Speaker 1: Broadcasting from Studio A. Here at proven winners Color Joy Shrubs.
It's time for the Gardening Simplified Show with Stacy Hervella,
me Rick Weist, and our engineer and producer Adrianna Robinson. Well, today, Stacy,
we get into the weeds on a tough topic, invasives.
Lots to talk about in regards to this subject, Lots
of opinions out there, and you know, I look at,
for example, where I live along the shores of Lake Michigan.
I look at an invasive that came into the country
years ago, spotted knapweed. Oof.
Speaker 2: Yeah, most people don't even know that's invasive.
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly, because it's been around so long, has the
pretty little pink flowers. But it's also a lellopathic and
so it crowds out desirable native plants, like in our
case along the lake shore milk weed. And so this
is a not only a set and tough subject, it's
it's almost an emotional subject too. That involves many agencies
of our government. And of course, Stacey, plenty of opinions
to go around on social media.
Speaker 2: Well, that is for sure, and you know that's one
of the reasons why I wanted to do the show
on invasives because if anybody is a social media user,
whether that's Facebook or Instagram or TikTok or anything, you know,
there's really all of these different people and organizations taking
advantage of those platforms to put out a lot of information.
And a lot of that information is very useful and
very good, and a lot of it is hot garbage, just.
Speaker 1: Like anything else. Don't believe everything you.
Speaker 2: Read, right, So, you know, obviously you want to follow,
you know, reputable sources that are posting reputable information, but
you also have to take all of this with a
grain of salt and take things as a learning opportunity,
especially before you share them and perpetuate more misinformation or
partial information or just outright bad information. But yeah, this
is a difficult topic and it's not one that we
are going to be able to completely cover because it's
just too massive.
Speaker 1: It's immense.
Speaker 2: But you know, also here in Michigan where we are located,
invasive plants have suddenly gotten quite a lot of attention. Yes,
after many years of getting pretty much zero attention. Very recently,
State of Michigan is attempting to ban some invasive plants
from being sold in the state, which is probably going
to come as a surprise to people. They're probably thinking, hey,
if this is invasive, why is it even being sold
here in the first place. But there was never any
bans against it.
Speaker 1: You're so right about that, Stacey, And coming from the
garden center industry, if you take an example like calorie pair,
and then if all of a sudden, you know, calorie pair,
thousands and thousands millions have been sold through garden centers
and stores and then all of a sudden you can't
sell it anymore. It's those are a high impact decisions.
Speaker 2: Aren't And the other thing is that people don't understand necessarily.
So you know, another name for calorie pair, which is
c A L L E R Y, not calorie like
calorie that gives you energy, just in case you're wondering
and you're getting you know, internet results that say it
has fifty four calories per you know, average pair calorie
and also known as Bradford pears. And you know, yeah,
when they bloom, right, everybody and their brother goes into
the garden center going, I want one of those beautiful
trees with the white flowers. And for many years there
was no reason that they couldn't buy them, and now
they're going to be told, oh, you know, we can't
tell you that anymore.
Speaker 1: Pretty flowers, but stinky.
Speaker 2: Oh terrible stink. And you know, I used to live
in New York City and there were entire streets lined
with Bradford pair, I mean entire blocks in blocks in
a row, and on a spring day, you know, it
would look like it was snowing and it would actually
be kind of lovely, but God forbid you breathing.
Speaker 1: I think that's where that whole trend started. As far
as street side plantings are concerned of Bradford or Calorie pair,
so yeah, I can picture that. So there's a lot
of terminology involved here, invasive versus native. While native plants
can be aggressive or I like to call them frisky,
they're generally not considered invasive because they exist in balance
with the local environment. And then you have invasive versus
non native. Not all non native plants are invasive, only
a percentage of them are problematic. And then you have
invasive versus aggressive. And we've all had aggressive plants in
our landscape, but it may be that they're just spreading,
as I say, a little bit frisky. Many government agencies
involved in this. You have the US Department of Interior,
you have the US Department of Agriculture, an National Invasive
Species Council the NISC. They're advised by the ISSAC, which
is the Invasive Species Advisory Committee. And then on top
of that you have APHIS, which is the Animal and
Plant Held Inspection Service that's a sub agency within the
US Department of Agriculture or USDA. And then you have
your state agricultural departments, and every state has an agricultural department.
You have all of them involved in this.
