​Invasive Species with Flowers

Invasive plant species are a huge problem. They have overtaken giant expanses of the landscape. As they do, they erase the ability for native plants and animals to thrive, and there’s no easy solution to get rid of them. But there is a bit of a silver lining. When I was walking along the bank of a river about a week ago, I came across a few very amazing plants that had beaten the odds among a mess of knotweed and porcelain berry (two of the worst offenders of the invasive mob).

Landscape design is all about timing, and knowing how much sun your plants need plus when bloom is critical. An area totally covered by trees is fairly full sun in early spring. Why? Because the leaves haven’t yet come out on the branches and blocked the sunlight. So you can often plant early bloomers under tree cover like irises and tulips because they flower as soon as late March when the sunlight is still plentiful. Of course, by early summer, the trees have shaded the ground and only shade-loving plants will grow. 
 
On my walk along the river, I was reminded of this trick nature plays. By July, the riverbank will be inundated with a thick mat of invasive species – knotweed, mugwort and porcelain berry. They will choke all of a small list of native species out of competition. However, right now, miniature tulips, snowdrop and helleborus are in full color. 

​The image above is a small patch of miniature tulips that have survived. They, however, are likely to be eaten within a couple of days by deer. 

Here is another picture of early color on the landscape. I think these are Helleborus with their petals facing to the ground. They are a really amazing dark red and standout in the jungle of invasive stems gone dormant from last year. 

​Of all the bulbed plants, snowdrop are by far the most successful. They dot the nature world with little white flowers as early as late February where conditions are right. The image above shows a fairly big colony with the river behind them. 

​No matter how attractive these flowers are, they will quickly be replaced with less desirables. Knotweed has completely overwhelmed most towns and natural areas wherever it can grow….and it can grow just about anywhere with a little moisture and lots of sun. the usual solution groups take to kill it off is poisons. The poison isn’t suppose to hurt water quality or wildlife, but toxic is usually toxic. But these small flowers could point to a more natural solution where nature can gang up on them. Most of these invasives don’t like shade and if early growing plants can be used to grow atop the older established invasives (at a faster rate), nature might win the fight. 
 
I’m not sure, but for now, these flowers hold a little of the ecological wonder and make my walk along the river a little more enjoyable.