Too Much of a Good Thing

19 July, 2012 Reply

It is interesting to me how a plant in one location can be just as calm and polite as can be, but in another climate become wild and untamable. Take kudzu for instance, in Japan it is a nice tame vine that grows rapidly, but not uncontrollably to make vast amounts of feed for animals. Put it in the southern portion of the US and it suddenly shows its dark side. It takes over whole hillsides, climbing towering trees and slowly killing them by smothering them in darkness. Or Japanese honeysuckle. Ask anyone living in the mid-Atlantic and south and they’ll all have their tale of the “Battle with the Honeysuckle.”

You can hardly see the daylillies

Rudbekia taking over daylilies.
After cleaning you can see both of them.

I’m finding that some plants that I’ve grown gracefully in other areas of the country are quickly turning into invasives here in the mid-Atlantic. Black-eye Susans (Rudbekia) almost swallowed an entire garden in just three years. Just this past week I had to do damage control and uncover the plants that were now nearly suffocated under it.

I’d always wanted Pink Turtlehead (Chelone), not only because of the cool name, but because the flowers really look like turtleheads. However, it has now swallowed one shrub and two lillies. This fall it will be moved to a location where it can do little damage to anything around it.

Then I heard about an ageratum that was a perennial. I’d grown the annual quite a few times, because I thought their soft puffy flowers were cute. The perennial is also nice, but about 3’ tall, instead of the annual’s 12”. The only problem is the seeds go everywhere and almost all of them sprout. So you soon have ageratum in every garden in your yard whether you want it or not.

Can't see the stokesia for the rudbekia

Black-eyed Susan nearly smothered a stokesia
After some clearing out you can finally see it.

I always thought mint was going to be the only thing I needed to reign in, but I’m finding lots of things that grow much larger and spread much farther than in more northern climes.

Also, I’m having lots of things come up from seed that otherwise wouldn’t. I already mentioned the ageratum, but I have two new daylilies, and one of them doesn’t look like either parent. This year I have a brand new shasta daisy and even my camellias have babies all around their base, which I will pot up and move into the greenhouse this fall.

I’ve also learned that if I have enough patience and don’t disturb the soil too much, I will have an unending supply of moss rose, cosmos, holy basil, bronze fennel, catnip, clown flower, celosia, dill, cypress vine, sweet annie; and at least some volunteer zinnias, wave petunias (these you have to be very patient as they come up late), and various onesies of vegetables. I hardly bought an annual for the entire yard this year!

I love gardening, because it is a continuous learning process. There’s always something new to learn about. Now let’s see, I think I need to research peach diseases for next year so we get to eat more of our crop.

Invasive Plants Weren’t Always Considered Invasive

22 December, 2011 Reply

I was reading and interesting article about a book on invasive plants. “Invasive Plants: Guide to Identification and the Impacts and Control of Common North American Species” by Sylvan Ramsey Kaufman and Wallace Kaufman not only has a listing of invasive plants found in the US, but the history of why they came to the country.

Here in the mid-Atlantic there are several plants that are considered invasive that were mentioned in the article. One of my favorites is the mimosa tree. Although listed as an invasive plant I’ve never found more than a few of them dotting the landscape here and there. I think it’s beautiful and would actually like to have one in my yard, but since it is listed as an invasive, I’ll not do that.

How can anything so pretty and aromatic be invasive!?

One I’ve had and am still having personal experience with is kudzu. Many people in this region are familiar with what I call kudzu monsters. This is where the kudzu has taken over the landscape, crawled up the trees, entirely covering them and creating amazing “monster” shapes. Unfortunately this kills the trees. Kudzu can cover acres in very short order.

At our former residence we lived on a picturesque dirt road. Right at the entry to our little piece of heaven there was a small kudzu monster forest. Because the surroundings were so beautiful, I often took walks. One day, in mid-summer, I walked all the way down to the kudzu forest. As I was walking along I smelled this absolutely heavenly scent. I looked everywhere for the source and was startled and amazed when I found it was coming from the beautiful spiked flowers on the kudzu. Now I understand why it managed to mesmerize us into thinking it was a nice tame plant. Anything with flowers that pretty and aromatic has to be good, right? Well, unfortunately our climate was absolutely ideal for kudzu, so it grew at unprecedented rates. Combine that with a huge root system that can sprout runners and you’ve got the picture. I’m still dealing with one plant we found on our property. We’ll keep cutting it back until it dies from lack of energy. When we found it, it had already covered several trees and was branching out onto our neighbor’s property.

So, if you’re dealing with an invasive plant you might want to take a look at Kaufman’s book or at least do an internet search so you can understand the origin of the plant and why it arrived in the US in the first place. That might make you a little less angry with your ancestors. You can also read David Bare’s article. It has other interesting examples from the book.