[HN Gopher] Many invasive plants are still being sold at garden ...
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Many invasive plants are still being sold at garden centers
Author : malingo
Score : 102 points
Date : 2021-08-22 16:55 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.smithsonianmag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.smithsonianmag.com)
| legohead wrote:
| Russian Hogweed [1] [2], which the Russians actually bred and
| initially controlled, is a huge problem over there. Interesting
| plant, which burns you if you get the sap on your skin (reacts to
| sunlight), so you can't just go chopping them down willy nilly.
| And even if you do, it grows back. They have to be destroyed
| methodically. They grow at an incredible rate and dominate
| whatever is around them.
|
| [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/03/opinion/sunday/russia-
| hog...
|
| [2] http://www.russiaknowledge.com/2020/07/14/the-day-of-the-
| gia...
| flycaliguy wrote:
| The seeds spread during floods and can last 15 years before
| sprouting. What a nightmare. We've got it down river, not much
| in my town. I'd actually love to see it in person.
| quercusa wrote:
| Giant Hogweed: https://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/39809.html
| godelski wrote:
| I didn't know this plant would burn you. I've seen a lot of
| it around the Pacific Northwest. It grows like crazy and is
| really tall.
| zabzonk wrote:
| More commonly (at least in the UK) known as "giant hogweed" -
| they are very toxic and unpleasant.
| bawolff wrote:
| Finally, a plant i can keep alive!
| ahnick wrote:
| I'll see your cogongrass and raise you trumpet vine. I kid you
| not, every 3 weeks during the summer I am out cutting back the
| vine on top of my pergola that is a good 6 feet from my house and
| it still feels like I'm losing the war. This thing drops seeds
| all over the place and vines start sprouting from all the beds
| and grass. If it reaches a tree it starts to climb it like crazy
| and if it touches the house for long enough it will suction on to
| the mortar/woodwork and you will have a devil of a time getting
| it off. (https://www.botanicalamy.com/warning-about-invasive-
| plants/)
| Alex3917 wrote:
| If you can't keep your property free of invasive plants, the
| government should seize it and auction it off. Right now a big
| part of the reason why real estate is overpriced is that the
| costs of maintaining it are artificially low, because the
| government allows people to push externalities like this onto
| their neighbors. The government shouldn't be forcing the poor to
| subsidize the rich.
| kQq9oHeAz6wLLS wrote:
| > If you can't keep your property free of invasive plants, the
| government should seize it and auction it off
|
| Don't take this the wrong way, but that's a little unhinged.
| It's a terrible idea to give any governing body this much
| power.
| technothrasher wrote:
| I have about seven acres of woodlands on my property that are
| littered with invasive plants. If the government is auctioning
| off my property because of them, they're either going to be
| auctioning it off over and over, or somebody is going to have
| to strip the entire forest bare.
| Alex3917 wrote:
| Or it'll get split up. The point is that people shouldn't be
| allowed to own more property than they can steward
| responsibly. That said, if _everyone_ in an area gets rid of
| all their invasive plants, then it 'll be vastly easier to
| keep them from coming back.
| perl4ever wrote:
| >if everyone in an area gets rid of all their invasive
| plants, then it'll be vastly easier to keep them from
| coming back.
|
| I think this is a denial of what "invasive species" are,
| and even evolution itself.
|
| An invasive species is something that thrives in many
| environments and outcompetes natives.
|
| Since humans have become concerned about such things,
| loopholes in human thinking, behavior and social
| institutions are necessarily _part of_ the fitness function
| that makes something invasive.
|
| People can target something specific on a micro level, but
| at a high level, "invasive" will itself evolve to whatever
| works because people are psychologically or institutionally
| blind to it.
|
| Have you ever tried to mow thistles or vetch?
| gruez wrote:
| >Right now a big part of the reason why real estate is
| overpriced is that the costs of maintaining it are artificially
| low, because the government allows people to push externalities
| like this onto their neighbors.
|
| Sounds like a HOA would be prefect for you.
| bavell wrote:
| The horror of nature must be subdued! Down with our plant
| overlords!
| metabagel wrote:
| Not only that, but in SoCal, it seems there are a dearth of
| landscapers who are familiar with and can obtain native plants.
| ourmandave wrote:
| _...the study concludes that consumers need to be more aware of
| what they are buying.
