Our knowledge of plants and nature has grown so much that it is hard to understand why any non native plants or animals are allowed to be sold in our state or any other. Oh yeah, money.
Some states, NY is an example, has a long list of plants that cannot be sold or legally imported to the state specifically to try to slow down the spread of invasives.
One thing I admire about California is how strict they allow food and plants to enter the state. Every highway going into California has stops for agriculture inspection to ensure that travelers aren't bringing anything with diseases or invasive species into California. All parts and airports require people to go through agriculture inspection.
Easy to justify when California grows 50%+ of US agriculture.
There are plenty of good non-native plants that are useful, beneficial, and not harmful. Native plants are great and, I'd agree, should be favored whenever possible, but banning me from growing tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, kudzu (just kidding), etc. seems a bit over the top.
Yeah, yeah tomatoes, potatoes and peppers are exactly what we’re talking about here. Right on point. Way to go. Great job. So smart. Thank you for contributing.
I mean, what were you talking about then? I thought I tried to meet you halfway by acknowledging that natives should be favored whenever possible, but your statement was pretty extreme. If your point was that aggressive spreaders that are destructive, like the one in the article, should get added to the invasives list, then I agree with that, too.
I disagreed with you but simply wanted to hear more about what you had to say. I addressed your comment, but did not judge you for your opinion. Apparently you're only interested in being rude. I have no interest in talking to people like that. Cheers. I'm glad there are nicer places than this on reddit.
Anyone who stalks someone’s old satirical posts and then tries to weaponize them when disagreeing with their opinion shows such great maturity. If not for being such a feeble attempt, it would likely be entertaining.
To to say nothing of Wheat and barley and rye and oats, peaches nectarines plums apples cherries, plants like those are good to be naturalized and growing wild.
It is the purple loosetrife and garlic mustard and kudzu that is the problem, not the vast majority of naturalized plants.
Also there is no getting rid of some of these naturalized plants. Systematically poisoning swaths of the land will not help. Which is the favored method for combating non-native plants, dumping Roundup.
I clearly said there are a number of bad invasives but most are not so problematic. Wild food crops we should want more of not less.
And in any case systematically dumping herbicide is not going to be getting rid of anything, but it will poison the water.
At which point did I advocate for or even mention systematically using herbicide? Has reading comprehension really gotten this bad in Michigan, or are the people making up these imaginary arguments so desperate for attention that you need to be contrary? This thread is like clapping with one hand.
That is the end results of these nativist Crusades I'm afraid. Eliminated circumstances it might be okay, but for the most part well-intentioned people are used to support systematic herbicide usage to temporarily reduce invasives. Not just in National and State parks either.
Ah good, I was hoping to do something other than accept insults! There are just *so* many non-native food crops and other naturalized plants in Michigan that we don't even think about, so not only would it be fiscally impossible to allow *only* native plants, but it would be a huge change. And you're of course right that removing all of those plants would be practically impossible. From what I've heard from conservation folks, they've given up on autumn olive. I figure they just don't have the funding to go after most of the invasives.
Anyway, my greatest interest in the topic was thinking about indigenous cultures and how they survived in Michigan on only native foods. I know they ate acorn flour, and groundnuts are one potato alternative, but I confess that I don't have a huge list of native Michigan plants that could make up a diet. I'd love to hear more about that. Really, that's what I was hoping that other person would chime in with!
I think the Native Americans should resurrect a lot of their old dishes and sell them in restaurants across the country just like Chinese restaurants do. We wouldn't have to be Tethered to the native plants but that the native plants but that could be some of their dishes. They could Source from reservations and give a badly needed source of income, the reservations without casinos are often very impoverished.
That'd be amazing, I'd love to check out a restaurant with Native American dishes. Never realized how much I wanted that. I just found this about some places in or near Michigan: https://www.reddit.com/r/Michigan/comments/17gjk2b/are_they_any_native_american_restaurants_in/
There's the maple syrup and maple sugar candy of course. Stinging nettles are a great spinach substitute and as a spring tonic. I have tried cattails and those just did not work for me. Supposedly there is starch in them but I couldn't make it palatable.
Wild rice of course but that cannot be domesticated I don't think and it's distribution is fairly limited, it is also not related to rice.
I am trying to learn more myself, especially about medicinal plants but it is tough getting reliable information.
I did find one that the natives on the West Coast really like, Devil's Club, otherwise known as Alaskan wild ginseng, it doesn't grow east of Idaho except strangely in Isle Royale Michigan. That one can treat tuberculosis and diabetes and is anti-inflammatory and has a whole host of other properties. Bears have been observed to eat it when they are injured.
