Water Education Foundation
This is just one post in the Invasive Species Category
Click here to view all posts

Know your invasive plants: give them an inch and they’ll take an acre

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 17, 2008 at 8:40 am

From the Santa Barbara Independent:

Next week, July 21-25, is California Invasive Weeds Awareness Week. While no projects to eradicate plants or educate the public are planned in our area, it isn’t because there aren’t any invasive plant species threatening our native ecosystems. According to the California Horticultural Invasives Prevention (Cal-HIP), a coalition of horticulturists, botanists, and nursery people, there are at least 10 plants that have become so noxious that they are recommended to be removed from nurseries and eradicated wherever they are growing. These species have escaped the confines of gardens and are reproducing rampantly in the wild to the detriment of native vegetation.

Invasive plants spread beyond our gardens and out into natural areas, where they can grow so fast, they crowd out native vegetation, block streams and cause flooding, and produce so much biomass that they can create fire hazards. Most of these plants have little or no value as food or habitat for the native birds and species. They can grow so thick that the area becomes impassable, thus restricting or eliminating recreational opportunities.

Many kinds of invasive plants are also incredibly thirsty, such as the tamarisk or salt cedar. A single tamarisk can suck up 73,000 gallons of river water a year. It is very salt tolerant, excreting excess salt from the tips of it’s branches and depositing it on the ground, further intensifying the salinity of the soil. The tamarisk has become the dominant streamside vegetation throughout the southwest, occupying more than a million acres of riparian habitat.

Invasive plants are not ugly; some of them are very attractive, and sought after as additions to gardens, such as red fountaingrass or pampass grass. Home Depot and other nurseries (knowingly or unknowingly) sell invasive plants, and there are no regulations in place or legislation pending at this time. Instead, the California Invasive Plant Society is working with nurseries, gardeners and the public to educate them on invasive plants, encouraging them to use other alternatives.

For a rundown with pictures from the Santa Barbara Independent, click here. For more information on invasive plants, visit the California Invasive Plant Council website at www.cal-ipc.org, or the Plant Right website at www.plantright.org.

July 17, 2008 · Filed Under Invasive Species

Comments

Leave a Reply