(HOST) Commentator Edith Hunter has been thinking about invasives – what they are – and what to do about them.
(HUNTER) I grew up in Roxbury, Massachusetts in a house on about 1/4 acre of land with a Bartlett pear tree, a Seckel pear tree, a Baldwin apple tree, and about a 20 x 30 foot patch of lawn. Along one edge of the lawn grew my father’s beloved iris. Across the end of the lawn he tucked in a half dozen tomato plants next to the clump of rhubarb. And every spring, in that area, up came what my father called rami, but what I know as Japanese knotweed. He could never get rid of the stuff. I knew that my neighbor, Willis Wood, had relocated his vegetable garden years ago from a hillside to a flatter area, but one full of knotweed. I asked him how the move had gone.
He replied as follows: "We’ve spent the last 40 years gardening through our patch of knotweed, and have yet to eradicate it.
"Just recently we’ve tried roundup herbicide injection on individual stems on the outside of the garden, with mixed results. Along with Japanese knotweed, we are battling Japanese Barberry, honeysuckle, buckthorn, garlic mustard and multiflora roses, and are just starting to see Russian olive, and (I think) burning bush. Then again, the invasives that we like (which used to include all of those plants), as well as earthworms, and honeybees, are quite welcome on our farm. Many of our common hay and legume varieties are Asian, African or European (orchard grass, timothy, red clover, and alfalfa, for example). We haven’t had too much trouble with burning bush, but sugarbush management folks are starting to have quite a bit of concern over it.
"If you look at the best looking maples planted to repopulate the Weathersfield Center Grove, you’ll see that they are Norway Maples now considered an invasive. And if you look at those nitrogen fixing, rot resistant, handsome locust trees, you will see another tree that Vermont considers an invasive species.
"But I’d guess the most invasive non-native species in Vermont is its white settlers who seem to spread everywhere and force out, overwhelm and dominate native species of all types." End of quote.
Invasive plants, are very much on the mind of Vermonters this year. The Weathersfield Conservation Commission is sponsoring a program on identifying and eradicating invasive species on August 10 at 7 pm at the Weathersfield Meeting House. Gary Pelton, wildlife biologist for the Army Corp of Engineers, will make the presentation. The corp has, for years, been attempting to rid the North Springfield Dam Area of invasives.