Speaker 2: It's a hot topic, it is, and it makes it
really hard to get clear information. But I think the
one thing that our listeners really need to know about
that long list of government organizations involved, and not just
in invasive plants, invasive species in general. This can include
animals and different diseases and things like that. But the
important thing to know is that invasive plants are invasive
on a state by state basis. You know, there are
plants that are horribly invasive on the in the Northeast
that aren't the least bit of a problem in the West,
which is really surprising because you would think that the
mild amenable climate of the Pacific Northwest would mean everything,
could you know, get a leg up and go crazy,
But that's not the way it works. So really you
have to turn to the state or province if you're
joining us from Canada that you live in, for the
best information on what's invasive in your state, and then
to further complicate things. Though not all of these state
agricultural organizations have an equal commitment to taking on invasive plants.
I can tell you some states are extremely aggressive in
managing invasive plants and educating the public about invasive plants
and banning them, and some states are much more less
a fair you know, they aren't really going out there
and prioritizing this, and so that might make someone especially
if you are you know, like I mean, I think
we can take Michigan in Indiana here is a great example.
Indiana is one of the states that is very, very
aggressive in their invasive plant bands, whereas again in Michigan,
we haven't really done anything for years, and now there's
an attempt to get this done. So it makes someone
wonder like, well, does it just not cross the state line?
You know, it sees the state line and goes WHOA, Nope,
can't do it. I'm not invasive in Michigan. I'm not
going to jump the line there. But yeah, so it's
difficult to find information, but your state is always whether
or not they are proactive or reactive, the number one
source for finding out what's potentially problematic in your area.
Speaker 1: And very important work. I mean, we have to protect
agriculture and waterways and a host of things. So, as
I mentioned, we're getting in the weeds here today.
Speaker 2: But you know, I think that's a really important point too,
is it's not simply when we talk about an invasive plant.
What separates an invasive plant from the other terms that
you described is that an invasive plant is going to
go out into the wild and displace basically native habitats,
native ecosystem. So it's not just that you know, oh,
something like a mint right in your backyard is an
aggressive plant and it's kind of hard to control. That
wouldn't really be considered an invasive plant. It's the plants
that spread out into the wild and when that happens, yeah,
it can mess up things like erosion, you know, it
can mess with water flow, other animals, insects, all of
these different factors. So it's really not as simple as
you know, Hey, I was hiking and I didn't want
to see this, you know, ugly invasive plant in the
middle of the woods. It's it's a very complex subject.
Speaker 1: An example along that line, I just came back from
Puerto Rico and in the airport coming back into the
States encountered the Beagle Brigade. We've got a picture for
you on YouTube. The USDA uses a Beagle Brigade detector
dog teams, adorable dogs all over the airport. Fantastic. You
take your luggage, you take your carry on, you have
to run it through a scanner, get it tagged before
you can head back into the country. Of course, in
Puerto Rico they have a real issue with something called
an African tulip tree. You see them everywhere in full bloom.
They've colonized the land all across Puerto Rico. It's a
fast growing tree species, but it's non native and listed
on the one hundred global Worst Invasive Species. But as
you drive along in Puerto Rico you can see this
tree has taken over the landscape.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, Puerto Rico is an American territory, of course,
but I don't think in all of my travels, I
have ever been to a place that had stricter agricultural
restrictions than Puerto Rico to the US. I mean, it was,
it's pretty intense.
Speaker 1: It is. It's intense. But that adorable beagle sniffing our.
Speaker 2: Bags making sure you don't have some you know, tropical
fruit in there or something else like that.
Speaker 1: Found an old meal raisin cookie. Huh.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 1: Well, let's see where Stacey goes with us in plants
on trial. That's coming up next here on the Gardening
Simplified Show.
Speaker 2: Beautify your home and community with proven Winner's Color Choice
Shrubs with over three hundred and twenty five unique varieties
to choose from. There's a flowering shrub or evergreen for
every taste and every space. Just look for the distinctive
white container your local garden center or learn more at
proven Winner's Color Choice dot com. Greeting's Gardening friends, and
welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show, where, despite my cheerfulness,
we are talking about a very un cheerful topic today,
and that is invasive plants. And you know, it's a
tough thing that's near and dear to my heart, because
you know, every single one of us who goes into
gardening or plants something, we do so out of positive intent.