|
| "...it's clear we as a public also lack awareness about which
| plants are invasive and how they spread to new areas," Beaury
| says.
|
| One good thing: the study is generating interest by enforcement
| agencies who want to crack down on illegal sales._
|
| "Whoa, I just saw old widow Johnson down the street doing the
| perp walk. What was her crime?"
|
| "Opening planting cogongrass in her front yard."
|
| Speaks directly up at US AG dept drone hovering nearby, "Uh, I
| never did like her."
| JadeNB wrote:
| > One good thing: the study is generating interest by
| enforcement agencies who want to crack down on illegal sales.
|
| > "Whoa, I just saw old widow Johnson down the street doing the
| perp walk. What was her crime?"
|
| > "Opening planting cogongrass in her front yard."
|
| Cracking down on illegal _sales_ is highly appropriate, and
| very different from cracking down on people who (presumably
| unaware of the risks) _plant_ it.
| EGreg wrote:
| By the way, I would like to make this linguistic comment:
|
| While the headline is misleading, it is also technically correct
| in an interesting way
|
| The article says "ONE OF the world's most invasive weeds." Let's
| suppose it was #22 on the list of all known invasive weeds ranked
| by invasiveness
|
| But as a MEMBER of that group, one can legitimately label it as
| "A world's worst invasive weed" and then drop the "A"
|
| Interesting techique to make hyperbolic claims that are
| technically true due to the rules of English!
|
| Do people do this elsewhere?
| leephillips wrote:
| Huh? Dropping the "A" changes the meaning.
| EGreg wrote:
| Yes it does but it is often acceptable
|
| "The rockettes have done xyz"
|
| "A rockette has done xyz"
|
| "Rockette does xyz"
|
| Rockette here is used as a category of people, a label. She
| is a member of "The Rockettes"
|
| Similarly, "most invasive weed" is a member of "THE MOST
| INVASIVE WEEDS" group, and dropping the "a" is done in
| newspaper headlines a lot, things are often contracted such
| as Politico or Prez or POTUS etc.
| kyralis wrote:
| This is false. This would be true for "invasive weed", but
| adding the "most" qualifier without another modifier
| indicates a specific member, not any member of a set.
| bavell wrote:
| I don't think you can drop the "A" while preserving the
| original meaning. Without it, an implicit "The" is assumed:
| "World's worst invasive weed" => "(The) World's worst invasive
| weed"
|
| Or at least that's how I interpret it as a native speaker!
| thebeardisred wrote:
| They lost me at: > However, the study concludes that consumers
| need to be more aware of what they are buying.
|
| I can't "slow clap" enough for this statement.
| susiecambria wrote:
| My HOA recently approved an environmental stewardship policy and
| plan. Among the requirements: plant natives first. You'd have
| thought the people supporting the plan were proposing to kill
| members' grandchildren. The rhetoric was unreal for such an issue
| that no one had ever really thought about.
|
| It doesn't help that local hardware stores and the biggies sell
| fewer natives than non-natives.
|
| Both the policy and the plant sales significantly matter here: we
| are in Virginia a stone's throw from the Chesapeake Bay. Doing
| right by the environment (plants, wildlife, water) is important
| in its own right but the beauty of the environment is also why so
| many people moved here to retire.
| sokoloff wrote:
| > My HOA recently approved an environmental stewardship policy
| and plan. Among the requirements: plant natives first.
|
| It's quite possible that people were objecting to the general
| expansion of powers/policies of the HOA and the "environmental
| stewardship policy" rather than this specific clause. (I'm not
| the type to willingly buy in an HOA area, so I can sympathize,
| even if I'm fine with this one clause.)
| Alex3917 wrote:
| > I'm not the type to willingly buy in an HOA area
|
| The problem is that there's a hard trade-off between private
| property ownership and walkability. If you want to live
| somewhere where you can walk and bike to restaurants, houses
| inherently need to be close together. And when houses are
| closer together on smaller lots, there is more value to
| having communal property, and to keeping private property
| cohesively managed. In short, the more walkable a
| neighborhood you want to live in, the more game theory pushes
| you toward forming HOAs, co-ops, etc.
| sokoloff wrote:
| We're in a part of Cambridge, MA with relatively small
| lots. I've supported every neighbor's application for a
| permit or variance, even when I really didn't like the
| aesthetics of what they were building.
