Gardening: Woods, natural areas management

[Staff]

Gardening: Woods, natural areas management
By Eileen Ward
Thursday, July 2, 2009

Gardening: Woods, natural areas management : Gardening : Marco News
excerpt from above:

I love the woods. I was born and raised in Vermont and Connecticut where the woods were my playground. As the population increases, it has become necessary to set aside natural areas to preserve native plant and animal communities.

Damage to native and nonnative plants threaten these natural areas unless managed. Nonnative plants have been introduced accidentally as garden plants or agricultural crops. Some of these nonnative plants have naturalized or spread on their own into our natural areas. When these plants spread extensively and displace native plants they become invasive and cause damage to the native ecosystem.

You must manage natural areas to control these invasive species and minimize damage to native vegetation and soil. It takes time and caution to clear these natural areas of invasive species. Current methods being used to manage these nonnative plants include manual removal, mechanical removal, physical controls, herbicides and biological control. Each control can be used independently or in combination with one another.