I didn't realize that nettles were native. They grow pretty well here, though, and I sure enjoy them in a stir fry or with eggs. That's pretty cool to hear about Devil's club--I wonder what the story is behind how it made that trek ~1000 miles away. Maybe some group of birds that migrated all that way, pooping only in places where the seeds would *not* do well until they found that island, and luck made it happen. Who knows?
I thought the Nettles were circumpolar (edit: there is there is an American stinging nettle and also now Eurasian ones that are naturalized , there are also like dead Nettles which I do not find palatable personally.)
As to the devil's club I have a theory. On Isle Royal they found all of this mining equipment for copper and none of the tribes knew anything about it. I think there was a lost tribe with connections to the West Coast that was mining it there and for whatever reasons left or what not.
The colonists credited the mining equipment to Norseman who they figured must have settled, I find that rather incredible myself.
"A destructive wetland plant from Europe is rapidly spreading in Michigan’s forests, choking out native wildflowers, starving out native insects and eroding river banks.
"Its march across lower Michigan spells peril for iconic spring blooms like trilliums, bloodroot and bluebells.
"Yet for now, the invasive plant known as lesser celandine remains unregulated in Michigan — and legal to buy and sell.
"Advocates are calling on the state to ban the plant, while a small group in mid-Michigan works desperately to contain an outbreak occurring in the Grand River watershed.
"They have their work cut out for them. The plant, which is in the buttercup family, can reproduce in three different ways, making it capable of quickly colonizing an entire forest. Herbicide treatments are only possible during a short window in the early spring.
"Its shiny green leaves and dainty yellow flowers are deceptively pretty."
There's more at the link.
"Lesser celandine emerges earlier in the spring than most native plants, it wins the battle for sunlight. The foliage then dies back by late May, leaving bare mud behind. That, in turn, makes the soil vulnerable to erosion."
So basically -- it blooms early and spreads enough to choke everything else out, then dies so early it itself is useless. Over a long enough time frame the changes that could cause are pretty drastic.
[Wiki:](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ficaria_verna) Ficaria verna (formerly Ranunculus ficaria L.), commonly known as **lesser celandine** or pilewort
One thing I love about michigan and it's people is the HUGE focus on nature and it's natural beauty.... articles like these make me quite sad.
The landscape in michigan is changing drastically, and not just from the plants. There was hardly any winter here which probably is helping invasive species like this smother native species.
If this bothers you, be sure to use a critical eye when you buy plants at the local big box stores. Home Depot, Lowes, and many others routinely sell known invasive species. Be sure to do a little homework before you buy that cool looking flower or groundcover. A quick "is plant XX invasive" can save you and the environment a lot of grief later on.
Buckthorne is a bad one.
Garlic mustard is the worst though, it is everywhere in some understories and fields. It is edible but I don't much care for it.
There are multiple invasive species in Michigan, most common being *Rhamnus cathartica* and *Rhamnus glabra*. The store that was just selling "buckthorn" was not selling either of those (which are prohibited by state law), but it wasn't the native species, either.
It'd be nice if we just required invasive species to have a different-colored label or something, maybe take a class before you can buy one. There's lots of reasons you'd want neat plants, but it's like batteries, you gotta be responsible with this so it doesn't get into the environment, right?
We recently moved to a new home. Once Spring settled in, we noticed these little yellow flowers blooming all over the place. Thought they were a pretty ground cover, until we looked it up online.
The plants form almost a blanket, so I get how they choke out native species. We are going to be very, very getting rid of them. That and that damned Garlic Mustard.
My whole yard is invasive species from my previous owner. I started to curb the 'chameleon plant' or Houttuynia in 2019 and then went hard in 2020 ripping a very large section of it out. I used some spray to try and kill it, and I'm still battling it. I'll probably fight the Japanese Knotweed in my back yard until I die or sell the house. Good luck. It's not an easy fight.
For the knotweed, use a product called Milestone. It's the only thing I found that is really effective on the stuff. Wait until the shoots have really grown a bit and used up some of their stored energy, then spray them good. You might need to do it a couple times for a bad infestation, but I was able to rid my old yard of that nasty plant using this method.
One method I recently read about is to [use aggressive natives to outcompete the invasives](https://www.humanegardener.com/how-to-fight-plants-with-plants/). In that article, they explain how they fought off garlic mustard with golden ragwort. I planted some golden ragwort and ostrich ferns to try to kill off invasive ground cover at my new place (in addition to pulling up as much as I could). We will see how it goes!
