Native Brutes Are Our Friends
Puddock Hill Journal #62: Nature's good guys fight the bad guys.
I recently ran into an old friend, an artist who has begun to farm a substantial parcel of land in Columbia County, New York. He was fretting over the dogbane growing profusely in his fields and wondering how to get rid of it.
My initial response was to suggest leaving it be as a native, but he hopes to graze animals in that field, and dogbane (like related milkweed) is poisonous. My second suggestion was to let it grow outside the fence and mow inside, but he took that as an unsatisfying answer, although it seemed simple enough to me. Of course, I wasn’t the one who would have to mow!
In any case, this brief conversation got me thinking about aggressive American natives, some of which are considered invasive to farmers because they mess up the purity of their crops or risk poisoning livestock—and some of which are truly invasive outside their natural territory in Europe and Asia.
But I’m most interested in aggressive natives as allies in my battle against invasive plants at Puddock Hill. A bully is not a bully if he’s on your side!
This spring we have had to go scorched earth on a number of areas. Both the tenant house meadow and hillside meadow had so much Canada thistle and multiflora rose that string trimming became impractical. We’ll be mowing these two places for the rest of the summer.
Similarly, a large portion of the big pond embankment got overrun with porcelainberry and common reed (Phragmites) last year, and this spring looks no better. As a consequence, I recently had the lawn service attack it down to the ground with a brush hog machine and string trimmers.
And in a few smaller areas, I’ve also deployed the string trimmer with extreme prejudice this year.
While I can see that these examples and past missives might suggest a losing battle against invasives, I’m optimistic at the moment. The big limitations, as always, are time and money, and I don’t seem to have enough of either to fully eliminate all invasives without the use of chemicals, but I do think we’re inching closer.
As an important factor, we are not fighting these invasives alone. We have allies in the form of aggressive natives.
Now, one of the first rules of war is to minimize friendly fire, and I’d be the first to admit that going scorched earth also mows down intertwined natives. One simply can’t pick through the whole mess with a tweezers— although I have been known to use a hand clipper for some very selective removal. Still, when we see a clump of good guys, we try to leave them in hopes they’ll further assert their authority.
In a sea of invasives, the good guys we can spare are almost always the aggressive natives that feel most at home on this particular patch of ground. Not counting trees and shrubs, plants punching above their weight around here include dogbane (Apocynum spp.), sensitive fern (Onoclea sensibilis), Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia), Virginia knotweed (Persicaria virginiania), deertongue (Dichanthelium clandestinum), and goldenrod (Solidago spp.).
Interestingly, while every native plant feeds wildlife to some degree, few of these species score high as host plants or significant food sources for birds or arthropods (with the possible exception of Virginia creeper and goldenrod). The jury seems to be out on whether dogbane does more harm than good to monarch butterflies. Sensitive fern serves mostly as a place for small animals to hide. Deertongue is less important than other grasses as a food source.
On the plus side, these plants belong here. They evolved alongside other native plants and wildlife. Thus, as part of the local ecology, they do have value, perhaps even in some ways we haven’t yet come to understand. Most important, it is highly unlikely that more fussy plants (think, oh, I dunno…trillium) have the wherewithal to compete at scale with truly noxious invasives.
For those dealing with small patches of earth near the house, I am not suggesting installing the above mentioned plants as ornamentals and then…la di da. If happy, they will undoubtedly come to dominate. But managing garden beds is, well, gardening. Managing larger landscapes requires a more expansive view.
That’s why, just the other day, we purchased a few beebalm plants (Monarda spp.). I saw great swaths of it a few years ago in the meadows at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, where it happily held its own against grasses and presumably crowded out at least some invasives—all while feeding pollinators. On the next rainy day, when digging is easiest, I intend to introduce this notoriously aggressive native to the wet meadow to see whether it will take.
If you need an ally in your war against invasives, don’t recruit a wimp.
Scorched earth on the pond embankment. The shrubs with the white flowers at two o’clock are elderberries. The patch of bright green beyond is sensitive fern. To the right of both is common reed on the other side of the fence and off property.
The vigorous string trimming continued into the woods, where volunteer sassafras have begun to establish themselves.
Native Virginia knotweed forms patches in the woods above the big pond:
A ladybug alights on a native black raspberry leaf:
The non-native climbing hydrangea on the stone arch of the patio garden has earned itself three pictures…close, closer, closest:
