Botany Buddy

The Morality of Sustainability

I have to admit I have had this one in the hopper for some time now.  I have been preparing and wanting to write this post for a long time, but it was a commenter on Sustaining Sustainability that finally prompting me to flush it out.  We all hear people talk about what they can do to live sustainably almost every single day.  There are no shortages of arguments and evidence for how it can save us all money, and there are plenty of people learning how to make money at it.  Finding empirical evidence as to the benefits of living sustainably is as easy as finding options in the cereal aisle at the local grocery.  I constantly hear people profess all the ways we can benefit personally from helping the Earth.  What I do not hear are cogent moral arguments for why this is the right thing to do, and why as inhabitants of this earth we have a moral obligation to protect and respect everything that is a part of it.

Unfortunately the only moral arguments I hear about sustainability are actually against it.  Time and again I hear that as part of this planet we (humans) are nature too, and that our consumption of any resource on it is a natural act.  I recently even heard a Senator say that he would not support any climate change legislation until we have used every ounce of coal and drop of oil that “God has given us to use”.  I am not going to make this a discussion about the theology of predetermination vs. systematic theology (living in Christ’s image), but I do find it hard to believe that if God created us in his image he would want us to plunder and destroy the earth.  After all he doesn’t.  Beyond being part of nature as a species we have things inherit in our nature that make environmental responsibility a moral obligation.  Consider what I am about to layout to be “An Ontological Argument for a Morality of Sustainability”

An Ontological Argument For a Morality of Sustainability

Everything on this planet has an inner essence. Even physical “non living” being, such as coal, has an inner essence that allows us to identify it even if it changes form.  I can look at five pieces of coal and know that they are coal.  I can crush that coal to the point that those five pieces are no longer identifiable, but still look at that pile and know that it is coal.  The inner presence of a being is that allows others to identify it for what it is through many phases and forms of its life is the essence.

Every living being on this planet has a soul. Living beings have an essence just like physical ones, but they also have a presence beyond that which exudes their liveliness on other beings even though the physiological actions that carryout this life cannot be seen.  When I see an Oak I know that it is alive.  When I see an Oak that is alive, I can sense its life even though I cannot see the photosynthesis occurring or the transpiration from the leaves.  It exudes something beyond that essence which is its soul.  The soul also projects its presence in various forms of instincts or consciousness that beings carry out in living to ensure their survival.  The final evidence of the soul is the continued presence of essence after the soul has left and life has ceased.  Once that Oak is dead, I still know it as an Oak, and even as a specific Oak, but I can also sense that the life (or soul) is gone, and the evidence of its absence and remaining essence is further proof of the soul’s previous existence.

Everything with a soul has varying levels of consciousness and self-consciousness. Every living being has an awareness of what it has to do to survive and reacts to its surroundings.  This may be instinctual, but also may progress to various levels of will.  In any form it implies a sense of self being.   I do not believe my grass can feel it when I mow, but it does have natural instincts to guide its reaction to my mowing, and has natural instincts to seek out water for its survival.  I believe full well my dogs are capable of feeling remorse, loneliness, fear, pain and love.  I also believe they can sense it in others, particularly myself.  I do not however believe they can empathize it.  However, though my dog can sense my remorse and feel pain itself, it cannot feel my pain.

When a being’s soul progresses from being conscious of itself and surroundings to empathizing with another it develops conscience. We as a species empirically know that we can extend our consciousness to the point of feeling what other people feel, and actively seek to do so.  When the ones that we love hurt, we hurt.  When ones that we do not even know hurt and we see the cause as unjust, we hurt.  This is the ability to empathize.  There has been speculation that other primates may have this ability, but as far as we can know for sure, we are the only species whose soul progresses from the point of consciousness to conscience.

With conscience comes responsibility. As human beings our ability to empathize combined with our free will gives us a moral awareness that requires us to take responsibility for our actions.  We have an inherit sense of right and wrong. We can rationalize our way around it, but in the end right and wrong and our ability to discern it remains.  This is the foundation of morality, and with this ability comes the responsibility act within those parameters.

