Michiana
Most Unwanted (Plants, that is)
Look
around. It's likely you have something exotic growing in your
yard that has the ability to destroy habitats and eliminate
the birds and bugs that live there.
First,
a glossary: exotic species are plants or animals that originated
in another country or continent. Everything from your Japanese
Maple to your Dutch Tulips would be considered an exotic species.
Many
exotic species are benign, but when exotic species go haywire,
they are termed invasive because they can out-compete other
species, usually severely disrupting the stability of the
affected ecosystem.
Up
to a few years ago, it was still legal for garden centers
to sell purple loosestrife. This extremely invasive, but lovely-looking
plant consumes wetlands, eliminating natural food and cover
for a variety of birds, waterfowl and amphibians. Even plants
that were sold as sterile cultivars are now known to spreads
seeds.
When
invasives take hold, there are usually no naturally occurring
controls to stabilize the population. The plants spread aggressively
and can quickly create a monoculture. A healthy habitat has
a rich biodiversity. In contrast, a habitat dominated by a
few species eliminates food and cover for many wildlife species,
which are dependent on a diverse mixture of native species
to survive.
Groundcovers
can be particularly problematic. If your home is within or
adjacent to woods you should avoid two groundcovers readily
available at nurseries: periwinkle, with its perky blue flowers
and climbing or creeping euonymus, with its leathery leaves.
These plants are popular because they crowd out weeds, but
they also steamroll forest floors eliminating native trillium,
and all other wildflowers creating a monoculture. Euonymus
can also overtop trees covering the leaves and preventing
photosynthesis.
At
the end of May, I finally dug up the last of the burning bushes
in my yard. This shrub, popular for its fiery red fall color,
is blacklisted in some western states already because it can
form dense thickets when it escapes out of landscape plantings.
Privet,
once a popular hedge species, easily expands along floodplains,
woodlands and old fields. Buckthorn is similarly invasive.
Both shrubs overtake the understory of natural areas. Ironically,
birds help spread these shrubs by eating the berries and defecating
the seeds.
Family
Activity: Plant a native this summer!