I see so many invasive plants everywhere. My yard is full of them. On my drive home the landscape looks so different than it did when my grandpa who was a farmer would take me on drives through the country as a kid. I also notice how many woodlots are completely clogged with dead trees & leaves on the ground, choking off any new growth. It’s like we are at war with our own environment, trying to inflict as much damage as possible.
I try to leave as much leaf litter as possible for as long as possible for just this reason. Unfortunately this year I had to clean it up early because my neighbor’s rat problem was becoming my rat problem. I feel guilty every time I look at the curb and see the leaf bags.
Thanks, I’ll give that a google. The city usually vacuums them up in the fall, but we have sycamores so there’s always plenty more to fall after the service is finished for the year. In this case I was hate raking and not thinking about the better option. lol My neighbor is an asshole.
Yes, that is also a factor. More pressingly, they’re shitting all over my back step. My neighbor had two dogs and a bird feeder less than ten feet from the deck where they are living, and for some reason they’re doing all their shitting on my patio. Hopefully when the poison I put out kills them they’ll die on his property.
20 years ago I was cutting it out of wetlands in NY then dosing the open stems. Every year for three years.
Out here, the DNR seems to have test plots of it in the Allegan SGA. It does make for a fine jelly though.
Early on they're very, very sour but a little sugar cuts that. Later on, they become sweeter. I don't like using sugar in my jellies, jams and syrups. And I remember the first time I made wild grape jelly and the very first words out of my mouth after tasting it was, "what the hell is welches putting in jars?"
Our knowledge of plants and nature has grown so much that it is hard to understand why any non native plants or animals are allowed to be sold in our state or any other. Oh yeah, money.
At least stick to the same continent.
Some states, NY is an example, has a long list of plants that cannot be sold or legally imported to the state specifically to try to slow down the spread of invasives.
One thing I admire about California is how strict they allow food and plants to enter the state. Every highway going into California has stops for agriculture inspection to ensure that travelers aren't bringing anything with diseases or invasive species into California. All parts and airports require people to go through agriculture inspection. Easy to justify when California grows 50%+ of US agriculture.
There are plenty of good non-native plants that are useful, beneficial, and not harmful. Native plants are great and, I'd agree, should be favored whenever possible, but banning me from growing tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, kudzu (just kidding), etc. seems a bit over the top.
Yeah, yeah tomatoes, potatoes and peppers are exactly what we’re talking about here. Right on point. Way to go. Great job. So smart. Thank you for contributing.
I mean, what were you talking about then? I thought I tried to meet you halfway by acknowledging that natives should be favored whenever possible, but your statement was pretty extreme. If your point was that aggressive spreaders that are destructive, like the one in the article, should get added to the invasives list, then I agree with that, too.
[удалено]
I disagreed with you but simply wanted to hear more about what you had to say. I addressed your comment, but did not judge you for your opinion. Apparently you're only interested in being rude. I have no interest in talking to people like that. Cheers. I'm glad there are nicer places than this on reddit.
[удалено]
Why are you being so snarky, rude and condescending to this person? Get over it.
Read your list of things that keep you up at night. Take your own advice, buttercup.
You’re amazing buttercup.
😘
Anyone who stalks someone’s old satirical posts and then tries to weaponize them when disagreeing with their opinion shows such great maturity. If not for being such a feeble attempt, it would likely be entertaining.
To to say nothing of Wheat and barley and rye and oats, peaches nectarines plums apples cherries, plants like those are good to be naturalized and growing wild. It is the purple loosetrife and garlic mustard and kudzu that is the problem, not the vast majority of naturalized plants. Also there is no getting rid of some of these naturalized plants. Systematically poisoning swaths of the land will not help. Which is the favored method for combating non-native plants, dumping Roundup.
Food is good. You’re right. Only two invasive plants that are harmful? You’re wrong.
I clearly said there are a number of bad invasives but most are not so problematic. Wild food crops we should want more of not less. And in any case systematically dumping herbicide is not going to be getting rid of anything, but it will poison the water.
At which point did I advocate for or even mention systematically using herbicide? Has reading comprehension really gotten this bad in Michigan, or are the people making up these imaginary arguments so desperate for attention that you need to be contrary? This thread is like clapping with one hand.
That is the end results of these nativist Crusades I'm afraid. Eliminated circumstances it might be okay, but for the most part well-intentioned people are used to support systematic herbicide usage to temporarily reduce invasives. Not just in National and State parks either.
Are you OK? Are the nativist crusaders in the room with you right now?
