Invasive Plants - a bigger problem than you might think
I first had a section on invasive plants at the bottom of the page describing native plants. The problem of invasive plants is much too serious, though, to be tacked on to another page. Invasive plants - many of which are planted in home landscapes - are a very serious and costly threat to our larger ecosystems beyond our backyards.
There are different kinds of invasiveness. Some plants are overly eager and multiply with abandon in my yard. An example in my yard is zebrina. I can't believe I ever actually paid money for one of these plants. I'll be pulling zebrina seedlings out of my yard for years. This however (I hope) is a problem just with my yard and is more of an inconvenience than an ecological disaster.
The serious invasive plant problem is that plants that may not even
be a problem in your own yard may compromise the ecology of natural areas.
They're the plants that escape from your
yard and outcompete native plants in our forests, meadow, and lakes. A
famous example is kudzu, but no one in Central NY plants kudzu. What we do
plant, however, can be almost as bad.
Many commonly sold plants are not only non-native, but they're invasive and outcompete our native plants. They may be beautiful and may even do well in your own yard (which is why they're commonly sold.) In fact, they may even provide food for wildlife in your yard. The problem is that they may spread to our woodlands and meadows or other natural areas. One way this can happen is through bird droppings. I don't want to sacrifice the larger ecosystem to beauty or convenience in my own yard.
Resources about Invasive Plants
Plant Invaders of the Mid-Atlantic Natural Areas - A wonderful resource that provides suggestions for native alternatives that fill the same landscaping role. Just be misled by the title! This material is relevant to your yard since many invasive plants escape to natural areas from horticultural plantings.
US Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Library - Invasive Species.gov
Invasive Plant Council of New York State - They publish the Top Twenty list referred to above and they also suggest alternative native plants that serve the same ornamental or habitat function in your landscape as would non-native invasive plants.
ENature.com Invasive Plants - This one is useful because it focuses on plants that are commonly found in garden centers or in plant catalogs. Why are they still selling these things!?!
On NPR's Morning Edition, Ketzel Levine talks about invasive exotic plants, many of which are still sold in nurseries and coveted by unsuspecting gardeners.
New York State Invasives
Here are just some of the plants that are on the New York State Invasive Plant Council's Top Twenty list that nevertheless are commonly sold:
- Norway Maple - outcompetes our native sugar maple; its dense shade prevents our native wildflowers from growing on the forest floor; I believe that the roots also exude a toxin that prevents other plants from growing
- Honeysuckle (our native coral honeysuckle lonicera sempervirens is fine, though)
- Japanese Barberries
- Buckthorn
- Autumn Olive
- Russian Olive
Another excellent resource is the website Weeds Gone Wild: Alien Plant Invaders of Natural Areas. There are an excellent set of fact sheets on the most important invasive plants on this website.
The National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service booklet have published an excellent booklet called "Plant Invaders of Mid-Atlantic Natural Areas". (You can order a hard copy at http://www.nps.gov/plants/alien/plantinvaders.htm - see the bottom of the page - or print out brochures.) This Mid-Atlantic region includes the District of Columbia and the states of Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia. Although New York State isn't officially in the region they're considering, it's close enough that if it's invasive in Pennsylvania or New Jersey, it might not be too long before it's a problem in NYS as well. Of course, some of the plants on this list are also invasive in NYS already (although there is no list with legal standing for NYS.)
The Invasive Plants Association of Wisconsin also has information on invasive plants. Although New York is not Wisconsin, many of the same plants are invasive in both areas. Another resource that focuses on prevention is Invasive Plants of the Future from Wisconsin's Dept of Natural Resources. Again, although New York is not Wisconsin, many of the same plants have the same potential for invasiveness, and the concepts about preventing future infestations on invasive plants are the same.
Here are some of the plants listed in this booklet that you would most likely see at a garden center - and should AVOID:
Aquatic
- Parrot Feather (Myriophyllum aquaticum)
- Water Chestnut (Trapa natans)
Herbaceous Plants
- Japanese Knotweed (Polygonum cuspidatum)
- Common daylily (Hemerocallis fulva)
Shrubs
- Autumn olive (Elaeagnus umbellata)
- Bush honeysuckles, exotic (Lonicera species)
- Japanese barberry (Berberis thunbergii)
- Privets (Ligustrum species)
- Burning bush (euonymus alata)
- Butterfly bush (Buddleia species) - Sorry about that! But there are LOTS of other native plants that are good for butterflies!
- Japanese spirea (Spiraea japonica)
Trees
- Bradford Pear (Pyrus calleryana 'Bradford')
- Norway Maple (Acer platanoides)
Vines
- English Ivy (Hedera helix)
- Oriental bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus)
- Japanese honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica)
- Periwinkle (Vinca minor)
From the Nature Conservancy's list of invasive plants:
- Purple loosestrife aka "purple plague" (Lythrum salicaria)
- Kudzu (Pueraria lobata, var. montana)
- Multiflora rose aka rambler rose (Rosa multiflora)
- Giant salvinia (Salvinia molesta )
- Tree of heaven (Ailanthus altissima)
Invasive plants in the NORTHEAST
- porcelain berry (Ampelopsis brevipedunculata)
- Asian bittersweet; aka oriental bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus)
- water chestnut (Trapa natans)
- Japanese knotweed aka Mexican bamboo (Polygonum cuspidatum, syn P. japonicum, syn Fallopia japonica
- creeping buttercup (Ranunculus repens)
