The cost of Invasives - Page 2 - Wildlife Gardeners

Equilibrium · 04-27-2010, 12:28 AM

The sign sounds like a good idea. Even a NWF sign is good since everyone associates it with good will. I have a sign the state hands out. It's bright orange and says acres for wildlife. It's butt ugly so I hang it in my garage. tineckbone> People just don't get it until.... their ox starts getting gored. I've been sick and tired of the horticulture industry double dipping for years and then our tax dollars go to cleaning up the messes. I throw my hands up at this vicious circle.

tineckbone · 04-27-2010, 05:05 AM

We should start our OWN certification program! We could make the sign really HUGE and the requirements really strict. Anyone found in violation of the program once certified would be punished by requiring them to come over and weed my yarden. I like that idea.

Equilibrium · 04-28-2010, 01:16 AM

I like that idea too.... one sobering reality.... weeding in your garden wouldn't be a sufficient deterrent. It's be a slap on the wrist. I've got European Phragmites... acres of Phragmites. We should sentence them to "weeding" in my yard. I'll donate the signs.... you write the requirements for the certification program. Make them stiff.... I need help bad.

tineckbone · 04-28-2010, 05:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Equilibrium

I like that idea too.... one sobering reality.... weeding in your garden wouldn't be a sufficient deterrent. It's be a slap on the wrist. I've got European Phragmites... acres of Phragmites. We should sentence them to "weeding" in my yard. I'll donate the signs.... you write the requirements for the certification program. Make them stiff.... I need help bad.

okay, I will grant you that your phragmites is worse than my purple dead nettle, dandelions, and assorted other unwelcome yarden visitors. The dandelions I don't mind so much, the bumble bees love them. I don't think that anything good could be said for your phragmites. Although, they are a pretty good wetlands sponge...

Staff · 04-30-2010, 12:30 PM

Profiting from invasive plants: the challenge of controlling the horticultural industry
Conservation Maven
Mar 11, 2010

Profiting from invasive plants: the challenge of controlling the horticultural****industry - Front Page - Conservation Maven
excerpt from above:

Quote:

But “what do you do when one person’s conservation problem is another person’s livelihood?”, as Conservation Magazine asked in 2002. For example, in California, the horticulture industry contributes an estmated $17 billion to the state economy and accounts for over 212,000 jobs...

tineckbone · 04-30-2010, 01:03 PM

I have no problem with the horticulture industry per se. I do have a problem with them selling plants that do more damage to our ecosystem than any perceived benefit. If they would sell only native plants and educate instead. People are always going to be buying plants, there will always be a need for garden centers and nurserys. By shifting their focus away from pure ornamentation and toward sustainability we would all be better off. I have a NWF volunteer that is working on a project with me and her excuse for planting non-native plants is that "they feed her soul". I told her that they did not feed anything else, but she does not care. Those are the people that we need to educate.

amelanchier · 04-30-2010, 02:14 PM

Don't blame the industry; blame consumers. They're just giving the people what they want. Our job is to change what people want.

tineckbone · 04-30-2010, 02:58 PM

I think that the garden centers and nurserys are not to blame, the horticulture industry is. The average consumer is ignorant to the damage that their actions cause. They only want what they see in magazines and on TV. They want plants that are "special". I think that the answer is a combination of education and restriction of the sale of certain plants that are really invasive. It takes a long time for some plants to become invasive, but once they do they are almost impossible to stop. I think that the cost of controlling these invasive plants should be passed on to the people who convinced people to buy them.

CincyGarden · 05-03-2010, 09:54 PM

I'm going to use T's response, not because I don't agree with a lot of what's expressed, but because the statements are can help to illustrate my ignorance on this issue.

Quote:

I think that the garden centers and nurserys are not to blame, the horticulture industry is. The average consumer is ignorant to the damage that their actions cause.

I have to pause and confess that I, myself, am much more ignorant than the average consumer. And it's not because I don't care, it's just I don't know were to start.

Quote:

They only want what they see in magazines and on TV. They want plants that are "special".

For the "average" consumer, or the individual planting their first landscape "set," yes you're right. I think you put a lot on the consumer here, though, and miss the point that there's a huge landscape industry out there, which informs the TV crowd more than I like to imagine.