You know, when we plant something in our yards, whether
you know, any type of plant, we're trying to do
something good. We're either trying to improve the yard for
ourselves in our own enjoyment. We're trying to provide some
privacy or some shade. We're maybe even trying to help
insects like you know, bees, butterflies, pollinators, all that. So
we go into any garden center whatever plants we're purchasing
or planting with good intentions. But of course we all
know what they say about good intentions, and that is
why we have invasive plants. You know, no one said, hey,
I'm going to plant this because it's super invasive and
I want to be a real trouble maker. But at
the same time, it's very difficult to find out for
most people, you know, it's hard for them to make
the right decisions. And I've heard, you know, over time,
from a lot of different home gardeners of varying skill level,
that that's a big point of frustration for them. You know, how,
I don't want to do a bad thing I am
here trying to do good and I don't want to.
I don't know enough to make a choice that is,
you know, unintentionally bad, and that makes it's one of
the things that makes it really difficult. Now, I will
tell you, you know, one of the important things that states
and provinces do for invasive plants is they ban them.
So the invasive plants that we're talking about today, there's
a number of invasive weeds that have come out through
agriculture and are not things that most average people are
going to come in contact with. But you know, the
sad fact is there are a number of invasive ornamental
plants that originated as ornamental plants. Great example that a
lot of people aren't aware of the New Jersey bamboo
also called Japanese not weed. That is a plant that
was actually brought to America by Frederick law Olmsted for
landscaping Central Park. And you know, he thought it was
beautiful and elegant, and now it's everywhere and it's a
terrible plant to have and a terrible plant to get
rid of. But you know, again, it was brought in
with the intention of being ornamental, and you know, Central
Park kind of an assign here, but kind of can't
help but mention this. Central Park is also where Starlings
our first release.
Speaker 1: I love that story sometime about it.
Speaker 2: Yes, so Shakespeare, Shakespeare, the Shakespeare Garden in Central Park.
So Central Park is fabulous and amazing and wonderful as
a place it is, and I know I was fortunate
enough to work there for three years. Yeah, the epicenter
of a lot of these a lot of these problems
that have have since come up, but again all done
with positive intentions. And the good thing is that as
we have seen those mistakes be made in the past,
we can now start to you know, kind of project
for making better decisions in the future. We can learn
from those mistakes.
Speaker 1: And like I said, Stacey, there's very important work being
done by people out there to keep us from making
these mistakes.
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly. So. Again, one of the most important things
that a state will do when they decide to ban
a plant is that prevents it from being sold in
garden centers. So if you live in a state that
is a proactive banner of invasive plants and potentially invasive plants,
you know you're in a pretty good spot because you
don't have to worry really about going into the garden
center and accidentally buying something that's going to be a problem.
It's just not there in the first place. There's sometimes
a moratorium. They'll say, okay, you can you know, nurseries,
garden centers can sell through their stock in the next
five years, and then after that there's no more that
kind of thing. But what about the rest of us,
You know, how are you going to find out and
make a decision that is not just beneficial for the
environment because you don't want your plant spreading into the wild.
But the simple fact is the plant is likely to
spread into the wild. There's probably going to be spreading
around your own backyard and your neighbor's yards as well.
And as much as even people like Rick and I
love gardening, we're not looking to make more work for ourselves.
You know. We'd rather have that time to either enjoy
the garden or spend it doing the tasks that we
really enjoy, rather than you know, pulling out seedlings of.
Speaker 1: We're having people using roundup, which is a whole other issues.
Speaker 2: Yes, there's a whole other issue. But the point that
I'm getting at is for those of us who live
in areas where there are not a lot of invasive
plant bands in place, we here at proven winners colored
Choice shrubs have come up with the in check program,
and in check is a designation that basically says that
the plant has been through our normal trialing and testing
process to make sure that it outperforms everything and blooms
better and grows better and will be easy to maintain.
