauty of the environment is also why so many people moved here to retire.
- Alex3917 5y ago> You'd have thought the people supporting the plan were proposing to kill members' grandchildren. That's crazy, considering that policy is likely adding an absolutely insane amount to everyone's property values. When NYC re-landscaped The Highline to make it exclusively native plants, property values in the area literally went up 10x. I live in a HOA, and the first thing I did when I moved in was to dig up all the forsythia along our driveway and replace them with grafted pawpaws. Planting nice trees is the only home improvement you can make where you can spend $50 and add $100,000 to your property value. The returns are literally like getting a chance to go back to 2011 and buy Bitcoin.
- paulcole 5y ago> When NYC re-landscaped The Highline to make it exclusively native plants, property values in the area literally went up 10x. Any source on this?Because it seems like Highline-adjacent properties probably would’ve seen a pretty good ROI over the past 10 years regardless of what plants were up there. > Planting nice trees is the only home improvement you can make where you can spend $50 and add $100,000 to your property value. The returns are literally like getting a chance to go back to 2011 and buy Bitcoin. Any source on this one? I work with arborists and even they’re not quite so gung-ho on promoting this kind of return. And $50 is getting you a sapling that’s going to take (maybe) decades to maximize any return.
- MattGaiser 5y ago> Other invasive species being sold include Japanese barberry, Chinese privet, whitetop, Norway maple, Brazilian peppertree, Russian olive, garlic mustard, yellow star thistle, Canada thistle Who are these people who want to own a thistle, yet alone pay for one?
- mattgrice 5y agoThere are some cool, non-invasive thistles but Canada thistle is definitely not one of them.
- pvaldes 5y agoWho are these people who want to own a thistle, yet alone pay for one? Cultural and aesthetical reasons. Same as cacti. There is a category in landscaping for plants that are strongly geometrical, tall and bold. They are called architectural plants and are a important design element to provide interest out seasons. A good design takes care of color and tone but also will include texture and tactile appealing. Some thistles are native, undemanding and can be really beautiful in winter covered in ice. They have often interesting patterns in leaves and flowers. The indigo flowers of the artichoke in top of a silvery foliage are really spectacular. And thistles attract lots of interesting insects. The problem is not that they are thistles, is that they aren't native and in this case also poisonous.
- metabagel 5y agoNot only that, but in SoCal, it seems there are a dearth of landscapers who are familiar with and can obtain native plants.
- gregjor 5y agoHand-wringing by members of the ultimate invasive species. I went with my son’s middle school class on a field trip to the Audubon Society preserve in Portland, years ago. The guide gave the kids a long lecture about evil English ivy, explaining the concept of non-native invasive species. Portlanders organize groups to tear down the ivy in parks, often trampling the native ferns in their zeal. Not ten minutes later the same guide showed the class a family of ducks crossing the path. Everyone oohed and aahed — ducklings, so cute. My son pointed out that they were mandarin ducks, a non-native species. The guide went quiet.
- _vertigo 5y agoIs it possible that English ivy is worse than Mandarin ducks?
- gregjor 5y agoDepends on what you mean by “worse.” The ducks are prettier than ivy, and probably taste better.
- yosito 5y ago> Portlanders organize groups to tear down the ivy in parks, often trampling the native ferns in their zeal Sounds typical of Portlanders. Zealous about tearing things down with no regard for the consequences.
- nerdponx 5y agoNon-native is not necessarily invasive. The latter is a subset of the former. The ivy is invasive, the ducks are just non-native.
- gregjor 5y agoA somewhat arbitrary distinction. Humans and their dogs and livestock are invasive and destructive. Why pick on the ivy but not on Australian shepherds and chihuahuas? My point was the apparent lack of awareness involved in demonizing a plant species but giving a pass to a duck, when both are non-native species introduced by people. Why are Portlanders tearing down ivy but not killing house sparrows? Or marijuana plants for that matter, also not native to North America. Portland is the Rose City, famous for the rose gardens. Those are non-native flowers, no one is running around tearing them up.
- onecommentman 5y ago“The researchers discovered that 61 percent of 1,285 invasive plant species remain available through the plant trade, including 50 percent of state-regulated species and 20 percent of federal noxious weeds” What is invasive in Georgia can be well-mannered in West Texas or North Dakota. Barberry is not invasive in the high deserts, where it continues to be a valued ornamental. Russian olives can raise havoc in riparian areas, but be fine for areas where birds can’t spread the seeds to moister soils. There is a “patchwork” of state regulations because there is a patchwork of climatic zones and ecosystems in the US. There is no mention in the article that, although nurseries sell invasives, most nurseries have policies not to ship invasives to the individual States where they are identified as such by local authorities. Saying that, non-invasive natives are generally better, but not so much better that non-natives (that could be invasive in other climates) don’t have a role to play in landscaping and gardening. Skip the giant hogweed….
- Sunspark 5y agoIt's wild how invasive creeping bellflower is. It's pretty purple flower, so people think that it's just another flower which is part of why it has staying power. The rest of it is the fact that each plant can generate 15,000 seeds, can spread through a root system under the soil, and can regenerate from fragments of the root. If you have it, you'll have to keep digging it up every year for some time.
- AuryGlenz 5y agoI live in Minnesota, where a good portion of the forests have been absolutely ruined by buckthorn. It changes what should be fairly open woods with large trees to something you literally can't walk or see through. In my experience it also gives cover to mosquitoes, protecting them from predators. If I were a billionaire I'd fund research to create some sort of Dutch-elm like disease for it and release it in secret.
- pvaldes 5y agobuckthorn = hippo phae = bright horses Something that you give to horses to promote the grow of a shiny coat and better health. Berries are also a good human food.