Re: Re: Invasive Plants

**"Marge Talt" mtalt@hort.net>**

I agree with both Conrad and you, Claude.  This was really why I
asked the list what their definitions of 'invasive' were.  

It seems to me that there is a fair amount of confusion about the
issue of invasiveness today. 

Every plant that shows signs of being contented enough to function
normally (i.e. reproduce) gets labeled as 'invasive' when the actual
definition per Executive Order 13112 is: "Invasive species" means an
alien species whose introduction does or is likely to cause economic
or environmental harm or harm to human health."  

"Alien" in this case means not native to the ecosystem under
consideration..it could easily be native to an adjacent ecosystem a
mile away; not just an 'exotic' species from native to China or Japan
or some other part of the world.

The other key parts to the definition are 'cause economic or
environmental harm..'   There are many plants who have naturalized in
this country who do neither.  The vast majority of 'garden' plants
will never do either.

I think that if we are going to bring the issue of 'invasiveness'
before the gardening public, we need to be very, very careful that we
do not confuse the issue more than it already seems to be.  

Not so many years ago, the general public was unaware of most native
plants as such.  Now "native" has become a buzzword used to further a
lot of human agendas...plants do not have agendas; their only purpose
is to live and keep their species alive.

IMO, the real issue is not plants but human activity, which disturbs
what is left of our native ecosystems sufficiently to cause the
decline of native plants and open the way for other plants who are
more suitable to the new conditions than the original plants.  

It is much easier to blame a plant; demand curtailment of seed
importation and new plant introductions than to change the way we
live.  It is actually humans who cause the problems; not the plants.

I have been reading an excellent and most disturbing series of
articles in the Washington Post about the Florida Everglades
restoration project.  

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28396-2002Jun22.html

Restoration Ha!  Human greed, politics and money will out every
day...as long as we keep developing land, grazing it, paving it and
building on it, there is no way on earth that we can save native
plant or animal populations by passing legislation curtailing or
restricting the importation of horticultural seeds and plants.

I would like to see more written about the real cause of 99% of true
invasive plant problems - human activity.  Until people understand
and agree that they must change how they live and operate, all else
is futile.

Marge Talt, zone 7 Maryland
mtalt@hort.net
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----------
> From: Horticulture Ventures <hortventures@cox.net>
(snip)> 
> It seems to me that we are in danger of exaggeration of a problem
when 
> we use the term "invasive", (snip)> 
> There are many plants that readily reseed in our gardens and can
produce 
> unwanted new generations of plants in some climate zones. Some
gardeners 
> may find a limited amount of this reseeding to be desirable and
easy to 
> control via weeding and transplanting Terms such as "Readily self
sows" 
> and "Aggressive self seeder" would be better used than "Invasive".
The 
> danger is that if we cry wolf too often to describe these types of 
> plants, when we need to alert the public - they will have become 
> desensitized to the issue.
> 
> Claude sweet
> San Diego, CA
> 
> Conrad Richter wrote:
> 
> >My big worry is that the dividing line between "good" and "bad" is
going
> >to be put simplemindedly at whether or not a plant can reseed
itself or
> >otherwise spread vegetatively.  Why do I think that might happen? 
> >Because who has the resources to put the dividing line anywhere
else? 
> >To decide whether a plant with the ability to escape is actually
going
> >to become a problem (vs. those that won't) is a daunting exercise.

> >
> >Conrad Richter

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