But these plants with the in check design have undergone
additional trialing to make sure that they are seedless, sterile,
and or non invasive. Those are three separate concepts, but
basically what that means for you as a home gardener
is that if you are choosing a plant that has
an in check designation, you do not need to worry
about its spreading around because you know, basically what's happening
is in our industry, and especially like in the landscape industry,
you know, there's a lot of staple plants that people
find very, very useful, and to suddenly have them sort
of disappear out of the plant palette is difficult for
everybody in the industry. So a lot of talented plant
breeders that we work with, like doctor Tom Rainey out
of North Carolina State University doctor Dennis Warner out of
North Carolina State doctor Mark brand out of the University
of Connecticut have been devoting their considerable skills to developing
alternatives to things like barbary, to things like burning bush,
and developing non invasive alternatives. And there's a lot of
different ways that they can do this. They have a
whole arsenal of skills, so these plants still have some
of the benefits, you know, the easy care for in
the case of barbary, people really like barbary because it's
so dear resistant, right, So you can still kind of
have those plants, but without the issues that the more
conventional versions cause. Now, I do want to say there's
twenty two varieties currently in the in check program and
it does include again those known invasive plants, things like ramness.
Our fine line ramness is in there, sun Jay Toto
and Sunjoy Mini maroon, barbary are in check. Our new
fireball seedless Uanamus, which is the only seedless burning bush
on the market. And people love burning bush. Yeah, I
think you can do a lot better than burning bush myself.
But he'll try talking people out of burning, so it's
not going anywhere, right, But you can substitute a regular
burning bush for a fireball seedless and not have to
worry about it spreading. We also have plants in the
in check program that are not known to be invasive.
They're not banned anywhere because again they're not spreading out
into the wild, and that is really the key factor
that states consider when they're looking to you deem a
plant invasive or ban it. But something like how many
times have you heard this rick Rosa Sharon? I had
a Rosa Sharin. I loved it, but it just puts
seeds all over my yard and made a maintenance nightmare
and I'm tired of it. Do you have a Rosa
Sharon that doesn't have seeds? And yes we do. We
have two right now. And that includes the beautiful Azuri
blue satin rows of Sharon, which is so pretty. That
is a single blue, but a very beautiful true blue.
Especially when it's in bud. That plant will not set seed.
And there's also a dwarf one called Polypetite hibiscus that
has kind of lavender flowers and bluish green foliage, and
that one is also seedless. So some of the in
check plants again, are known to be sort of notoriously invasive,
and this provides an alternative. But some of them are
also just a way of making your guardening chores a
little bit easier, so you can kind of have your
cake and eat it too. It's not so much a
worry about, you know, Rosa sharon is going into the
woods and disrupting the ecosystem. It really is primarily an
issue only in urban areas and doesn't spread usually far
away from your yard. But no one wants to pull
rosa share and seedlings every day long.
Speaker 1: It's pain.
Speaker 2: Although a lot of people you see them, you know,
they dig them up and then they try to sell
them by the roadside for like five.
Speaker 1: Bucks Facebook marketing.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, well this is not the one for you
because these are not going to set seed now. Butterfly
bush is another great example. Butterfly bush out West is
a terribly invasive plant, and it was banned except for
newer varieties like the ones in our incheck program, which
have been scientifically proven to have reduced fertility. So if
you are what if you live in the Northwest, that's
only those are going to be your only options. Is
these non invasive varieties. But for the rest of us,
it's kind of just a nice to have, right, It's
just nice to know that you are then selecting a
butterfly bush that you don't have to worry about spreading
seed around, even if it's a place like here, you know,
in Michigan, where butterfly bush very rarely spreads by seed
for most of us. And guess what, our best selling
butterfly bush also happens to be in the in check program.
Pugster blue butterfly bush. Yes, what fabulous blue flowers. So
the great thing too about the in check program is
that it's not just like settling for a plant that
is not as attractive as the you know, more problematic counterpart.
They're equally, if not more attractive. You just don't have
that extra issue of worrying about the seed spreading. Now
you will find in check plants on it is your
local garden center and you want to look at the
plants tag, There is a little in check designation before
the common name. So for example, if you take the
pugster blue butterfly bush, it will say Pugster blue in
check butterfly bush. So if it's an in check butterfly bush.
If it's an in check barbery, etc. Then you know
that is one of the variety that you are not
going to have to worry about spreading around, So do
look out for that. You can find a full list.
Just go to proven Winner's Color Choice dot com and
type in in check two words and you will get
the whole list of our plants and learn a little
bit more about all twenty two of them. With that,
we are going to take a little break, but when
we come back, we're going to be opening the garden
mail bags, so please stay tuned. At Proven Winners Color
Choice Shrubs. We know that a better landscape starts with
a better shrub. Our team of experts tests and evaluates
all of our flowering shrubs in evergreens for eight to
ten years to ensure they outperform what's already on the market.
