The Natives vs The Invasives

The Natives vs The Invasives:

Whose turf is it, anyway?

Courtesty OninePlantGuide.com

The instant I thought,

"MONKEY GRASS!"

I should have known I was popping the top off a can of sacred worms!

Now, I'm a naturalist, say, I'm a naturalist, say, I'm always proud to say. Why, the hours I spend with organic compost in hand are golden. Have you ever tried to give yourself a wildflower meadow with no more than a pinch-penny packet of low count seeds? Just as I say, it takes judgement, brains and maturity to walk this road with old Mama Nature.

Grandson Demetrius Combs, 14,
begins a Mow No Mo' internship.

Some months ago I launched a one-yard Mow No Mo' campaign to show River City that nasty ol' water-guzzling, fossil fumes farting turf grasses are not the only way to do "lawn". There ARE alternatives ~ even for a couple of codgers on fixed incomes.

Our first objective was to remove all the khakiweed with its near-microscopic pricks from the yard. This has left considerable square footage of bare baked clay all across the patch.

The original plan was to power rake the bare spots and reseed with the Texas/Oklahoma Wildflower Mix (ITEM # 3341) from Wildseed Farms. Unfortunately, October ran out of money before we could order the seed. We may try again for November, but I fear that is pushing seeding back a touch too late, I don't know.

Meanwhile, on the back side of the house, the war on khakiweed was being pressed forward with even greater vigor and by strictly mechanical means, mainly a wickedly sharpened, straight-bladed spade that is sublime at scalping off the top eighth to a quarter-inch of former turf.

With reseeding to wildflowers stalled, I began thinking about alternatives to cover the bare patches. That's when my blind eyes were opened to Liriope! I call it my "burning ground cover" moment, you know, like Moses and his bush.

What a powerhouse ground cover! Extremely low maintenance in the drought- stricken Southwest and a champion at going forth and multiplying when offered the narrowest margins in which to spread. Best yet, I have an island of Liriope anchoring the back corner beneath our native redbud colony.

Experimental "diversity" garden tests both native and
non-native species for sustainability. 

The not so good news (in certain circles) is that the mighty monkey grass is a native of Asia, not Texas.
Some folks can get downright hostile at the mere suggestion of admitting non-native species onto Texas dirt.

That native vs. non-native issue did give me some pause. About 15 seconds worth. Then I realized sustainability within a community is totally dependent on diversity.

The diversity plot pictured above is my current holding bed for Liriope as well as moss rose (South America), sedum (Northern hemisphere) and native Texas blue mistflower.

Oklahoma Redbud

Two young Oklahoma redbud trees were on the property when we moved in last December, two Texas natives all but surrounded by invasive, non-native photinia. I took a cutting from this one Saturday, placed the cut stem in water and about a half inch of new tap root was showing Sunday! The stem was treated with root hormone powder and placed in potting soil.

What is a "native"?

“You must not know too much or be too precise or scientific about birds and trees and flowers and watercraft; a certain free-margin, and even vagueness - ignorance, credulity - helps your enjoyment of these things.”
Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892)

Today officially launches my seventh decade as an amateur naturalist, and the Web dropped Whitman’s quote on me as my reminder for the day. Thank you, Lord!

I have been in nature, observing nature for 60 years so far. Only in the last four years or so have I pursued nature as an avocation and just this past year that I have earned a fraction of a living at it. And while I do make a few bucks working with nature to teach others about nature, I refuse to surrender my amateur naturalist status and leave the ranks of giants like Darwin, Whitman, Thoreau and Muir.

Certain dangers are inherent in close observation and study of what goes on in the natural world. Chief among these (on my list, at least) is nitpicking; getting too hung up on scientific classifications, definitions and nomenclatures. I know Guy Here is a male ruby-throat hummingbird simply because he presented his red throat patch when he visited our porch feeder. Do I need to know his proper name is Archilochus colubris to appreciate his behavior as he camps out in our yard, defending “his” feeders against all male (no, he doesn’t chase away females) comers? No, I don’t. In fact, I had to Google “ruby-throat” to get Guy’s Latin name for this citation.

Like Willie said, “What’s in a name?”

But it goes deeper than that. Down at the nature center, our mission is closely tied to preserving the ecosystems on our 15 acres. Most of the site is river bottom wetland inhabited by cottonwoods, buckthorn, pecan, sugarberry, soapberry, rough-leaf dogwood, green briar and Japanese honeysuckle. Of those eight species, one is a foreign invasive introduced into the region long before there was a nature center.

Japanese honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica), in fact, ranks high on Texas’ list of public enemy plant species because it is such a highly aggressive, invasive vine that left unchecked will take over everything in its way. Lonicera was introduced into the United States from Asia as an ornamental vine, and its popularity helped spread it across the country where it has naturalized in many areas.

Strictly speaking, then, all Japanese honeysuckle should be removed from the nature center as a non-native invader, right? Personally, I think so. Yet our resident honeysuckle has its fans who would be more than a little upset if the plant was totally wiped out. Many of those same folks would much rather I remove the prolific poison ivy that flourishes in our woods, even though poison ivy is native to our ecosystem.

So the debate becomes what is “native” and what is not “native”? The immigration issue does not apply exclusively to foreign nationals of the human species. Plants, like people, may become naturalized citizens, but it often takes more than an official status or designation to make them welcome.

When I was first invited to join the staff down at the nature center, one of my goals was to eliminate non-native honeysuckle (yes, Virginia, there is a native species, coral honeysuckle) from our acreage, and to my mind Lonicera is still the kudzu of North Texas. Today, however, I am more inclined to cut it back to the bordering neighborhood to the west, allowing it to remain on our fences as a specimen of what NOT to plant in your yard!