invasive???

invasive???
Luminita vollmer (Thu, 15 Feb 2018 05:42:26 PST)

I loved your post! Let me just add a few lines from my own experience as
well. I grew up working on a local farm, from early in the morning,
sometimes as early as 3 am to avoid the heat of the sun. I was always
rebelling against the powers above me - my parents - that needed another
hand on the farm. I promised myself I would never ever do this when I was
the powers to be.
Fast forward 20+ years - my main occupation is gardening. In my garden I do
what I want.

The wild onion story that was just described here recently - the wildly
invasive plant - happened to me too. I saw the plant on a hill somewhere,
that was maintained by the city. Now I think someone threw some seeds
there, and I happened to see them when they were blooming. It was a small
clump, tall and sturdy, with lovely cruciforms flowers. I dug a clump of
3-4 roots and brought them to my garden. Loved them.

The following year - i saw them blooming, then I had to travel for work for
a few weeks, and by the time I got back to the garden, they were done
blooming, green capsules were all over the plants. I left them through the
fall, and cut them when they were dry, late in the fall, small black seeds
falling all over the small area where I planted them, and in my asparagus
patch. The following year I had knee surgery late in the season, and my
garden was sort of left to tend to itself. And when I came back the
following spring - the wild onion plants were all over the garden - to such
extent and force -that it took me 10 years after to eradicate every single
one.

Imagine if the seeds had some kind of umbrella, like the dandelions, and
would have spread well beyond the limits of my garden.

At the same time - I was warned that the hottuynia cordata plant is wildly
invasive - I prepared a 2x2 feet area with aluminum sheathing around it - I
could not keep it growing! I wanted to use it as a medicinal plant, nothing
seemed to work. I even got the small plants from friends that grow it for
food. For me nothing worked.

I think some karma is at play here - but definitely knowing about the
plant's behavior, and trying it in a controlled way helps.

Luminita

On Thu, Feb 15, 2018 at 2:47 AM, Erik Van Lennep <erik@tepuidesign.com>
wrote:

This topic is both confused and inflammatory...as well as fascinating.
Invasiveness is definitely contextual, and that context is temporal,
situational, ecological and cultural. It's getting more people stirred up
now that human immigration has become such a flash point, and echoes back
to 1930s Germany as the Nazi xenophobia was gathering steam and wishing to
purge anything "foreign", including many plants. We seem doomed to thinking
and acting in cycles...blindly or with amnesia about our histories.

A few years ago, here in Spain, there was a mini stand-off between a local
"eco-Taliban" group and a small, new, botanic garden. The garden was
testing salt tolerance for a range of edible, medicinal and ornamental
species planted in a constructed beach (hence not natural itself). The
defenders of eco-purity based their hysteria on a handful of
self-referencing documents sourced from the national equivalent of the EPA.
On examining the documents, two things were evident: they were based on a
student's desk-top cut & paste work, and the list covered any species
anywhere in the world ever claimed to be invasive in any situation, but
without qualifying the data. There were quite a few species native to the
contested region itself (but at some point claimed to be invasive in
Argentina). This list is still the basis for the national strategy to
identify invasive species in Spain.

Fred Pearce's book,"The New Wild: Why Invasive Species Will Be Nature's
Salvation" (2016) makes a very interesting read on the subject of plant
migration, invasiveness, and spotty research entrenched in cultural bias
toward newcomers and immigrants. And just to clarify, my own orientation
has long been staunchly pro-native species only, but in the face of climate
change and in working with novel ecosystems in and around urban and
agricultural areas, I'm doing a lot of rethinking.

Having said all of that, as gardeners, it's our duty to pay attention to
how our plants behave, and probably best to avoid anything locally
identified as invasive (and by intelligent extension, issues reported from
similar habitats and contexts), as well as to yank out introductions that
appear to spread problematically.

Erik van Lennep
Zone 9B
Barcelona, Spain

youth and elders short video <http://vimeo.com/62177578/>

http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikvanlennep/

@Green_Heart

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

*“Another world is not only possible, she is already on her way. On quiet
days I can hear her breathing.” * - Arundhati Roy

On 14 February 2018 at 22:54, Jo&Greg <sun-coast-pearl@telus.net> wrote:

Re the non-native Nazi attitude. The term "invasive" or "alien invasive"
have
very specific definitions. If a person in your climatic region is
concerned, all
they need do is go to the State or Provincial invasive plant folks, and
look at
their list. In Canada, (BC) the agency is called the "Invasive Species
Council"
and, like all these agencies, has the job to educated as well as control
invasives, be they plants, insects, and other animals. Also remember that
what
is rampant -- perhaps even invasive -- is almost always climate specific.
My
sister in New Mexico, babies a lovely delicate variegated vine on her
portale.
It is English ivy which, in the Northwest actually twines around and

kills

250-ft cedar trees.
Jo Canning
Zone 6b, Coastal British Columbia (50 degrees Lat.)

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