The morality of sustainability is rooted in our ability to empathize with other beings. Morality is not possible unless you can make that leap into another’s heart.  This ability to empathize gives us a unique ability and responsibility to act in ways that protect and respect the essence and souls of other beings.  Sustainability is rooted not in how to get the most from our resources, but our moral responsibility to protect and respect the essences of every being, their role in our ecosystem, and the ecosystem itself as a living being.  If we can empathize we have responsibility inherit in our ability to sense morality.

As beings of conscience not only do we have the ability to sense and empathize with the essence and souls of other beings, but it also gives us the ability to make decisions that knowingly destroy and harm them and in turn the environment as a whole.  No matter how much we try to rationalize it, this wrong.  Being moral beings we need to be able to own that awareness and take responsibility for it.  As moral beings we have a responsibility to recognize and protect the essence of the earth and its beings in everything that we do.

To make the claim that it part of nature to exploit the Earth and its resources without protecting its essence is morally wrong.  We may have the right in the legal sense within the laws of man.  But it is not right in the moral order of our being.  Our nature as moral beings requires us to make morally responsible decisions not just ones that we can rationalize.  The ability to rationalize allows us to make moral decisions, but it also allows for immoral ones as well for you can not know one without the other.

In the end living sustainably is not about how protecting the earth benefits us as a species, but that it is in our nature as moral beings, and a failure to live this way is not only immoral, but unnatural.

When Americans think of endangered species we rarely think of trees.  We think of birds such as the Ivory-billed Woodpecker or Spotted Owl, or maybe some fragile flower, crustacean or reptile.  Even more familiar to most Americans are the animals that we have hunted and caused the demise of ourselves, such as buffalo, wolves and bears.  All three of those we have tried to right our wrongs and reintroduced into their native habitat.  Hopefully we have made those efforts because it was the right thing to do.  Maybe it is just because we were able to see the damage we had done by no longer being able to reap the rewards of what we were destroying.

As people look at non-hunted species, sometimes they don’t see personal responsibility because they don’t kill them with their own hands.  Sometimes people don’t realize that something else they are reaping may be what is causing the devastation to something that seems unrelated to them.  Groups got really upset when people tried to protect the spotted owl by protecting the forests they inhabit.  The argument what that individuals had a right to profit from the forests, and the trees that gave a home to the owls were needed to make a living.  However while everyone focused on man vs. owl, they missed the forest for the trees.  No one realized that before they were done arguing that debate the trees that provided that habitat would endangered as well, making both the man and the owl lose.  Sometimes we have to realize that just because we have right to do something it isn’t necessarily the right thing to do.

The following is a list of American trees that have lost over 95% of their native habitat and are now considered endangered.  These trees are actually being produced more in commercial production now than they are reproducing in their natural habitat.  I wanted to bring this list to light not just to highlight some amazing trees.  I wanted to highlight how they have gotten to the situation they are in, and the importance every being has to one another when it comes to sustainability.  

Castanaea dentata (American Chestnut):  This tree is one of the most known stories of  eco-catastrophe in our countries history.  The Chestnut was the most coveted of all lumbers in the early part of the 1900’s.  As a result was the clear-cutting of almost all of the Southern Appalachians.  The practices were horrid, and reminiscent of a scene from a slaughter house, but of trees.  Lumber that wasn’t seen as fit to mill was left in place leaving entire mountains looking like salvage yards.  Stumps were left in place, and all of the ground vegetation was smothered under the debris.  Erosion was rampant, and as a result these wastelands became a breeding ground for what would become the Chestnut blight.  Species such as the black bear were almost completely lost, deer populations dissipated, and without the nuts to forage or forest to find protection from hunters Elk eventually disappeared.