|
| I don't think it's my place to care what windows you have,
| what color your door is painted, if your hedges are trimmed
| to the regulation height, or whatever other ridiculous
| policies HOAs can dream up.
|
| There's a sidewalk out front. If you don't like the look of
| my house, I invite you to look at something else while you
| walk past; I'll do the same.
| nerdponx wrote:
| I recently visited Kennebunkport, Maine (yes, the fancy town
| where the Bush family lives), and they apparently had some kind
| of wildflower initiative that was incentivizing people to grow
| native wildflowers instead of the typical manicured mulched
| gardens I see in the northeast. Not only was it _more_
| beautiful than the usual, but it seemed to enhance the
| quaintness of the place (especially given how overrun by
| tourists it was).
|
| People are ridiculous. So afraid of change!
| massysett wrote:
| Does the plan apply to homeowners' private property or only to
| HOA property?
| kQq9oHeAz6wLLS wrote:
| It's an HOA, their job is to tell people what they can do
| with their private property.
|
| HOAs basically allow you to pay a monthly fee for the right
| to dictate what your neighbors can do on private land they
| own, in the name of preserving property values.
|
| Some love them; I think it goes without saying I'm not a fan.
| massysett wrote:
| It was just a question. I know that HOAs can tell people
| what to do with their property. However, many HOAs own
| substantial tracts of land in their own right. It could be
| that this rule OP describes pertains only to the HOA
| property and not to the private property of the homeowners.
| Alex3917 wrote:
| > You'd have thought the people supporting the plan were
| proposing to kill members' grandchildren.
|
| That's crazy, considering that policy is likely adding an
| absolutely insane amount to everyone's property values. When
| NYC re-landscaped The Highline to make it exclusively native
| plants, property values in the area literally went up 10x.
|
| I live in a HOA, and the first thing I did when I moved in was
| to dig up all the forsythia along our driveway and replace them
| with grafted pawpaws. Planting nice trees is the only home
| improvement you can make where you can spend $50 and add
| $100,000 to your property value. The returns are literally like
| getting a chance to go back to 2011 and buy Bitcoin.
| paulcole wrote:
| > When NYC re-landscaped The Highline to make it exclusively
| native plants, property values in the area literally went up
| 10x.
|
| Any source on this?Because it seems like Highline-adjacent
| properties probably would've seen a pretty good ROI over the
| past 10 years regardless of what plants were up there.
|
| > Planting nice trees is the only home improvement you can
| make where you can spend $50 and add $100,000 to your
| property value. The returns are literally like getting a
| chance to go back to 2011 and buy Bitcoin.
|
| Any source on this one? I work with arborists and even
| they're not quite so gung-ho on promoting this kind of
| return. And $50 is getting you a sapling that's going to take
| (maybe) decades to maximize any return.
| Alex3917 wrote:
| https://www.mansionglobal.com/articles/the-high-line-s-
| halo-.... Talks about an apartment that went from $350,000
| to 3.15M.
|
| As a more general principle, try to buy any good pawpaw
| cultivar. If you look peacefulheritage.org, which is
| probably the top grower in the country, they go one sale 1
| day a year and completely sell out in 20 minutes. You need
| to license the same software that people use to scalp PS5s
| to even have a chance to buy one. There literally isn't any
| consumer product on the market that has this high of an
| asymmetry between supply and demand.
|
| If you go to the estates of any wealthy families, e.g. the
| Rockefeller estates or the Getty estates or whatever, the
| one thing they all have in common is really nice trees.
| Picking out trees for the new Apple campus was the last
| thing Steve Jobs did before he died. If it's an
| exaggeration to say that being able to buy nice trees is
| the entire point of having money, it's probably not by
| much.
| paulcole wrote:
| > Talks about an apartment that went from $350,000 to
| 3.15M.
|
| $350K in 1997 to $3.15M in 2016. Probably hard to find a
| property in lower Manhattan that didn't appreciate like
| that.
|
| > If you go to the estates of any wealthy families, e.g.
| the Rockefeller estates or the Getty estates or whatever,
| the one thing they all have in common is really nice
| trees.
|
| Post hoc ergo propter hoc.
| qweqwweqwe-90i wrote:
| Yeah, I'm sure it was the native plants and not the 100s of
| millions spent in re-development.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| > Other invasive species being sold include Japanese barberry,
| Chinese privet, whitetop, Norway maple, Brazilian peppertree,
| Russian olive, garlic mustard, yellow star thistle, Canada
| thistle
|
| Who are these people who want to own a thistle, yet alone pay for
| one?