For easycare, reliable, beautiful shrubs to accentuate your home and
express your personal style, look for Proven Winner's Shrubs in
the distinctive white container at your local garden center or
learn more at proven Winner's Color Choice dot Com. Creeting's
Garden friends and welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show,
where it is now our pleasure to help you with
your gardens. Questions, quandaries, and conundrums and celebrations of course always,
although there's probably not too too many of those just yet.
We heard from some listeners with some nice orchids and
so forth blooming indoors over the winter.
Speaker 1: But well, we get questions, we get conundrums and stacy.
I've got to say, thank you very mulch. I sometimes joke,
send us brownies or fudge. We got fudge linquor infused
gourmet fudge with cherries and cranberries, and there was one
toasted pecan. Wow. Thank you wow. I love it.
Speaker 2: So yes, thank you very much.
Speaker 1: Conundrums and send fudge Adriana.
Speaker 2: Yes, Adriana would like us to start asking for airstreams.
Oh she would like an airstream travel trailer. Oh there
you go, so you know we can.
Speaker 1: Let's work on that.
Speaker 2: Send us airstreams. We'll make sure she gets it, don't worry, no,
just kidding. We really do appreciate that, and we always
appreciate hearing from you. It means a lot to us.
And so if you do want to reach out, just
go to Gardening Simplified on air dot com. There is
a contact form right there on our website, and you
can even attach photos, which of course are always very
helpful in diagnosing issues and seeing your celebrations. Of course,
so I welcome you to reach out to us there.
And you know we can't answer all of the questions
just because some of them are too long and too
involved and too hard to describe on the radio, But
we do want to help every single one of you
who does have a gardening question. So, and you'll get this.
If you email us, you'll get a bounce back that
immediately says, hey, we may get to your question on
the air, but you can also reach us at proven
Owner's Color choice dot com. There's a contact form there
that will go directly to one of our horticulturists and
you'll get a personalized response because you know we're invested
in your success. We don't just tell you that on
the show.
Speaker 1: It's so I agree.
Speaker 2: Anyway, what have we got in the mail bag this week?
Speaker 1: We're going to need your help, Stacey, because Gary's asking us,
can you recommend a boxwood variety that grows fast and
tall for a deer proof privacy hit?
Speaker 2: If only, if only I could, Gary the said, unfortunate
fact for us in cold climates. And Gary did have
a six one six area code in the phone number
he included, so pretty sure he's here with us in
West Michigan. But yeah, Unfortunately, the tall, beautiful box was
that you see in English gardens or even when you
go to the American southeast like Virginia and around you know, Willie,
Colonial Williamsburg and that sort of thing are not as hardy.
In fact, some of them are not hardy at all
as the sort of more rounded, squat shorter ones that
are much more common in our landscape. So it is
unfortunately very difficult to find a tall boxwood hedge that
is appropriate for privacy that is hardy to Michigan. And
as far as fast growing, well that is the real
pipe dream here because that is also not going to happen. Now.
I will tell you Gary, I am trying to do
this in my own yard with trying to make kind
of a boxwood wall with a variety called John Baldwin.
It does get to be about six to eight feet
tall probably by the time I reach about one hundred
years old, and if I'm alive to see it, and
it is a very beautiful upright pyramidal boxwood variety. But yeah, unfortunately,
between the fact that they are not as hardy and
that they are much slower growing, that leaves those of
us in cold climates in kind of a lurch. Of course,
there's lots of breeders out there trying to find this
kind of holy grail. In the meantime, I would suggest,
if you have sun for it, do you consider a
juniper as a deer proof privacy hedge alternative. They're also
kind of slow growing, but they're much more widely available. Yes,
we're much faster than a box but which wouldn't take much.
They are one of the slowest growing plants. But yeah,
I really wish there were gary and I hope that
one day there will be. But for right now, looks
like it's going to be a juniper.
Speaker 1: All right, boy, Stacy, I was in my landscape this
morning and I looked at my lemonee lace elderberry and
the buds on that are really nice and thick. Won't
be long now that we'll be enjoying the lemonee lace
and Pamela writes to us last year, I planted a
lemony lace elderberry per your recommendation from an earlier show.
Speaker 2: Thank you very mulch, because we're both crazy about that plant.