Today you can still find a few old growth American Chestnuts hiding away, but for the most part they have disappeared.  They are definitely no longer a force in an ecosystem they once ruled.  You can find sprouts coming up as under growth in poplar/oak forests, but the blight usually sets in once they reach about 2″ in caliper.  This tree was once a staple of the forest.  Its nuts fed almost every creature that roamed the forest floor, including humans.  Today it is just trying to regain a footing.  There are active breeding program at Universities throughout the Southeast trying to develop disease resistant varieties, but for now it remains on the brink. 

Ulmus americana (American Elm):  In the first half of the 1900’s this tree was the most common street tree in the United States.  It’s arching branches formed cathedral ceilings over almost every street in every city.  It become an icon of American urbanism and the America Beautiful movement.  It fell victim not to greed of harvesting, or destruction of its environment, because this tree grew anywhere.  Rather it fell victim to careless breeding and commercialization that weakened the species.  While Chinese and European varieties were being imported for breeding to create fancy bark or brighter fall color, no one realized that they were weakening the species and importing a deadly disease that would bring the native species to its knees. 

Today, on very rare occasions you will find an old native specimen, but almost always it will be diseased.  For the most part this species is kept going in nurseries where young shoots are maintained as seed stock only to be hybridized with other varieties.  Many of these hybridized varieties are wonderful and are contributing to the urban landscape in a positive way.  Still, long lost, or at least hiding like a hermit in the remote corners of woods, is the majestic tree that once symbolized the industrial revolution, and the America Beautiful movement.

Pinus palustris (Longleaf Pine / Southern Yellow Pine):  The Longleaf pine was on of the signature trees of Southeast coastal regions.  This tree is very unique in that for the first eight years of its life it grows like a fireproof grass with no trunk elongation.   Then it shoots up and it sensitive to burns, but once it reaches about 10′ it becomes fire proof again and soars to heights of up to 100′.  This burning process is crucial to its reproduction and the culling of healthy forests.  The lush wild look this process creates was the image that was burned into the minds of explorers when the new world was being discovered.  The unique habit created by the juvenile plants provide habitat to all sorts of foul and wildlife and as their habitat has become endangered so have some of them.  Red-cockaded woodpeckers and indigo snakes are most at risk, but tourtouses are in line right behind them.

The fate of this tree has been doomed by two demands.  First and foremost the lumber industry.  Only a small percentage of these trees make it from the grass stage, which is most prevalent, to the full grown tree form and mature species have been harvested at an unsustainable rate.  Secondly it has suffered from development.  Its native habitat starts at the first dry ground rising from coastal marshes and rises up to about 600′ in elevation.  These are the prime development lands in coastal areas and as a result the first habitat taken to build homes and resorts.  What is not built is often cleared for agriculture.   The development has also led to fire control, and disrupted the natural growth and reproductive cycles of the species.  One final negative effect on the ecosystem is that these habitats were the primary riparian buffer for water coming off of the Southern Appalachian and Ozark mountains.  Along with their removal came the disappearance of lower level cold water streams, the silting and swamping of what were once fast moving rivers, and a host of other problems.

Quercus virginiana (Southern Live Oak):  Yes, this tree is the one we have embedded in our heads from movies like Gone With the Wind, and every other great southern movie or novel.  As we see them in all the urban settings and plantation gardens you would not think something this majestic could be in any sort of danger.  The Spanish soss and fern growing on its branches make it look as thought this species is drooping from the weight or its virility.  However, in its native habitat it is almost gone.  The boggy soil and forests of the deltas where it thrived have mostly been drained for drilling, sugar cane, and development.  These trees made up the buffers that used to protect New Orleans from the onslaught of hurricanes.  There ability to be uprooted and fall apart but continue to grow in the loamy soil that was once its home was the constant stability that held the delta together.  Now their native habitat is down to a few remaining national and state controlled forests.  Of course other species have been impacted, but the most famous impact was the damage from Katrina that was exasperated without the natural buffers these trees created to protect it.