| onecommentman wrote:
| "The researchers discovered that 61 percent of 1,285 invasive
| plant species remain available through the plant trade, including
| 50 percent of state-regulated species and 20 percent of federal
| noxious weeds"
|
| What is invasive in Georgia can be well-mannered in West Texas or
| North Dakota. Barberry is not invasive in the high deserts, where
| it continues to be a valued ornamental. Russian olives can raise
| havoc in riparian areas, but be fine for areas where birds can't
| spread the seeds to moister soils.
|
| There is a "patchwork" of state regulations because there is a
| patchwork of climatic zones and ecosystems in the US. There is no
| mention in the article that, although nurseries sell invasives,
| most nurseries have policies not to ship invasives to the
| individual States where they are identified as such by local
| authorities.
|
| Saying that, non-invasive natives are generally better, but not
| so much better that non-natives (that could be invasive in other
| climates) don't have a role to play in landscaping and gardening.
| Skip the giant hogweed....
| ineedasername wrote:
| I thought it would be Kudzu, but nope. Though Kudzu is still
| mentioned.
|
| It's kind of amazing that weeds are a real life example of where
| "kill it with fire" is actually a realistic and appropriate
| response, and less harmful than herbicides.
| temp0826 wrote:
| >> Other invasive species being sold include Japanese barberry,
| Chinese privet, whitetop, Norway maple, Brazilian peppertree,
| Russian olive, garlic mustard, yellow star thistle, Canada
| thistle, kudzu and Johnsongrass, among others, the study states.
|
| Part of me wants to plant a garden containing all of these to see
| which one wins
| jacobsievers wrote:
| Add Oriental Bittersweet, Black Swallow-wort, English ivy and
| Chinese Wisteria to this list and you've got my back yard. The
| winner every year is the Wisteria. It cannot be killed.
| technothrasher wrote:
| I'm waging a constant war on my property with Oriental
| Bittersweet. It can't be reasoned with, it can't be bargained
| with... it doesn't feel pity or remorse or fear... and it
| absolutely will not stop. Ever. Until you are dead.
|
| My parents, on the other hand, thought it might be fun to
| plant a little bamboo patch about twenty years ago. They now
| have an entirely uncontrollable forest of the stuff.
| maxerickson wrote:
| My street is lined with Norway Maple and barely any seedlings
| at all come up.
|
| The Siberian elm next door and oak down the street end up with
| many more seedlings in the yard than the maples.
|
| I can see it being a different situation in a yard adjacent to
| a stand of more natural trees though.
| Alex3917 wrote:
| Some Norway Maple cultivars are more invasive than others.
| The main problem with them though is that they release
| allelopathic chemicals from their roots which inhibit the
| growth of other native plants, trees, and fungi.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| The previous owners planted a bunch of them on our acreage
| here and they're also really annoyingly brittle vs the
| native maples. They get damaged in storms easier. I'm
| constantly cleaning up from them.
|
| I'm currently resting my legs on a coffee table made from
| the trunk of one that came down in a burst storm some years
| ago. It's a soft maple but quite nice for wood working.
|
| Just biding my time until the natives I planted next to
| them grow up a bit more and then I will take them all down
| and get them milled up.
| quercusa wrote:
| I lost a number of shrubs planted under one before I
| thought to look that up. I am plotting its demise even now.
| peanut_worm wrote:
| My money is on Kudzu
| abnry wrote:
| Careful you don't get arrested for running a plant-fighting
| ring.
| e40 wrote:
| Based on driving through lots of rural NC, SC.. kudzu will win.
| Hands down.
| EGreg wrote:
| Underrated comment
|
| (And that's saying a lot considering its upvotes lol)
| sydd wrote:
| Different weeds have different strategies. There is one that
| specializes in wildfires (cheatgrass): it has a large root
| system and burns very easily, so it "awaits" to be burned: no
| one but their root system survives the fire, so it can grow out
| quickly again after the fire.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Don't forget the gorse:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulex
| test1235 wrote:
| This stuff is all over scotland where I am - it's like
| nature's barbed wire
| robaato wrote:
| A favourite in the golf community (I grew up in Hopeman -
| east of Inverness)
| smcl wrote:
| Where I grew up too (NE Scotland). It does smell very nice
| every now and then then, like coconut
| josh_today wrote:
| Throw English ivy in there too
| gbrown wrote:
| Unkillable.