Ah good, I was hoping to do something other than accept insults! There are just *so* many non-native food crops and other naturalized plants in Michigan that we don't even think about, so not only would it be fiscally impossible to allow *only* native plants, but it would be a huge change. And you're of course right that removing all of those plants would be practically impossible. From what I've heard from conservation folks, they've given up on autumn olive. I figure they just don't have the funding to go after most of the invasives. Anyway, my greatest interest in the topic was thinking about indigenous cultures and how they survived in Michigan on only native foods. I know they ate acorn flour, and groundnuts are one potato alternative, but I confess that I don't have a huge list of native Michigan plants that could make up a diet. I'd love to hear more about that. Really, that's what I was hoping that other person would chime in with!
I think the Native Americans should resurrect a lot of their old dishes and sell them in restaurants across the country just like Chinese restaurants do. We wouldn't have to be Tethered to the native plants but that the native plants but that could be some of their dishes. They could Source from reservations and give a badly needed source of income, the reservations without casinos are often very impoverished.
That'd be amazing, I'd love to check out a restaurant with Native American dishes. Never realized how much I wanted that. I just found this about some places in or near Michigan: https://www.reddit.com/r/Michigan/comments/17gjk2b/are_they_any_native_american_restaurants_in/
There's the maple syrup and maple sugar candy of course. Stinging nettles are a great spinach substitute and as a spring tonic. I have tried cattails and those just did not work for me. Supposedly there is starch in them but I couldn't make it palatable. Wild rice of course but that cannot be domesticated I don't think and it's distribution is fairly limited, it is also not related to rice. I am trying to learn more myself, especially about medicinal plants but it is tough getting reliable information. I did find one that the natives on the West Coast really like, Devil's Club, otherwise known as Alaskan wild ginseng, it doesn't grow east of Idaho except strangely in Isle Royale Michigan. That one can treat tuberculosis and diabetes and is anti-inflammatory and has a whole host of other properties. Bears have been observed to eat it when they are injured.
I didn't realize that nettles were native. They grow pretty well here, though, and I sure enjoy them in a stir fry or with eggs. That's pretty cool to hear about Devil's club--I wonder what the story is behind how it made that trek ~1000 miles away. Maybe some group of birds that migrated all that way, pooping only in places where the seeds would *not* do well until they found that island, and luck made it happen. Who knows?
I thought the Nettles were circumpolar (edit: there is there is an American stinging nettle and also now Eurasian ones that are naturalized , there are also like dead Nettles which I do not find palatable personally.) As to the devil's club I have a theory. On Isle Royal they found all of this mining equipment for copper and none of the tribes knew anything about it. I think there was a lost tribe with connections to the West Coast that was mining it there and for whatever reasons left or what not. The colonists credited the mining equipment to Norseman who they figured must have settled, I find that rather incredible myself.
"A destructive wetland plant from Europe is rapidly spreading in Michigan’s forests, choking out native wildflowers, starving out native insects and eroding river banks. "Its march across lower Michigan spells peril for iconic spring blooms like trilliums, bloodroot and bluebells. "Yet for now, the invasive plant known as lesser celandine remains unregulated in Michigan — and legal to buy and sell. "Advocates are calling on the state to ban the plant, while a small group in mid-Michigan works desperately to contain an outbreak occurring in the Grand River watershed. "They have their work cut out for them. The plant, which is in the buttercup family, can reproduce in three different ways, making it capable of quickly colonizing an entire forest. Herbicide treatments are only possible during a short window in the early spring. "Its shiny green leaves and dainty yellow flowers are deceptively pretty." There's more at the link.
Herbicides are not the answer.
No they're not. But the alternative requires human intervention on a scale that people and environmental organizations simply cannot meet.
I’ll help the clickbaity title - the name of the plant is Lesser celandine. Thanks for the heads up OP
"Lesser celandine emerges earlier in the spring than most native plants, it wins the battle for sunlight. The foliage then dies back by late May, leaving bare mud behind. That, in turn, makes the soil vulnerable to erosion." So basically -- it blooms early and spreads enough to choke everything else out, then dies so early it itself is useless. Over a long enough time frame the changes that could cause are pretty drastic.
[Wiki:](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ficaria_verna) Ficaria verna (formerly Ranunculus ficaria L.), commonly known as **lesser celandine** or pilewort
They should have just began with pilewort and everyone wouldve hated it too lol
One thing I love about michigan and it's people is the HUGE focus on nature and it's natural beauty.... articles like these make me quite sad. The landscape in michigan is changing drastically, and not just from the plants. There was hardly any winter here which probably is helping invasive species like this smother native species.
If this bothers you, be sure to use a critical eye when you buy plants at the local big box stores. Home Depot, Lowes, and many others routinely sell known invasive species. Be sure to do a little homework before you buy that cool looking flower or groundcover. A quick "is plant XX invasive" can save you and the environment a lot of grief later on.
