Peared Down

For several decades now, Prince George's County has had the Bradford pear (Pyrus calleryana) as its County tree. This has been a source of some embarrassment for the botanically inclined, as this cultivated pear tree is both extremely weak-wooded and a non-native invasive.

Now, County residents are taking steps to have the tree de-listed and replaced with serviceberry (Amelanchier canadensis), a beautiful native with high wildlife value. Good luck to them.

Do you know what the Anne Arundel County tree is? You can find out here.

Eradicating English Ivy

Many people plant English ivy (Hedera helix) in their yard thinking that it's a nice, easy-to-maintain, evergreen ground cover, or will help stabilize steep slopes (it won't). They're correct that it's low maintenance and green year round, and that's part of the problem. The plant, which is native to western Asia, north Africa, and parts of Europe has found a very comfortable home in the eastern US, and spreads aggressively, shading out native seedlings and strangling mature trees, as in the picture below:


This is the perfect time of year to begin an eradication plan. English ivy can be removed mechanically (i.e. by hand) fairly easily as the tendrils are shallow-rooted and will come up in clumps if yanked. If you have ivy climbing trees, as in the photo above, girdle each of the vines around the circumference of the tree. By the spring or summer, the vines should be dead and will be much easier to remove.

Like any invasive control effort, if the plant is established in your yard, it may take two or three rounds to get it removed completely, but once you do, you will have made a much more hospitable environment for native plants and done an important part in cleaning up our region.

Invasives Report Released

The Environmental Law Institute just released a report on "Halting the Invasion in the Chesapeake Bay: Preventing Aquatic Invasive Species Introduction through Regional Cooperation". May be worth a read.

Identifying Invasives on the Bay

This week's Bay Weekly describes the work being done at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) to identify and deal with invasive plant and animal species that have made their way into the Bay.

Extraordinary Measures to Eradicate Invasives

This month's Bay Journal covers the painstaking efforts that some groups are undertaking to take back their forests from invasive plant species. A group called Earth Sangha mobilizes up to 500 volunteers to maintain Fairfax County parks by ripping out English Ivy, garlic mustard, and japanese honeysuckle on a regular basis.

How can you identify invasives? If you happen to wander into your local woodland this time of year, anything green that isn't a christmas fern or evergreen tree is most likely invasive.

Beware the Emerald Ash Borer

As if we weren't already inundated with enough invasive plant and animal species, the Capital reports a new invader is threatening native ash trees. The emerald ash borer, a beetle native to Asia is threatening local tree populations and has led the Maryland Department of Agriculture to put a "quarantine" in place for ash trees in Prince George's County. Theoretically, no firewood or ash trees are to leave the county.

Please abide the quarantine, and if you happen to see the beetle below, please contact the Maryland Department of Agriculture at 410-841-5920 to report it.

A Bird in the Hand is Worth Several in the Phragmites

It began with a glance at the true cost of Christmas index, a tongue-in-cheek look at the cost of buying all of the items/animals/performers in the 12 Days of Christmas song (it turns out to be $78,608.02 this year).

The one expensive verse that really caught my eye however was the estimated cost of $4,200 for "Seven Swans-a-Swimming." That's $600 per swan. Apparently the avian flu is driving up the price of large birds.

As most Bay-area residents know by now, thanks to five captive mute swans which escaped in 1962, we've got around 4,000 invasive, hungry, large, but admittedly beautiful birds roaming the Bay, munching crucial sub-aquatic vegetation (SAV) and rousting the native bird populations.

Could DNR be convinced to capture, neuter/spay, and sell these birds for a total of $2.4 million? Seems like a solution that the animal rights folks might prefer to the alternative, one that could raise a bit of revenue for the state, and one that could perhaps halt that ever-menacing avian inflation index.

Once that's done, they can start on the geese-a-laying.

The Natives are Resting (but not for long)

A glance at the surrounding landscape can still be pretty bleak this time of year. Except for the evergreens, most of the trees and plants are stripped down to their bark, and are various shades of brown and gray. Not for long though. Spring is less than a week away, and in a few particularly sunny areas, bulbs have already begun peeking up through the ground.

If you have an expansive garden or planting containers or even just some greenery on your windowsill, you might be contemplating what you're going to add to them this spring, summer, and fall.

Let me make the case for native plants. Native plants are plants that are indigenous to this region, and that have evolved here over thousands of years. As such, they are particularly well suited to the climate. They tend to be more drought resistant, so they can be watered less (good for your aquifer and reducing your water bill). They tend to be more resistent to pests, since they've evolved alongside the insects, fungi, and bacteria of the area, so you can use little (or no) pesticides on them. Good for the Bay, and good for native beneficial insects, like ladybugs. Natives also provide much needed habitat for local insects, birds, and wildlife. Take for example one extreme case. Did you realize that white turtlehead (Chelone glabra) is the only host for the Baltimore checkerspot butterfly (the Maryland State Insect)?

Great resources for native plants include the Maryland Native Plant Society and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services' "Native Plants for Wildlife Habitat and Conservation Landscaping [pdf].

Plants to stay away from include invasives such as: tree of heaven (Ailanthus altissima), multiflora rose (Rosa multiflora), bush honeysuckles (Lonicera spp.), kudzu (Pueraria lobata), Japanese honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica), English ivy (Hedera helix), and vinca, periwinkle (Vinca minor). A full listing is available at the link.