What’s the alternative?

Active work against invasives necessary to stop them

Faced with a chore we’d rather not do, most of us might opt for a nap. In my March 12 column, I began my annual rant about invasive species taking over Northwest Arkansas. I, too, would rather not dig out bush honeysuckle or murder Bradford tree hybrid sprouts for spring entertainment. Alas, these weeds are replacing our urban forest. Time to skip the nap and get to work.

Procrastination on the removal of invasive plants is, I suspect, also due largely to buffering for privacy and border definition that some shrubs and trees provide between neighboring homes and along streets. However, native alternatives have good selling points to encourage us to replace invasives.

The city of Fayetteville’s website has an easy search button labeled, “How can we help?” Type in “invasives” and then read, “Invasive Plants and Native Alternatives.” There is a wealth of information in the educational packet, its pictures showing plainly that native plants are oftentimes more beautiful than the marauders taking over the local ecosystem.

Natives are free to us if their seeds can reach soil, water and sunlight instead of being shaded and choked out by plants that have no natural enemies to limit their spread. For example, in our yard this year, a large patch of mayapples has appeared where we’d finally cleared out the spreading monkey grass (liriope). Mayapples’ little flowers, hidden under umbrella shaped tops, are at a perfect height for box turtles that savor their fruits. Most of this native plant’s parts are toxic to humans, but its seedpods provide seasonal snacking for raccoons, deer and squirrels, which is not the case with liriope.

Ready to replace bush honeysuckle? A few of the natives listed as alternatives include Carolina buckthorn, winterberry, American beautyberry, silky dogwood, Ozark mock orange, and American witch-hazel. Dig out that honeysuckle and plop one of these beauties into that available hole!

Why plant or keep an Asian wisteria when the American native wisteria is just as lovely? Oriental bittersweet is also covering our parks and woods to such a degree that it’s now hard to even find American bittersweet. Bamboo, vinca, kudzu and lespedeza are also aggressive occupiers from another land, while river cane, wild ginger, Virginia creeper and spider milkweed natives serve the same kind of design appearance or ground-cover purpose.

The ecological difference native plants make is that they’ve evolved with native bugs that produce larvae and caterpillars that native birds feed their nestling babes, which can’t yet dine on seeds or larger bugs.

The city’s featured bounty invasive this year is English Ivy. The reward for residents’ removal of it or any invasives (send pictures to the city’s Urban Forestry Department) is a native tree, shrub or, this year, a vine honeysuckle plant. The irony of this last selection is that it belongs here and is not the beastly Asian bush-and-vine varieties. Its flowers are small, showy clusters of red or coral trumpets that perfectly fit hummingbird beaks and butterfly tongues.

Each year John Scott, the city’s urban forester, orders about 250 different plants for the bounty giveaway. Participants might take home more than one plant if extras are available. The program has given out 950 native plants over the past five years.

The most important thing to remember in replacing or planting vegetation is to select the right variety so you don’t plant a monster. Environmental action toward these tenacious change agents is extremely important because of the severe impact these plants are having on the ecological system unique to Northwest Arkansas.

Volunteer efforts to rid a few locations of invasives are undertaken by civic groups and neighborhoods. Volunteer and community programs coordinator Kristina Jones (kjones@fayetteville-ar.gov) facilitates park cleanups and invasive plant removal projects, which includes plant identification training. But each of us is responsible for our own personal space, and we need to tackle our own invasives. Cities can’t afford the magnitude of eradication efforts needed everywhere.

If our communities are sincere in a desire to sustain the area’s long-promoted quality of life, which helps push population growth, then environmental fundamentals urgently need to be addressed. The health of our natural surroundings has more to do with sustainability of economic health than any other investments we can make.