Natives for Invasives

This is a great new publication - there are lots of natives I hadn't thought of using in a horticultural situation. I do have a suggestion for improvement, however. There should be some kind of warning regarding use of Celastrus americana where people need to make sure these plants are purchased from a trustworthy source and labelled properly. Their exotic breathren are very similar and so hard to differentiate - especially the M. rubra. It's for exactly that reason that I tend not to recommend them to the average native plant gardener. That said...
Native Alternatives to Invasive Plants is an indispensable guide for everyone who loves dazzling gardens and cares about the health of North America's natural landscapes. Invasive plants, the overwhelming majority of which are not regionally native, brazenly spread unchecked across residential landscapes, parks, preserves, roadsides, and other wild lands, supplanting native species and ultimately threatening the ancient biological communities in their path. In fact, most scientists now consider invasive species to be one of the top two threats to this planet's native plants and animals (the other is habitat loss). Invasive species cause major environmental damage amounting to almost $120 billion a year. Yet invasive plants are still commercially available, and a few of them remain wildly popular. Japanese barberry, for example, is one of the hottest-selling plants in the nursery trade, and Norway maple is one of the most widely planted trees in the country.

NY Biodiversity at AMNH

Today I attended Living with Nature: A Conference on Sustaining the NY Metro Region's Biodiversity Through Local Action at AMNH. Co-sponsored by the NYC Soil & Water Conservation District, the agenda had panels on education, arthitecture and green cityscape, food systems, consumer choice, transportation, and natural systems.

I missed the keynote addresses, but heard that Al Appleton was excellent. The architecture panel was great (except for the one who was incredibly lack luster. We shan't name names). As I expected, there was a lot of talk of greenroofs. The Gaia Institute has one in the Bronx using native plants. But really, all the greenways and greenroofs won't provide habitat for shade-tolerant forest herbs. So it's not all about building. You can't construct your way out of land conservation.

I sat in on the natural systems panel in the afternoon. It was excellent as well. The DEC representative was especially lively and made several good points...nature does need a Madison Avenue marketing campaign! Carolyn Summers exclaimed that there should be "no more extirpations"...brava!

A gorgeous fall day

These pictures will make office workers everywhere weep with envy at how sweet it is to be a field biologist. Today I was working along Staten Island's South Shore.
Fall foliage isn't limited to the trees. Here bracken fern (Pteridium aquilinum) glows a golden hue. {Most people think of ferns as dew-covered fronds growing lushly on the rich forest soils in the umbrage of canopy trees. Bracken fern laughs in the face of convention. It is a sunshine-embracing, sandy soil inhabiting fern. It is adapted to fire, with its root stock (rhizomes) nestled deep in the earth to avoid the flames. It's also quite common - keep an eye out for it the next time you are in the pine barrens or on Staten Island in Conference House Park or Clay Pit State Park Preserve.}

Here you can see clearly the glacial till sandy soils. The vegetation - trees - gray birch (Betula populifolia) and sassafras (Sassafras albidum) and that's a scrub oak to the right. The pine is short-leaf pine (Pinus echinatus). The shrubs are black chokeberry (Photinia melanocarpa) or if you are old school (Aronia melanocarpa) and the gorgeous reds in the background are highbush blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum). The cloud-like white puffs are narrow-leaved boneset (Eupatorium hyssopifolium var. laciniatum), a New York State rare plant.

Good Gardening: Little Bluestem

Most people have no concept of grasses aside from turf lawns. And that's too bad. Grasses can contribute much to your home landscape and with relatively little effort.
For example, little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium) {formerly Andropogon scoparius} is a perennial, warm season, native grass that has become a wildly popular ornamental. It is a common component of our landscapes, occuring in sandplain grasslands, oak-hickory forests, pine barrens and dry roadsides throughout our area.

Little bluestem forms dense, upright tufts of bluish-green leaves that typically reach 2-4' tall and 12" wide. It's shorter stature makes it an ideal wildflower companion. Its extensive root system acts as a barrier to weeds, keeping wildflower competitors to a minimum.