Quote:

I think that the answer is a combination of education and restriction of the sale of certain plants that are really invasive.

I've been thinking about this, a lot. What is "invasive"? On the spectrum from anything that doesn't belong (i.e. non-native) to things that directly interfere with native ecology, what's acceptable?

Quote:

It takes a long time for some plants to become invasive, but once they do they are almost impossible to stop.

I agree with everything you've said, at least in principle if not in scope, and I do here. I do wonder, not specifically but generally, what is an acceptable use of, for instance, botanical understanding if it has impossibly specific geography?

Some of this stuff is going to happen by chance, right? I'm in a relativistic argument here, but (despite efforts to understand) I have some trouble understanding the solution.

I'll use the example of honeysuckle, because that's on my mind right now. Propose for instance that you could wage war against honeysuckle in your area. You could not be reasonably assumed to defeat it, but could make a very substantial impact on it, and by doing so substantially altering the area that had supported it. What happens next? Does another non-native just move in? If, in 1,000 years, the honeysuckle is still around in that area but no longer dominant, is it still invasive?

I fully respect the impact non-natives can have to a given area. I'm really trying to form some sort of idea of acceptable risk. I think it's foolish to expect that gardeners, or anyone with any sort of creative impulse, will restrict themselves to their environment to the extent of restricting their palette. I also agree fully that certain plants in certain environments cause unbelievable change.

I don't know how to approach the education part of what you're saying. Short of outright ban of countless plants depending on geography, which couldn't possibly work, what do you do?

tineckbone · 05-03-2010, 10:40 PM

I think that the thing we have to first do is to explain the difference between the horticulture industry and the nurserys. They are not one in the same.

The main difference between a native and a non-native is that the native species evolved at the same time as the insects that eat it did. That evolution did not happen in 1000 years, it happened over many thousands of years. It is possible for a non-native to become a "native" I suppose so but we won't be around to see it.

Not all non-native species are invasive. There are several native species that can be invasive. The thing is though, that if everyone on your block plants the same non-native species, it is acting as though it was invasive. An invasive plant is one that will outperform all of the other species in the vicinity. By doing this, that invasive plant will prevent light from hitting the ground. In the case of vines, it will choke out trees and shrubs and create a monoculture of itself. It is not too often that a native plant will do that because there are just too many things that will eat it.

I am sure that there are incidental occurrences of plants that are not necessarily native to specific area, but are native to the region, but I doubt that there will be an accidental planting of a species from the other side of the world though. I know that birds can fly a long way, but I cannot imagine one bringing a seed from china and dropping here in New Jersey.

I have said this before, the thing we want to keep in mind is resources. We have a certain amount of space under our control. Within that space is the soil and the nutrients that it contains and the amount of sunlight that it gets. By planting a non-native species, even one, you are tying up those resources to that plant that does nothing for the environment other than give off oxygen. It probably does not feed any insects which in turn does not feed any wildlife. Truly, the bottom line is we need to supply the food for the insects thereby supplying food for wildlife. 96% of all birds rear their young on insects, even humming birds. There are some birds that only eat insects. Mice and other rodents will eat seeds but only if they cannot find an insect to eat. A bird can nest in just about any tree, any shrub can provide cover, any brush pile can provide a home for an animal. The difference lies in the food web. A non-native species just is not capable of the carrying capacity of a native plant.

I am by no means an expert on plants. I go to the garden center with the idea of looking for a specific plant and usually come away empty handed. I have gotten to the point now that I know many plants but I did not start out that way.

All I know is that I want to try to restore some of the habitat that my species destroys and the ONLY way to do that is to plant native species.