| zabzonk wrote:
| My (late) parents had all sorts of ivy in their garden for
| about 40 years (that I know about) with few problems. Ivy is
| great for birds - home for insects for them to eat, berries
| to eat too, and places to nest.
| chrismcb wrote:
| Ivy may be great, but if it isn't native then it can be bad
| for the local ecosystem. I've got some in my backyard and
| it smothers everything else except the pine trees (and even
| those three ivy would eventually take down) I just finished
| removing the blackberries. The ivy is next and then maybe
| the holly
| Jgrubb wrote:
| Whichever one wins, you and your neighbors lose.
| taylorfinley wrote:
| I'm particularly sensitive to this as a native plant nerd here in
| Hawaii. Home Depot and Walmart are filled with (beautiful)
| invasive plants like Medinilla magnifica, Kahili ginger, Lantana,
| so many others. I've spoken to the managers about it from time to
| time but nothing changes.
|
| I used to work at a botanical garden here on Hawaii Island that
| boasted of their 6 different species of Medinilla, even selling a
| fridge magnet in the gift shop. I tried and tried to explain how
| backwards this was and how these magnets would be viewed by
| anyone who knew or cared about fragile native ecosystems. Their
| response always came down to something like "but these ones are
| prettier." They also sold little bagged starts of two horribly
| invasive plants! (Bamboo orchid and Kahili ginger)
| RosanaAnaDana wrote:
| On oahu the two biggest issues I see are with field bind weed
| and Acacia confusa, but I am dry side. Neither are horticulture
| atrocities, but t hff they are problems nonetheless. There
| really is no excuse for HD to continue to sell these high
| invasibility plants. States and local governments should be
| able to sue suppliers like HD for damages considering the
| millions that it costs to control these plants once they
| escape.
|
| If I see Andean pampas grass at a home depot again, I might
| have a problem.
| quercus wrote:
| Hawaii's "fragile native ecosystems" exist only in your
| fantasies of the past, or way up in the mountains where nobody
| lives or farms. If Medinilla wants to invade an Albizia grove,
| who cares?
| thrill wrote:
| Kudzu enters the chat.
| alexpw wrote:
| Kudzu enters the chat.
|
| Kudzu enters the chat.
|
| Kudzu enters the chat.
|
| ...
|
| Uh oh
| ineedasername wrote:
| RM43 enters the chat.
|
| RM43 has issued the KILL command; Kudzu has been
| disconnected.
|
| .... 20 years later:
|
| Cancer has entered the chat.
| tyingq wrote:
| I didn't see bamboo mentioned. It grows crazy fast. I don't know
| if it's technically "invasive", but I imagine it's fueled quite a
| few neighbor feuds.
| vlozko wrote:
| I assume you mean Japanese Knotweed? That stuff is nearly
| impossible to fully remove.
| meepmorp wrote:
| I assume they mean actual bamboo, some species of which grow
| over a meter per day. It's also incredibly hard to remove and
| spreads very fast.
| hkt wrote:
| Simple solution, get a pet panda. The circle of life!
| MichaelGroves wrote:
| I doubt many, if any, would confuse the two. Bamboo is
| notorious for being hard to kill. It spreads underground
| using shoots, and those shoots can reemerge again and again
| every time you chop down the bamboo patch.
| asquabventured wrote:
| Can confirm, once rented a house with bamboo in the backyard,
| it's awful awful stuff and will spread very easily
|
| The only way to keep it from moving further into yards or
| gardens is to pour concrete trenches it can't grow thru.
| impossible to eradicate entirely and while it's shooting new
| sprouts up from the ground after its first day or two of
| softness starts to get more wood like and are wicked sharp
| easily being able to pierce through skin/clothes/shoes and
| cause some nasty cuts.
|
| No one should ever plant that stuff voluntarily!
| ourmandave wrote:
| If you could borrow a couple giant pandas from the local zoo
| for a few days, that would be a win-win.
| throwaway09223 wrote:
| Bamboo is fairly easy to contain- just surround the area with
| a 60mil thick plastic barrier. I've been growing bamboo for
| two decades in my yard without issue.
|
| It also won't spread beyond wet areas, so a lot of people
| control it simply by not watering the surrounding areas.