Speaker 1: That's right. I understand I should plant two elderberries to
get the best blooms. As I plan a new bed,
I would like to add a second elderberry. Do I
need to plant another lemony lace or a different one?
Speaker 2: Right? So age old question here something that is very confusing,
and we do try to clarify this on our website,
but I'm happy to clarify it here as well. So
lemony lace elderberry will only set fruit or berries if
it is cross pollinated with a different variety. So this
isn't a situation like a holly where there's separate male
and female plants and you need to make sure that
you have a male and some females and only the
females will get berries. The thing with elderberries is also
the case with viburnums, is simply that they need genetic
diversity introduced in order to set those seeds. So it
shouldn't impact their flowering at all. But certainly if you
want the berries and on lemony lace, I think they
are quite attractive. They're red, they come out later in
the season. They contrast beautifully with that bright golden foliage,
so they are a nice kind of thing to have there.
But no, you cannot get fruit on lemony lace by
planting another lemony lace. Because our plants are clones of
one another. They're vegetatively propagated, so that no matter when
or where you buy a lemony lace elderberry, it's always
going to be the same plant. The flip side of that,
of course, is that they cannot serve to cross pollinate
each other. The good news is, Pamela, I'm not sure
where you are located, but the species that lemony lace
elderberry is Sambucus rasamosa, is very abundant here in Michigan
in the wild. So if you live near almost any
kind of wild place, you see it in ditches along
the highway, You'll see it all over the place. Native
populations can serve to pollinate your lemony lace. If you
live I'd say within you know, maybe a mile or
so of some native Sambucus rassamosis. But that's the other
key thing. If you are looking for a cultivated variety
or something from a garden center, it should not be
a different species. The other species it's really popular of elderberry,
either Sambucus nigra or Sambucus canadensis. Those bloom much later.
And you know, Rick was just talking about the fabulous
buds that he's seeing on his lemony lace. Those are
the flower buds. Because lemony lace is one of the
earliest shrubs to flower in our garden. Probably yeah, I
mean it basically goes kind of our sweet and low
sweet box, and then you know a few weeks later
you're gonna get flowers on the lemony lace. It flowers
what's known as naked before the foliage comes out. It
has these big, beautiful, lacy flowers. So if you're gonna
plant another species, it's not necessarily the pollen wouldn't be compatible,
but that that Sambucus nigro or Sambucus canadensis that's not
going to be flowering until June, so no chance across
pollination there. So you might be able to find another
Sambucus resamosa. It can be a little bit tricky. I
think there's one variety called Sutherland's Gold, but I think
that because lemony lace is such a much better production plant,
you know, for the growers to actually get to you
that it's just a lot more abundant. So another thing
that you can do and do tried with caution on
this piece of advice, but if you can harvest some
stems of an elderberry, you know, from a ditch or
something like that. Obviously you don't want to go on
private property or do this in any kind of park
or anything like that, but you can actually take some
stem and put them in your yard and let the
bees kind of do the work that way, if you
can get your hands on some of the native population.
But again, they have to their blooms have to overlap exactly,
so you'll know it's them, because there's not going to
be other elderberries blooming. And I'm thinking that's going to
probably be yeah, maybe a week or two here.
Speaker 1: Oh, it's I can't wait. And Pamela, let me suggest
to you also that with my lemony lace elderberry in
my landscape, I planted blue fortune agasthat ooh in front
of it, and it gets tall enough so that it
can use the lemone lace as a backdrop, and that
contrast between the blue flowers and the lemony lace, that
combination in a landscape really pops.
Speaker 2: Yes. In fact, I also have that combination, not deliberately,
it just kind of turned out that way, but I
do love it. It is I mean lemony lace. It's
just it's such a beautiful plant, and it's such an
interesting plant that even if you don't get the fruit
on it, not to despair, because it is so ornamental
on its own, and it really offers so much that
the fruit is just kind of a bonus. I would
also say, if you are the kind of person who
is interested in using elderberries for culinary or medicinal properties,
this species of lemony lace, Sambucus rasimosa, is the less
desirable of them. If where's the fruit of Sambucus niagra
or canadensis is juicy, The fruit on the lemony lace
is kind of like a pithy, you know, like that
like kind of spongy weirdness. It is also toxic, as
is the fruit of the regular elderberry if it's not
fully ripe. So again it's a nice ornamental feature. I
wouldn't recommend harvesting it or using it for any purposes,
So if you don't get it, it's not the end
of the world. You'll still get beautiful flowers, beautiful foliage,
and have an amazing landscape plant to show for it.
