This site, Eat the Invaders, is about fighting invasive species by eating them. Being vegan, I’m not so keen on eating the animals, but I love the idea of eating the plants.
Canada has approved release of an alien moth to combat the invasive alien plant swallowwort. USDA is considering.
I was volunteering at Rotary Sunshine Camp near Rochester, NY and had 45 minutes to spare, so I poked around their wild areas. There were a variety of invasives, but nothing totally taking over, possibly excepting the mugwort. I wasn’t seeing that much mugwort in the Finger Lakes, but I sure see it here. There was a fair amount of Crown Vetch as well.
Finding the Wild Coffee plant was a real treat.
I tramped through the back fields at Buckland Park, Rochester, NY and found some invasives but nothing taking over, with the possible exception of Elecampane in one area. IMapInvasives wasn’t tracking Elecampane, but I emailed them and they decided to add it even though it hasn’t been a problem in NY so far; that could change with the climate.
I took a walk through the southern area of Corbett’s Glen in Rochester, NY and found some nice natives, but unfortunately, except for the trees and a cattail swamp, I’d say 80% of what I saw was alien invasive. There were swaths of mugwort and swallowwort throughout. I contacted the town to tell them about the Japanese Knotweed, which seemed to be just a few plants in one area = great opportunity to stop it right now before seeding.
Soon we’ll be leaving the cottage for the summer. I discovered several plants newly blooming or previously overlooked on the beach or nearby in the woods:
Jennifer at iMapInvasives suggested it would be useful if I reported some locations of Japanese Knotweed in Seneca County, so the next time I was driving down route 89 I kept my eyes open and pulled over to take photos and location notes. They are blooming now so very easy to spot at 55 mph.
These represent two locations, one a quarter mile south of the RR tracks just south of 5 & 20, and the other by Dean’s Cove.
I took a hike around my dad’s 200 acre farmland in the Finger Lakes. It is about 1/3 corn, 2/3 “wild” but maintained (rotational mowing, feeding plots to attract deer, woods for harvest, planted trees). I had been expecting to find some great plants here, but with all my walking I was a bit disappointed. There was a lot of goldenrod (N) and multiflora rose (A VHI), lots of tall grass, quite a bit of aster (N), but it seemed lacking in the kind of wonderful diversity I was finding in the woods near the lake. Maybe I’ve just been there-done that and the more I find, the less there is to find new. But perhaps it is because of the activities that go on there. For instance, one abandoned field, about 4 acres, was almost entirely oats and Canada thistle (A). Next to it was a field almost entirely in smartweed (A I). This is an old timey farm with small fields and frequent hedgerows, which my dad defends and adds to, but even in the hedgerows I wasn’t finding the stuff I’d found on the No Tan Tiki Trail, for instance. There were plenty of apple and hawthorne trees, but I’m not sure I saw a single dogwood or viburnum.
And multi-multi-multiflora rose. My dad has been ripping that out of the fields when he mows, pulling it out by tractor with a chain around the base of the plant. He pushes it off to the edge of the field, but I read somewhere that a dead multiflora bramble makes a good tree-tube substitute, to keep deer away from your planted trees.
Sharp-lobed Hepatica (Hepatica acutiloba) N
Another walk in the same woods path near my dad’s lakefront property. Not much new, but noticed this plant and think I’ve ID’d it correctly, though had no flowers to help.
English Ivy cleared from bank, piled on ground to die
I decided that the English Ivy might not be so bad to tackle if I did it a chunk at a time. So I started with the chunk that is southernmost, attempting to expand its range. All the area that is dead leaves in the photo was covered. You can see the edge of the blue-green ivy patch in the rightmost tenth of the photo – everything else you see is natives.
Neighbors stopped by to ask why I didn’t like English Ivy. I told them I love how it holds the bank and looks nice in winter, but wasn’t so crazy about how it climbs the trees and smothers anything small that isn’t woody, and it was starting to climb on our buildings and cover the stairs.
Over a few weeks I have been trying to get it off the ironwoods, which it seems to particularly like to climb. Maples, not so much. First I cut the ivy stems all around the ironwood trunks, making sure to pry the cut ends away from each other. Nothing – the ivy above the cut still looked healthy. So I ripped off a 5 foot section of ivy and threw it away. Nothing! Maybe the winter will do it in without roots.
Pokeweed (Phytolacca americana) N
I gathered some ripe (purple) Pokeweed seeds from a neighbor’s plant to put in the area across the driveway I’m trying to bring back native. A lot of people hate pokeweed because it’s pushy, but birds love it and I think it’s beautiful and would love to see it thriving. The area I put it in has a small sunny part bounded by lake, road and shade, so I don’t expect it will spread much.
While I was working, I heard incessant chirping. I figured my cat was annoying someone by his presence so I went to go see, but he was nowhere near – it was a baby Cardinal up in an ironwood tree hopping around following its dad and demanding to be fed. The poor dad was feeding it ironwood seeds as fast as he could. The next weekend I saw them doing the same thing in a black willow.
Upstate NY Plants 