Geroge Ball's letter to the NY Times on invasive plantspublished Sunday

**"Susan McCoy" b*@impact-pr.com**

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
                               The New York Times

                             March 19, 2006 Sunday
                              Late Edition - Final

SECTION: Section 4; Column 2; Editorial Desk; Pg. 13

LENGTH: 704 words

HEADLINE: Border War

BYLINE: By George Ball.

   George Ball, a former president of the American Horticultural
Society, is the president of the seed and plant company W. Atlee Burpee
& Company.

DATELINE: Warminster, Pa.

BODY:

   THE horticultural world is having its own debate over immigration,
with some environmentalists warning about the dangers of so-called
exotic plants from other countries and continents ''invading'' American
gardens. These botanical xenophobes say that a pristine natural state
exists in our yards and that to disturb it is both sinful and
calamitous. In their view, exotic plants will swallow your garden, your
neighbors' gardens and your neighbors' neighbors' gardens until the
ecosystem collapses under their rampant suffocating growth.

     If anything suffocates us, though, it will be the
environmentalists' narrowmindedness. Like all utopian visions, their
dream beckons us into a perfect and rational natural world where nothing
ever changes -- a world that never existed and never will.

   Native plants are the survivalists of the botanical world, and in the
appropriate settings -- wilderness areas, home and botanical gardens,
public parks and sidewalks -- they bless us with their beauty and awe us
with their tenacity. Our lives would be poor and grim without the
strawberry, cranberry, columbine and trillium. They've always been here,
in the same way that Native Americans have been; only their arrival and
settlement are more ancient.

     Their presence illustrates a geologic time, about 8,000 years ago,
when the glaciers receded and unimaginably vast deluges swallowed the
surface of the future United States -- an airplane ride over the Midwest
reveals enormous lakes formed by even larger melted ice masses. As the
landscape changed, the botanical world sorted itself out, leaving us
with the hardy ''natives.'' (It should be noted, though, that many
plants now considered natives -- like sycamores, magnolias and cinnamon
-- arrived from other continents, just as we did. They are products of
adaptation.)

     Like human survivalists, natives are also subject to exploitation
by the horticultural equivalent of radical fundamentalists. The
anti-exotics argue that gardens should be populated exclusively by
native plants, as if the exotics were trying to enter the flower bed
illegally. The consequences of such a stand could be dire. Should we eat
no onions or garlic, apples or lemons; feast our eyes on no magnificent
tulips or roses -- all exotics of Eurasian origin? Should Asians not
enjoy their distinctive peppers, tomatoes, beans, squash, sunflowers and
corn -- all from the Americas?

     Indeed, the world's most popular root crop, potatoes, started life
as a staple of the Andean people and achieved its first international
fame as a slave food. By the time it reached France, the ''earth apple''
was a delicacy likened to truffles; their flowers were featured in
tiaras of court ladies. Exotic indeed.

     Should we deprive ourselves of petunias, begonias, impatiens and
hollyhocks
-- not a one of them ''native''? Must we, on pain of being cast out of
the garden as horticultural pariahs, deny the elephant his peanuts? This
wouldn't be merely ridiculous. It would compare with the denial of human
immigration on grounds that certain ethnic groups breed in numbers ''too
prolific'' for the existing elite to tolerate. Imagine, then, a
horticultural ruling class. No ' 'invasives'' need apply: let the lily
find another valley. Such prohibitions of exotic plant species
demonstrate only an elitist snobbery that is as dangerous to a free
society as it is to a free botany.

     No one, and certainly no gardener, grows truly destructive invasive
plants in his garden. The devastating kudzu in the South, star thistle
in the West and purple loosestrife in the East were accidental
introductions from Asia, most often mixed with the feed and bedding of
livestock. Yet the pro-native, anti-exotic partisans also wish us to
stop enjoying the charms of harmless and beautiful plants like Queen
Anne's lace, yarrow and chicory. Aside from requiring a bit of weeding,
exotics are safe as milk, unless one considers gardening a chore rather
than a passionate hobby. If so, forget the forget-me-nots.

     Let's welcome, as spring arrives tomorrow, as many huddled masses
of flowers, herbs and vegetables as can fit in our unique melting pot of
a nation, unrivaled in its tradition of lush diversity and freedom to
grow rampantly.

URL: http://www.nytimes.com

GRAPHIC: Drawing (Drawing by Jonathon Rosen)

LOAD-DATE: March 19, 2006

Susan McCoy
Office: 610-388-9330
Mobile:610-220-8400

IMPACT Marketing/Garden Media Group
PO Box 758
Chadds Ford, PA  19317
www.gardenmediagroup.com

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