Speaker 1: Every time I hear about elderberries, I'm taken back to
high school when I was cast in a play arsenic
and old lace. Oh yeah, and drinking elderberry wine.
Speaker 2: Ah yeah, fine these days. Yeah, and you're going to
need a lot of elderberries to make some wine. But
you know, doesn't make it impossible. Anyway. We're going to
take a little break. When we come back, we're finishing
up our conversation on invasive plants, so please stay tuned.
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Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show as we address
the issue of invasive plants today and Stacy, you've reminded
me too that it's important with plants to understand the
botanical name in order to properly identify plants and problems. Earlier,
I mentioned the African tulip tree in Puerto rico. That
is Spathodea camp panulata, But important to know that. Or
I think of an invasive plant here in Michigan in
spring into June. You see it all along the ditches,
and that is Dame's rocket. But again important to know
because if you're especially fond of this plant because you
have memories of Grandma growing them in her garden, or
you see them along the ditches and you simply identify
them as being flocks and they look like flocks, it
doesn't help address the issue that it is an invasive
plant that produces copious amounts of seed and will outgrow
other plants in short order. So there, I'm going to
take a shot at this stacey. Hesperus matronalis.
Speaker 2: Yes, Hesperus matronalis. It's one of my favorite botanical even
though the plant is kind of saying it's just so
beautiful to say Hesperus matronalis.
Speaker 1: Well, hesperus comes from the Greek word for evening.
Speaker 2: As I am, it is not lovely. I think that's
a beautiful word.
Speaker 1: And it's pretty too.
Speaker 2: It is very pretty. It has beautiful kind of cool
color that like cool lavender color, you know, on a
spring evening and it's very fragrant, and I know I
should not be talking so rhapsodically about an invasive plant,
but it's important too, because, Yeah, as you were saying, Rick,
you need to know these scientific names, because that is
how you're going to find out scientific information. If you
were to go online and simply type in Dame's rocket,
you know, the robots are going to think that you
just want something like some old herbal remedies using Dame's rocket,
or find out the medieval history of why it's called
Dame's rocket or whatever. Whereas if you are then typing
in instead Hesperus matronaalis or you know, you find it,
you find out that scientific name, then you research with
that scienceentific name, You're going to get a whole different
set of results than if you just put in Dame's rocket.
And you know, I recently came across the situation where
this the importance of searching by a scientific name became
especially clear to me. I saw a bunch of different,
you know, and reputable sources online talking about the invasiveness
of bush honeysuckle. Oh yeah, Now, there is a plant
that we sell that is a North American native species
called d'urvilla. The most common common name for the darvilla
or Kodiak series is bush honeysuckle, but that was not
actually the plant that they were talking about. And all
the plant that they were talking about is a honeysuckle
that happens to be a bush or a shrub instead
of the more common vine, which is leniscera to terika.
So these are totally different plants. But again, if we're
just going by the scientific or just going by the
common name, you're very likely to get confused. Now, we
have specifically shied away from using the common name bush
honeysuckle or our durvilla for this exact reason, because, you know,
the actual shrubby honeysuckle that is invasive and is a
terrible plant and terrible pests. We didn't want it to
get confused with that. But still people will look up.
They might say, oh, you know, hey, I saw this tervilla.
I want to know more about it. They start looking
into it. They go to a website, even a reputable website,
which says, oh, it's bush honeysuckle, and then you're like,
wait a minute, I thought you said it was native.
How is this invasive so it is so important to
take that extra time if you are a researcher, and
I think a great many gardeners are researchers. We love
diving in and finding everything we can out about a topic.
So go in with your common name, if that's all
you have, that's a great place to start. But take
you know, those first couple of results. You know, Wikipedia
is usually a great place to start. You'll find the
scientific name there, and then after that, subsequently go through
and do those searches using the scientific name, and then
you're going to get scientific information instead of just you know,
who knows what.
Speaker 1: Oh important point to be made. You know, you go
back to the Dame's rocket. We were talking about it.
It could be viewed by some people as a traditional
plant because your frame of reference only goes back to
when Gramma enjoyed that flox in bloom. But the reality
is the plant's been around since the sixteen hundreds and
is native to Siberia and Europe, and ant.