Tsuga hetrophylla (Western Hemlock) & Tsuga caroliniana (Carolina Hemlock):  Both of these trees have suffered similar fates.  Both are the victims of over logging.  Unfortunately both were thought to be invincible as they grew like the Red Cedars of the Midwest on either coast.  In the East the Carolina Hemlock was hardly ever used for lumber,  They were usually casualties of careless Chestnut and Oak harvest and turned into pulp or used for fuel.  By the time the species was decimated people had realized it was a beautiful lumber and turned to the bountiful west coast for the Western Hemlock in its place.  Neither were able to come back as fast as they were being harvested and as a result the faster growing Tsuga canadensis (Canadian Hemlock) and various Pines have taken their respective places.

This has greatly changed the ecosystem of the forests elimating wildflowers and other shade tolerant plants that don’t tolerate the heavier shade of the pines.  Also, these native varieties could fully develop as smaller sized trees in the shade of canopy trees.  Whereas the Canadian Hemlock can grow in the shade but is naturally inclined to become more of a canopy tree.  The Canadian version is also more prone to the woolly adelgid do to the flat placement of the needles compared to the rounder needle placement of the native varieties.  Now the adelgid has set in, the Canadian Hemlock is dying at rates comparable to those of the Chestnut blight casualties.  This has forever changed the ecosystem of all the warmer climate mountain forests where the adelgid thrives.  Since the Hemlock also likes moist soils its decline is also increasing the light on mountain streams destroying native trout and salmonid habitat. 

Picea sitchensis(Sitka Spruce):  Another victim of logging, this species is also succumbing to the woolly adelgid.  One of the more tragic consequences of this parable is that this tree is the home to the endangered Spotted Owl.  When the fight over protecting the owl versus the right to harvest came to a head the harvest rate increased dramatically as it turned into a race to see how much people could harvest as while they still could.  As timber containing adelgid infested lumber moves up and down the highways it just spreads it even more.   In the end both the owl and the loggers are losing out as they are losing the tree they both covet so much.

Thuja plicata Western Red Cedar:  This tree has been devastated in its native habitat due to logging for pulp.  However, it is thriving and making a surge in cultivation.  As the Hemlocks and Junipers used in landscapes have become  more problematic and disease prone, this tree grows with relative ease.  It struggles to outpace the pines that are moving into the native habitat because the Pines grow larger and shade them out.  While in the landscape people are finding this to be a great native alternative to give the feel of a Canadian Hemlock without the adelgids or chemicals to keep the bugs at bay.  However do to massive logging its natural disbursement patterns have been disrupted permanently and it may never be able to reestablish itself against the more aggressive species taking it’s place.

These trees are just a few that are becoming more and more endangered everyday.  These trees I have chosen mainly because they have been in some way symbolic of American culture, have been a crucial part of the fabric of our forests, and have helped to convey the essence of the places we call home.  The point of this article isn’t just to create awareness of a few trees, but also to make us realize that everything we do effects far more than us.  As humans we have a capability that other species don’t:  to make a conscious decision regarding an other’s fate.

The causes and the impacts I have discussed in this post are far from all that has contributed to or been a consequence of these changes.  However with the ability to determine another being’s fate also comes the moral responsibility to do what is right for everyone and everything, not just ourselves.  Also comes a responsibility to learn as much about the situations, plants, and creatures whose existence we can alter before we make an impact.  Everyone makes mistakes unknowingly, but what determines the greatness of society or individual is how they use their abilities to correct or make amends for those mistakes and how what they use what they have learned moving forward.  Hopefully this will create another ripple in that pool of awareness that we can all pass on.