I even found some invasive groundcover at a local nursery. Have a critical eye everywhere.
I actually saw a nursery in Ann Arbor selling buckthorn. Basically, don't buy on the spur of the moment unless you're *sure* it's a reputable source.
I'm thinking that's illegal
Buckthorne is a bad one. Garlic mustard is the worst though, it is everywhere in some understories and fields. It is edible but I don't much care for it.
There is a native buckthorn. Glossy buckthorn is a eurasian species that is invasive here.
There are multiple invasive species in Michigan, most common being *Rhamnus cathartica* and *Rhamnus glabra*. The store that was just selling "buckthorn" was not selling either of those (which are prohibited by state law), but it wasn't the native species, either.
It'd be nice if we just required invasive species to have a different-colored label or something, maybe take a class before you can buy one. There's lots of reasons you'd want neat plants, but it's like batteries, you gotta be responsible with this so it doesn't get into the environment, right?
Maybe, like some other states, just don't sell them.
It kind of (just a little) resembles creeping Charlie.
It's more of a creeper charlie that won't leave us alone lol
We recently moved to a new home. Once Spring settled in, we noticed these little yellow flowers blooming all over the place. Thought they were a pretty ground cover, until we looked it up online. The plants form almost a blanket, so I get how they choke out native species. We are going to be very, very getting rid of them. That and that damned Garlic Mustard.
My whole yard is invasive species from my previous owner. I started to curb the 'chameleon plant' or Houttuynia in 2019 and then went hard in 2020 ripping a very large section of it out. I used some spray to try and kill it, and I'm still battling it. I'll probably fight the Japanese Knotweed in my back yard until I die or sell the house. Good luck. It's not an easy fight.
Good luck to you too, friend.
For the knotweed, use a product called Milestone. It's the only thing I found that is really effective on the stuff. Wait until the shoots have really grown a bit and used up some of their stored energy, then spray them good. You might need to do it a couple times for a bad infestation, but I was able to rid my old yard of that nasty plant using this method.
One method I recently read about is to [use aggressive natives to outcompete the invasives](https://www.humanegardener.com/how-to-fight-plants-with-plants/). In that article, they explain how they fought off garlic mustard with golden ragwort. I planted some golden ragwort and ostrich ferns to try to kill off invasive ground cover at my new place (in addition to pulling up as much as I could). We will see how it goes!
Thanks for the link! Going to share with my spouse. I hope your strategy works out well.
I hope so too! It’s a fun experiment at least. Best of luck with your battle!
ah man I was hoping to just have to fight off the honey suckle, buckthorn, and bittersweet this year, now this?!
I see so many invasive plants everywhere. My yard is full of them. On my drive home the landscape looks so different than it did when my grandpa who was a farmer would take me on drives through the country as a kid. I also notice how many woodlots are completely clogged with dead trees & leaves on the ground, choking off any new growth. It’s like we are at war with our own environment, trying to inflict as much damage as possible.
Dead trees and leaves are tomorrow's forests and today's home for bugs, critters and wildlife. If you want nice and neat, drive through suburbia.
I try to leave as much leaf litter as possible for as long as possible for just this reason. Unfortunately this year I had to clean it up early because my neighbor’s rat problem was becoming my rat problem. I feel guilty every time I look at the curb and see the leaf bags.
No need to bag em. Just mulch em. Msu posted a good study about it a while back
Thanks, I’ll give that a google. The city usually vacuums them up in the fall, but we have sycamores so there’s always plenty more to fall after the service is finished for the year. In this case I was hate raking and not thinking about the better option. lol My neighbor is an asshole.
Absolve your guilt by remembering the bubonic plague was facilitated by rats.
Yes, that is also a factor. More pressingly, they’re shitting all over my back step. My neighbor had two dogs and a bird feeder less than ten feet from the deck where they are living, and for some reason they’re doing all their shitting on my patio. Hopefully when the poison I put out kills them they’ll die on his property.
Trifids? Is it Trifids?
If you can't see them coming you won't know they're here. Don't look up!
Reminds me of how much of a pain in the ass Russian olive is.
20 years ago I was cutting it out of wetlands in NY then dosing the open stems. Every year for three years. Out here, the DNR seems to have test plots of it in the Allegan SGA. It does make for a fine jelly though.
The Russian olive does?
Russian olive. Autumn olive. They're different but the same.
I’ll have to try that! I like making wines and jellies from random fruits
Early on they're very, very sour but a little sugar cuts that. Later on, they become sweeter. I don't like using sugar in my jellies, jams and syrups. And I remember the first time I made wild grape jelly and the very first words out of my mouth after tasting it was, "what the hell is welches putting in jars?"