Speaker 2: Gramma was probably calling it flox or you know, because
we common names, you know, there's nothing governing them. Anyone
could make them up and a lot of us will
find out that, you know, we may have grown up
with some bad information, So never too late to get
the right information.
Speaker 1: You've got it. Here's your limb a rick for today
on invasive plants. Very short. Together, we can be persuasive
to control plants that are pervasive. Some are out of control,
so the land we patrol for invaders that are invasive.
And again, Stacy, going back to what we said in
segment one, it's more so about plants that in most
cases are non native and get into the wild and
displace plants that are familiar to that environment.
Speaker 2: Right, And you know, sometimes it's not such a clear
cut line. I mean a plant that certainly you and
I are well familiar with that A lot of scientists
and invasive plant managers will go back and forth on
is frag Mighties the giant read You know, there are
people who think that's just basically an invasive native. There
are also those who say it's probably not native. But
it's been around so long that we can no longer
prove whether it was indigenous or introduced. But it doesn't
change the fact that Frank Mighty is a massive problem
for a lot of waterways.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, very big problem. And then you have some
native plants that some people identify as invasive. For example,
if you look at solidago, the Canada golden rod, which
is an important plant in the landscape because it's important
for pollinators blooming at a time when generally they're earn't
as many blooms around. Or for example, Asclepias syriaca or
the common milk weed, some people view that as an
invasive plant. It's a native plant, but invasive because they
can readily spread by rhizomes and you can find large
colonies in a landscape.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's for sure, I mean it is. There is
a question of your personal perspective as well as what
you know sort of the government or the agencies consider
something to be invasive, and you know, it's it's very
difficult to sort of generalize about it too, because you know,
one of the worst invasive plants in the UK is
a rhododendron. I mean, it is super aggressive and a terrible,
terrible problem. I absolutely despise it, and I'm sure there
are so many of our listeners out there going invasive rhododendron.
I can barely get the darn thing to grow, you know,
much less have it be invasive and saladego are Solidego
candidensis is terribly invasive in Asia.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, exactly, and yet our environmental ecological powerhouses the
benefit of both milkweed and Canada golden rod, especially to
our pollinator population. So it gets quite complicated as the
Invasive Species Advisory Committee defines in invasive species as one
that is non native to the ecosystem under consideration and
whose introduction causes or is likely to cause economic or
environmental harm to the environment and to human health. So
all difficult. In the first segment also we talk about
how positions can vary from state to state. Your your
cup plant that you love in your.
Speaker 2: Landscape, that's an aggressive plant.
Speaker 1: It's an aggressive plant. So I noticed in my research
that it's banned and considered an invasive in New York State.
Speaker 2: Oh interesting. Yeah, the only reason that it remains reasonably
in check in my yard is because my soil is
so dry. So yeah, it's it's very and it's so
difficult to generalize, and we don't. We always want to
give our listeners some sort of concrete, you know, takeaway
that they can use, and you know, I think really
the takeaway here is that since there is no kind
of gold standard nationwide for the US or for Canada.
You need to kind of go to that local state
level and do a little bit of research yourself and
it pays off.
Speaker 1: Right. You know, a plant with a complicated, long story,
and we touched on this earlier. You wantamus a latus
or burning bush, and it can spread into woodland areas
and become a real problem. But that's some of the
work that's being done by plant breeders. Stacey, you mentioned
for our listeners and viewers to mention it one more time.
Fireball seedless, so it's sterile. It is.
Speaker 2: Yep, you don't have to worry about it spreading. And
again there's many ways that plant breeders can accomplish this.
It doesn't mean that the plant is not still beneficial,
that it's still going to flower and those flowers can
still support insects with any nectar that it has. It
just doesn't set seed, just like a seedless watermelon.
Speaker 1: Well, complicated topic, but hope you enjoyed this look inside
invasive plants and maybe we'll have to do some future
episodes on it.
Speaker 2: Well, it's a very massive topic and we could say
a lot about it, but I hope we at least
got people interested enough to find out for themselves what's
going on in their area exactly.
Speaker 1: And don't believe everything you see in social media.
Speaker 2: Now it's for sure.
Speaker 1: Please, Thanks Stacey, Thanks Rick, Thanks Adriana. Thanks to you
for watching us on YouTube, downloading our podcast, or listening
to us on radio. Have yourself a great week.