Such a big word sustainability is.  Everyone is trying to define it.  Everyone says they can provide it, and most think it is something you create or buy rather than something that you do indefinitely.  For the last five years I worked in sustainable development.  I raced everyday to repair the forest’s edge and to get the wild flowers to grow before some salesman decided “sustainability” didn’t sell.  I fought for the budgets and screamed on behalf of the trees and the workers who protected and cared for them.  Well for something to be sustainable it cannot be a race, or a competition it has to be a collaborative effort from the bottom up.  To use a dirty word, it is community organizing with nature as a full fledged participant.  Sustain is a verb and you can’t turn it into a noun by claiming to give it ability and using it as something to be sold or proffited from.  It is an effort, behavior, and way of life that for it to be successful requires participation of everone involved and recognition of everything involved.  It has to be adaptable and evolutionary just like nature, because if any part of the system changes it impacts the whole.

For the last five years I have spent my life designing landscapes, management plans, and financial plans for “sustainable developments” in the mountains of Western North Carolina, Virginia, and Northern Georgia.  Prior to that I spent fifteen years designing “sustainable” gardens in urban parts of Kansas City.  In both cases the trick was always to design a plan that met the needs and desires of the owners and invoked a management plant that was within their means.  Sustainability is always completely relative to those who have to do the sustaining.  For a plan to be sustainable it has to be so by the owner, because once we have interfered with nature, it can never be sustainable by itself.  By disrupting an environment we assume ownership and have to become stewards. It always felt good to see a plan reach the second and third year, and to see that maintenance drop off.  However, about five years ago I started to see the lifestyles of those clients drop off and what was once sustainable to them, was beginning to be so no more.

I have always said that the difference between a garden and a landscape is that the garden requires a gardener.  A landscape may not require a gardener, but it does require a steward.  This is the paradox of the sustainable landscape.  Once nature is disrupted it can no longer be sustainable (self-sustaining) in the truest sense.  It has to be sustained unless it can be returned to the natural state.  Once you have destroyed the natural cycles, nature can never completely return to what it was.  All we can do is create a new eco-system, and help it get to where it can thrive on its own.  Hopefully we can do it in a way that won’t disrupt the lifecycle of surrounding ecosystems and set it in another wrong course.  The bottom line in all of this is once we have broken it we own it.  We suddenly have to maintain it or repair it in a way that it can maintian itself.  Suddenly sustainability is no longer about sustaining the beauty around us, but rather a race to stop the damage we have done.  Once the decision is made and the damage is done all of the sudden sustainability or more precise, sustaining starts and the cycle set in motion may never end.

In reality if we weren’t doing things that weren’t sustainable, we wouldn’t have a need for sustainability.  So rather than start this vicious cycle, why don’t we start with conservation and protection.  If there is any lesson we should all know as people it is that we are not good at creating sustainable systems for ourselves.  Be it justice, economics, agriculture health care or common respect for each other as human beings, we don’t have a great track record at doing this.  So what makes us think we would be better at sustaining nature than it would itself.  I have been ranting a lot lately about having to know nature to love it.  That it because understanding is where sustainability starts.  Rather than everyone running around claiming to have the right answers, maybe we need to start with just trying to gain a better understanding of the world around us.  Maybe then we will stop creating environments that need sustained and start loving what we have been given for what it is.

It was another beautiful fall morning in the Southern Appalachians, and as I was driving my daughter to school I couldn’t help but be overwhelmed by the clouds in the valleys, the orange hue of fall on the mountains and the vivid colors that were taking over the roadsides.   Escaping in all of natures beauty was perfect for taking my mind off the Radio Disney that was poisoning my ears.  However, just as the Radio Disney was creeping in and squeezing my brain like a vice, those colors on the roadsides did as well.  All of the sudden I realized I was missing the beautiful tones of the White Oaks and Sourwoods against the Hemlocks for the bright red of the Burning Bush against the Honesuckle and Maiden Grass.  As for that beautiful American Holly, I couldn’t even tell what it was for the Wisteria and English Ivy that had taken it over.  By the time I was headed back to the house, what started out as a beautiful relaxing drive was grinding me just as much as that Radio Disney even though I had put on Abbey Road.