|
| In terms of maintenance, bamboo only shoots for a few weeks
| in the spring - it won't grow at all for the rest of the
| year. The real scourge in my yard are the weeds that grow
| year-round.
| asquabventured wrote:
| At least in northern Virginia it sprouted shoots all spring
| and summer and it was not in a wet/non draining area or an
| area we ever watered.
|
| Maybe different species have different growing
| characteristics but the one we had was awful and constantly
| was trying to creep from the side of the back yard into the
| main lawn area.
| throwaway09223 wrote:
| I could see it being a lot harder to contain in the
| south. I'm in a dry area in California and it won't grow
| where I don't water.
|
| There are definitely different species of bamboo. The two
| main categories are running and clumping. Running bamboo
| is the hardest to contain, with rhizomes that travel long
| distances. Clumping bamboo spreads slowly.
| stickfigure wrote:
| Here in California we have a solution: Stop watering it.
|
| Yellow starthistle, on the other hand, should be a felony.
| erikerikson wrote:
| Some is, some isn't.
|
| We chose to back out of a house offer due to invasive bamboo
| when the owner was unwilling to reduce the price to cover
| professional removal.
| echelon wrote:
| That's a _really specific_ ask.
|
| I feel like a different species sometimes when dealing with
| humans that negotiate this hard. I tend to overpay and be
| done with it so I can think about other things, but I suppose
| that's leaving money on the table.
|
| The last place I bought had a giant crack in the concrete
| floor. Inspector said it was fine, so I just let it slide.
| erikerikson wrote:
| I have certainly accepted some large inefficiencies in a
| purchase including the house I live in now.
|
| This was a case where the seller had mowed back the bamboo
| and placed weed barrier and fresh soil to hide it. There
| hadn't been _any_ visible bamboo during the viewing that
| precipitated our offer. About 3 days later we inspected and
| found pervasive multi-inch long shoots of bamboo throughout
| the yard including big shoots going into a supporting
| shared wall with the neighbor and into the neighbor 's yard
| as well as into the house foundation and siding.
|
| To completely remove the bamboo we would have had a large
| excavation that included tearing out and rebuilding the
| entry walkway disrupting our use of the home. To pay
| someone to do the labor, guarantee removal (there are
| specialist companies), and perform the geo-engineering work
| was estimated to cost 25-30K here in Seattle.
|
| To be clear, we did ask the seller to reduce their price to
| accommodate that work because we felt we had offered a
| generous (and competitive above many competing offers)
| price for the house. That price did not include removing
| the hidden-at-the-time-of-offer bamboo. The seller didn't
| like that which was their right. They rejected our counter
| and months later sold the house for less than our offer
| minus the cost of the bamboo removal.
|
| [edit: planting invasive bamboo in your yard literally
| reduces the value of your home]
| xkcd-sucks wrote:
| Bamboo is pretty manageable, it stops sending out new shoots by
| midsummer and if you really want to eradicate it you can chop
| it down and paint the stumps with herbicide.
|
| Bittersweet OTOH is horrible, it colonizes everything,
| strangles 100 foot trees, grows roots in every direction, and
| makes tons of berries that get distributed by critters (I.e.
| crosses roads and rivers from adjacent land even if you manage
| to eradicate it on your own property)
| 11235813213455 wrote:
| they need wet soils though
| gregjor wrote:
| Hand-wringing by members of the ultimate invasive species.
|
| I went with my son's middle school class on a field trip to the
| Audubon Society preserve in Portland, years ago. The guide gave
| the kids a long lecture about evil English ivy, explaining the
| concept of non-native invasive species. Portlanders organize
| groups to tear down the ivy in parks, often trampling the native
| ferns in their zeal.
|
| Not ten minutes later the same guide showed the class a family of
| ducks crossing the path. Everyone oohed and aahed -- ducklings,
| so cute. My son pointed out that they were mandarin ducks, a non-
| native species. The guide went quiet.
| nerdponx wrote:
| Non-native is not necessarily invasive. The latter is a subset
| of the former. The ivy is invasive, the ducks are just non-
| native.
| _vertigo wrote:
| Is it possible that English ivy is worse than Mandarin ducks?
| yosito wrote:
| > Portlanders organize groups to tear down the ivy in parks,
| often trampling the native ferns in their zeal
|
| Sounds typical of Portlanders. Zealous about tearing things
| down with no regard for the consequences.
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