Bullies of the plant world

Invasive plants demand landowners’ attention

It’s spring and sap is rising. Unfortunately, so is my temper. This happens every year as the joyful spread of early wildflowers begins to cover the landscape only to be bullied by the march of the invasives. These invasives are spoilers. They become the military tanks of the plant world, overwhelming the homeland of its native vegetation.

Bush honeysuckle had small leaves last week. This week it’s wearing its full foliage armor and shading the soil below its shrubby stalks. Devoid of sunshine and in competition for water, native plants that host native bugs and birds and other critters that have evolved in this region’s ecosystem struggle to compete. Invasives, like all lazy tyrants, do well because they settle where they have few or no enemies to keep them in check. Everywhere, our forest ecosystems are being thrown out of balance, choked with honeysuckle bushes and vines. And interestingly, these bushes also offer shady protective cover for deer but also for ticks, which happen to find us humans tasty, too.

Bradford pear hybrid trees, the cultivars from hell, were created and promoted as sterile landscape decorator trees. Well, someone forgot to tell the birds that ate the trees’ small fruits that humans had goofed. As it turns out, this Franken-tree produces viable seeds. Oops! Worse, we are loath to cut them down because they seduce us with their early spring whiteness contrasted against winter’s gray, leafless background. The sneaky devils practically scream “Spring is here!” However, they are weak-limbed and short-lived with the flowering aroma of rotting fish. They also consume years and space that would be better spent producing substantial native trees, like oaks, hickories and dogwoods that feed native wildlife.

These Asian hybrids morph back into their former selves and are spreading unabated, seeding the woods and roadsides with tall groves of thorny briars. They’ve been outlawed in some parts of the country, and Fayetteville’s Ordinance 5820 restricts them and some other invasives from being installed in new developments. As counterintuitive as it seems, when we should be planting more trees, cutting or digging out invasives, even attractive ones, are the best ways to reclaim the land.

The National Park Service has defined a nonnative species as being invasive if it “causes harm to the environment, economy, or human, animal, or plant health.” Fayetteville’s urban forestry department is encouraging people to identify, remove, and replace them. Incentives have been offered for the last six years via a bounty program that rewards one native tree or shrub (while supplies last) to residents who cut or dig as many invasives as they wish on their property. The period for reward claims this year is April 10-15. Send photographs of this spring’s removed invasives with your contact information to: urbanforestry@fayetteville-ar.gov.

Each year the urban forestry staff adds another invasive to the bounty list. English ivy is the 2024 winner joining Bradford pears, bush honeysuckle, Chinese privet, Tree of Heaven and golden bamboo. Urban forester John Scott reports on the bounty hunters: “We average 41 participants every year and last year was the largest with 62 participants.”

Our species as a whole doesn’t seem to understand or care enough about the vital connections between plants, animals, and us. In Doug Tallamy’s amazing book, “Bringing Nature Home,” he explains that “12% of all bird species are threatened with extinction because of habitat loss and invasive species.”

Protein from insects and caterpillars is needed for newly hatched nestlings, but nonnative plants aren’t always attractive to native insects. Tallamy warns: “If having aliens in your yard means there are fewer insects available for birds during vital periods of reproduction, it doesn’t matter how many berries are present afterward: there won’t be a new crop of birds to eat them.”

Knowledge of how nature includes us in her scheme is really a matter of our own survival. Whether we’re learning about food, climate, water, air, energy, or those blasted bush honeysuckles, we need to understand how this world works. Go get the loppers!