That brings me to this.  It always amazes me how as designers and gardeners we are always looking for the next best thing and failing to recognize and reveal the essence of the environment we are in.  In our desire to make our space more perfect, some of the greatest damage to our environment has been done by some of the greatest minds our industry has known.  Here is Asheville the Oriental Bittersweet, Japanese Wisteria, Tree of Heaven, and English Ivy that are taking over our national parks were all the gifts of Frederick Law Olmstead.  In Kansas City it was Arnold’s Red Honeysuckle that George Kessler brought us with America Beautifulc movement.  All of these people have good intentions, but in todays world we can find the information we need to plant responsibly and still have plenty of great options from a  design standpoint.

There are thousands of invasive plants out there, both exotic and native that when taken out of their native habitat can do incredible harm to the environment.  This list is limited to the ten that I see most commonly used and pushed by the horticulture industry.  These are plants that are known to be doing damage to our native habitat and continue to be sold every day.  Why do they do it?  Because of demand from customers (hobbiests and professionals) that don’t know better, existing inventories (that keep getting replenished) and the ease of growing these plant in production and in one’s yard.  When I set out to create Botany Buddy one of my goals was to get this information out, and not only make it accessible, but make available in your pocket at any time.  This list is a fraction of the information consumers need but these plants account for a huge amount of the damage being done.

Ten Commonly Planted Invasive Woody Plants

Burning Bush / Euonymous alatus  This is one of the most popular fall color shrubs in production.  It’s vivid red fall color gives it the name.  It is tolerant of drought, ignorant pruning with gas shears extreme cold and keeps on growing.  As a result it has become a favorite in commercial landscapes and roadside plantings.  In zones 6 and up, the little red berry it gets is extremely viable and is spread by the birds that eat it.  Typically a simple hedge planting in the wrong location can spread to a radius of one mile within ten years.  The native plants they displace include Mountain Laurel, Rhododendron, and Hydrangea.  Which would you rather have?

Bradford Pear / Pyrus calleryana  I can remember when this plant came out in the 80’s and was marketed as “America’s Most Poplular Tree” for the fall color, spring flower, nice tight shape, hardiness, and its fruitlessness.  Besides being prone to ice and wind damage due to that “desireable” branching habit, this tree turned out to be anything but fruitless.  The small crabapple sized berries are a favorite of birds and so is its branching habit.  As a result these can now be found in pastures and waterways throughout zones 6 and up.  Even worse in waterways they are replacing canopy producing trees and raising water temperatures which hurts species such as the Southern Appalachian Brook Trout.

Japanese Wisteria / Wisteria floribunda  Introduced as a favorite for Japanese gardens, its agreesive vining habit will take over anywhere zone 5 and below if left unattended.  It can reproduce by rooting if the brances touch the ground, and in zones 7 and up has vibable seeds.  It is commonly found in Eastern forests along the Blue Ridge  Parkway at elevations between 2500 and 4000 feet.  The populations are highest around cities and especially the Biltmore Estate.  While the flowers are beautiful with the Dogwoods they can girdle and kill any tree they wrap around.  There is a native variety that is finally making it into production.

Japanese Spirea / Spiraea japonica  ‘Norman’ or ‘Anthony Waterer’ is the variety that is the main culpret as it spreads by root as well as seed.  There are many varieties that are supposedly not invasive.  However, all of them have the ability to revert and spread by seed.  One positive is that it is not a favorite of birds becasue the seed is so small.  It has to fall and touch the ground to germinate so some of those parking lot plantings might not be doing as much damage as we think.  If it does escape.  One single stem of this plant can flower and germinate into a colony ten feet wide two years.  This plant is destroying our native wildflowers throughout the Southeast.

Japanese Barberry / Berberis thunbergii  This plant is most commonly planted at your local McDonalds due to its attractiveness with the golden arches.  It is just an invasive as the chain in zones five and up and is as bad for the environment as their food is for you.  The plant aesthetically is probably as numbing to your palet as their food is to your culinary sophistication.  The beautiful red berry entices the birds like a toy in a Happy Meal entices my child.  The red leaves hypnotize the plant’s buyers from a distance like the arches that can be seen from a mile away.  As a result this plant litters our forests like McDonalds’ wrappers do our cities.