04-27-2010, 12:28 AM	#11
Equilibrium Official Plant Nerd Join Date: Dec 2008	The sign sounds like a good idea. Even a NWF sign is good since everyone associates it with good will. I have a sign the state hands out. It's bright orange and says acres for wildlife. It's butt ugly so I hang it in my garage. tineckbone> People just don't get it until.... their ox starts getting gored. I've been sick and tired of the horticulture industry double dipping for years and then our tax dollars go to cleaning up the messes. I throw my hands up at this vicious circle. __________________ "Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss

04-28-2010, 01:16 AM	#13
Equilibrium Official Plant Nerd Join Date: Dec 2008	I like that idea too.... one sobering reality.... weeding in your garden wouldn't be a sufficient deterrent. It's be a slap on the wrist. I've got European Phragmites... acres of Phragmites. We should sentence them to "weeding" in my yard. I'll donate the signs.... you write the requirements for the certification program. Make them stiff.... I need help bad. __________________ "Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss

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04-27-2010, 05:05 AM	#12
tineckbone WG Contest Coordinator Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Browns Mills, NJ	We should start our OWN certification program! We could make the sign really HUGE and the requirements really strict. Anyone found in violation of the program once certified would be punished by requiring them to come over and weed my yarden. I like that idea.

04-30-2010, 01:03 PM	#16
tineckbone WG Contest Coordinator Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Browns Mills, NJ	I have no problem with the horticulture industry per se. I do have a problem with them selling plants that do more damage to our ecosystem than any perceived benefit. If they would sell only native plants and educate instead. People are always going to be buying plants, there will always be a need for garden centers and nurserys. By shifting their focus away from pure ornamentation and toward sustainability we would all be better off. I have a NWF volunteer that is working on a project with me and her excuse for planting non-native plants is that "they feed her soul". I told her that they did not feed anything else, but she does not care. Those are the people that we need to educate.

04-30-2010, 02:14 PM	#17
amelanchier WG Facebook Administrator Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Lyme, NH	Don't blame the industry; blame consumers. They're just giving the people what they want. Our job is to change what people want.

04-30-2010, 02:58 PM	#18
tineckbone WG Contest Coordinator Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Browns Mills, NJ	I think that the garden centers and nurserys are not to blame, the horticulture industry is. The average consumer is ignorant to the damage that their actions cause. They only want what they see in magazines and on TV. They want plants that are "special". I think that the answer is a combination of education and restriction of the sale of certain plants that are really invasive. It takes a long time for some plants to become invasive, but once they do they are almost impossible to stop. I think that the cost of controlling these invasive plants should be passed on to the people who convinced people to buy them.

05-03-2010, 10:40 PM	#20
tineckbone WG Contest Coordinator Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Browns Mills, NJ	I think that the thing we have to first do is to explain the difference between the horticulture industry and the nurserys. They are not one in the same. The main difference between a native and a non-native is that the native species evolved at the same time as the insects that eat it did. That evolution did not happen in 1000 years, it happened over many thousands of years. It is possible for a non-native to become a "native" I suppose so but we won't be around to see it. Not all non-native species are invasive. There are several native species that can be invasive. The thing is though, that if everyone on your block plants the same non-native species, it is acting as though it was invasive. An invasive plant is one that will outperform all of the other species in the vicinity. By doing this, that invasive plant will prevent light from hitting the ground. In the case of vines, it will choke out trees and shrubs and create a monoculture of itself. It is not too often that a native plant will do that because there are just too many things that will eat it. I am sure that there are incidental occurrences of plants that are not necessarily native to specific area, but are native to the region, but I doubt that there will be an accidental planting of a species from the other side of the world though. I know that birds can fly a long way, but I cannot imagine one bringing a seed from china and dropping here in New Jersey. I have said this before, the thing we want to keep in mind is resources. We have a certain amount of space under our control. Within that space is the soil and the nutrients that it contains and the amount of sunlight that it gets. By planting a non-native species, even one, you are tying up those resources to that plant that does nothing for the environment other than give off oxygen. It probably does not feed any insects which in turn does not feed any wildlife. Truly, the bottom line is we need to supply the food for the insects thereby supplying food for wildlife. 96% of all birds rear their young on insects, even humming birds. There are some birds that only eat insects. Mice and other rodents will eat seeds but only if they cannot find an insect to eat. A bird can nest in just about any tree, any shrub can provide cover, any brush pile can provide a home for an animal. The difference lies in the food web. A non-native species just is not capable of the carrying capacity of a native plant. I am by no means an expert on plants. I go to the garden center with the idea of looking for a specific plant and usually come away empty handed. I have gotten to the point now that I know many plants but I did not start out that way. All I know is that I want to try to restore some of the habitat that my species destroys and the ONLY way to do that is to plant native species.