In late summer its small, purplish-bronze flowers bloom. The real show stopper is in autumn, when the flowers turn to fluffy white seeds on the tips of bronze-maroon-orange fall foliage. Who needs sugar maples with these autumnal hues? These stems persist, contributing interest to the winter garden.

The grass is an important food plant for the caterpillars of many species of skipper butterflies. It's also one of the critical species for grassland birds. Interplantings with Eastern red cedars are striking, and a sure way to lure more avian critters and human gawkers to your winter landscape.

Thank you sir, may I have another?

It has happened yet again - *sigh*. Wild potato vine (Ipomoea pandurata) has once again been cut to the ground.

Here's the problem, this plant, an herbaceous vine, (related to that chartreuse green windowbox favorite) existed in an area that was made into a recreational park. Despite all thoughts to the contrary, the plant came back a few years after it had been hacked to the ground to create said park. However, the plant doesn't know that things have changed. This (unnamed) park is now manicured and all things not trees get weed whacked. (This seems to be true of all NYC Parks - unskilled labor + pruning equipment = death to all plants not 50 ft tall. I'm not exaggerating). Imagine, a vine growing up a fence in a highly managed park. How unseemly! thwack

Why care? Well, wild potato vine is a New York State rare plant. And this site is its only occurrence in New York City. I am meeting with the park manager next week to discuss long term solutions to protect this plant. Which I've done every year around this time. My suggestion for 2007 is going to be a security guard.

LAs with Attitude

In reviewing the plant list for a certain project along the Bronx River, I finally embraced the fact that many landscape architects are very resistant to using natives.

For starters, I pointed out a number of invasives trees, shrubs and forbs that were on the list and suggested suitable native alternatives. I also commented on the compatibility of other exotic species with site conditions and proximity to natural areas.

This was one comment back...

Cotoneaster apiculatus and Spiraea japonica (both of which I said were invasive) are only found in the medians on East Tremont and Devoe. They were chosen for their hardiness in order to survive this hostile environment (because native plants are never found in hostile environments?!? she said dripping with sarcasm). If NYSDOT agrees we can replace the Cotoneaster with Arctostaphylos uva-uri or Myrica pensylvania, and the Spiraea with Itea virginica or Clethra alnifolia (my suggested replacements). You'd think I was asking them to donate a kidney. Sheesh.

The rarest in the land

Poor Torrey's mountainmint (Pycnanthemum torrei). There has been so much hooey over this population (then scroll 4/5 down) of the globally rare plant. It used to be part of the gorgeous! pristine (in some sections)! rare plant inhabited! 130 acres Kreischer Hill parcel, which was owned by the NYC EDC.

But conservation was not to be. Instead of thousands of years old glacial till sandy soils with their concomitant NYS rare communities and species, we have - what we've always needed! - Target, Home Depot, Bed/Bath/Beyond and a Christmas tree store. Hooray! That was certainly worth destroying the uncommonly occuring, sexually reproducing population of American chestnut. But that's just imho.

*Sigh*

Presently we are trying to conserve the population in situ (stop snickering!). This summer, we did a census of the mountainmint population. A transect was set up parallel to Veterans’ Road West. Every meter was marked off. Perpendicular to transect, 1m squared plots were set up. Within each plot the following data was collected – number of plants, number of individual stems, number of shoots, length of all stems, and the presence and number of flower heads. Casual observation suggests that the plants are grouped in clusters along this transect. This data will confirm whether or not this is the case. If so, further environmental factors will be examined to determine causal factors.

The Garden State

Good things going on in New Jersey:

A new watchdog organization forms to protect the Highlands
With increasing pressures to further develop and fragment the New Jersey Highlands, New Jersey Conservation Foundation and its conservation partners are forming a new watchdog organization—the New Jersey Highlands Coalition.

Statewide vision for land preservation
Garden State Greenways, is available free to conservation advocates, regional and local planners, government agencies, community leaders and others.