Empress Tree / Paulownia tomentosa This plant is not commony found in nurseries, but it is pushed by many major seed catalogs for its ability to grow ten feet a year.  I would think that would tell you something in itself, but people want instant results and that pretty purple flower in May and June.  The tree has nice leaves and a habit like a Catalpa, but most of the year its appearance is cluttered by the seed pods that will spread anywhere they can find soil and light.  This is one of the few invasive trees that wasn’t brought here for planting.  Instead, before there were packing peanuts there were Paulownia!  Before there was styrofoam the seed pods of this plant were used in wooded crates from Asia as packing peanuts, and the trees can now be found along all of the railways throughout the United States.  Unfortunately one of the first places those rails went was our national parks.

English Ivy/ Hedera helix  What would a formal garden be without it?  It would be a lot more interesting and a lot more sustainable.  It is defnitely time to give this plant a rest.  It should really only be used in the concrete jungle and even then limited.  There are many more intersting alternatives live Pachysandra or an all out perennial bed.  This vine spreads by root and can climb in the forest greatly weakending larger trees if not contained.  When allowed to reach heights of 20 and 30 feet it will often start to seed and spread even more.  I haven’t used this plant in over five years, and to be honest with you, my designs, clients, and environment are far better off for it.

Butterfly Bush / Buddleia davidii  This plant is finally starting to make people’s radar as an invasive.  It is one of those that has exploded in variety and popularity over the last fifteen years.  It is still new enough the effects are just starting to take root.  However, in all zones, if these seed falls into a wetland or moist area and gets temperatures above seventy degrees for over a couple weeks, it will germiante and spread.  It is most commonly a problem in warmer mountain and piedmont areas thought the US where moisture running off the mountains provides just this environment.  The seed is a favorite of finches so they move the seed form the plant to summer wilflower patches that share ideal growing conditions.

Scotch Broom / Cytisus scoparius  This plant is to the West and coastal areas what Japanese Spirea is to the rest of the country.  It has naturalized throughout most of the West Coast.  The low growing bushy habit takes out everything in its way, and it has beautiful flowers and evergreen foliage to boot!  This makes it a favorite of growers.  There are hundreds of varieties in production, and the tollerance to drought and long bloom time make it a favorite of retailers.  As for all those little California and coastal wildflowers look out!  This one is eating them all up.

Norway Maple / Acer platanoides  This is probably the most planted invasive tree, but most unknown to be invasive.  This plant had been quietly taking over Poplar forests for the last hundred years.  Poplar being fast growing, straight  and light is now the most popular trim lumber.  It is often selectively harvested leaving just enough light for the seeds of the Norway Maple to germinate and establish quickly.  With yellow fall color like a Poplar’s, from a distance youwould never know the forest had changed, but the natural progression of the forest has.  As the Poplars get older, weaker ones are supposed to fall and thin over time allowing room for grand Oaks to establish along with the legacy surviors.  However, the  fast wide growing maples stunt the forest progression  making 100 year old forests look like they are only thirty years old.

This is just a start and I could go on forever, but these are the ones that I see go out on trucks every day and find hiking in nature every day.  Some people take it personally against invasives and think of the plants as “Evil” or “Bad”.  A wise 90 year old piano teacher once told me…”A weed is nothing more than a flower in the wrong place at the wrong time.”  What we have to remember is that the weed didn’t put itself there.  Either we did, or we created the conditions for it to get there.  There is no greater pervention to the spread of invasive plants than knowledge and education, and both of those are far cheaper than trying to repair the damage that they do.

All of the plants in this profile can be found in Botany Buddy’s Tree and Shrub Finder, along with more photos and information including the native habitats, native ranges, and  cutural information.  Botany Buddy currently profiles 1300 trees and shrubs and our library is constantly growing to bring you the valuable information like this that you need.