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Nature’s Party Crashers: Identifying & Removing Invasive Species
- bluestemnatives
- Apr 2
- 3 min read
There is something magical about the Spring, when we have had months of cold, snowy weather, and the predominant color is brown. I love me a good brown, but when those first few peeps of green start pushing up through the leaves that you left (right? we’ve been through this already.) it brings with it that feeling that warmer days are ahead, and the Winter won’t actually last forever. There is one teeny-tiny problem though, and I hate to bring it up. There are a whole bunch of plants that love to sprout up in early Spring that aren’t native here and a few that are downright invasive.
Listen, I get it. Every plant has a place, and a function, right? I’m not typically one who recommends removing established plantings, unless those plants are problematic. What do I mean by problematic? Well, if they are listed on the invasive species list, for one thing. That work has already been done for us. Plants that are officially designated as an invasive species cause harm to the environment, economy, and/or human health. https://www.massnrc.org/mipag/invasive.htm These plants should be removed and properly disposed of. The next level of plants would be those which are problematic in spaces, but haven’t risen (yet!) to the official level of invasive. These plants I would consider their role in your space. If there are taking up room in a small landscape that could otherwise be served with beneficial natives, then I would consider removing them. Alternatively, you could file this designation to the back of your mind, and when the plant shows signs of demise, then remove and replace with natives.
Now, this is just a little blog post. I could write a book about allllll the invasive and problematic species. Instead I want to highlight a couple of plants that are popping up in my own yard right now and give some suggestions on removal.
One of the most prevelant plants I am seeing is Garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata) .. This sneaky bugger looks very similar to violets and Packera aurea, both of which are early spring arrivals. Garlic mustard can be distinguished easily by crushing a leaf and giving it a whiff. There is no mistaking that pungent garlicy odor! This biennial is a prolific seeder, so expect eradication to take a couple of years. Luckily, it is one of the easier plants to remove. Grab the base of the plant, and pull. The roots should give easily, especially if there has been recent rain. As the season progresses, you may see a whole bunch more plants coming up and flowering. It’s better to cut these off at the base of the plant rather than pulling out of the soil because the larger plant roots will cause even more soil disruption and encourage more seed germination. Bag the plants up and dispose. Do NOT add to your compost pile if there are flowers and seeds!
Japanese Barberry (Berberis thunbergii) is one of my nemesis shrubs. This shrub has the nastiest thorns, and is one of those lovely plants that can root from the tiniest stem fragment. I had two of these planted in front of my house and when we removed them, I was unaware of their regrowth habit. We burned most of the plant, but small fragments escaped on the way to the pit, and now I have multiple mini barberries sprouting up in various spots. ARGH.
The very best way to get these behmouths out of the ground is to throw a chain around them and yoink them out of the ground with a truck. As that isn’t always feasible or practical, the next option is to gear up like you are going into battle, and start chopping. Get heavy duty leather gloves and sharp shears. Chop the plant into smaller pieces so that you can remove all of the pokey parts and get down to the trunk. You could bag and trash, but this plant does burn well. Just make sure you don’t drop any pieces! The trunk is the next fun part. You’ll need to dig a pretty wide hole, but in my experience the roots don’t go deep. Once you can get under the main trunk you can pull it up. We did have to use a sawzall to cut some of the larger roots, but they came up fairly easily after that.
These are just two of the species I have in my yard that I am tackling right now. There are great resources that detail a bunch more, and if you have some plants popping up that you need help fiuring out, reach out and we will do our best to help!
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