Invasive and Nuisance Flora (2021)

Our natural environment provides essential benefits for human survival.  Yet we can take these continuing blessings for granted.  Rare events such as famines, floods, plagues, and other tragedies can remind us of how fortunate that we are most of the time.   

It’s only human nature to complain, though, when Mother Nature presents us with even small inconveniences.  So, I’ll register a personal complaint concerning one particular nuisance plant.            

The Wikipedia definition for a weed begins with a statement that a weed is a plant considered undesirable in a particular situation or place.  Of course, what one person considers a weed can be another person’s cherished blossom.  Strong disagreements can arise concerning the benefits of particular plants.   

One example that I’ve described before is the Chinese tallow tree.  State beekeepers view it as a key forage source for their hives, while forestry and timber interests have long sought ways to reduce the abundance and spread of this species.  Disputes continue as the USDA tries to decide whether to approve introduction of a couple of non-native insects as potential biological controls for these non-native tallow trees. 

What we view as a weed or nuisance plant can spark intense personal reactions.  One key reason for this intensity is simple.  We can be forced to spend a large amount of personal time, effort, or expense to combat negative impacts of these undesired plants.   

I first noticed this consequence as a boy.  Our next door neighbors then were a family with five young brothers spaced a year or two apart in age.  These boys seemed, to my younger brother and me, to be mean-spirited, rambunctious, and rowdy.  The two of us had a number of fights and rock-throwing skirmishes with these neighbor kids.  The wire fence separating their backyard from ours was trampled and rendered useless from their many incursions and often forced retreats.    

Our father desired simple peace and quiet through a means of physical separation of the conflicted parties. Typical fences would not staunch the ambitions of these pint-sized, next-door marauders.  So my father decided to plant a fast-growing, local bamboo species along about 100 feet on our immediate side of the property boundary.  The bamboo did a wonderful job of giving us about a five-foot wide insulation zone from the sights, sounds, and general chaos associated with our youthful neighbors.  The need for this bamboo barrier decreased over the years, but the bamboo continued to spread out of our easy control.   

Anyone who has been given the task of stopping very invasive bamboo, like we were expected to do, can appreciate the struggles involved.  We got to a point where the continuing physical effort led to a decision to remove that bamboo completely.  Its removal was much easier decided than accomplished.  

Many decades later, I’m facing similar frustrations with a different nuisance plant.  Unlike the bamboo that my father deliberately planted, this nuisance species grows wild in the woods surrounding our rural Winn Parish yard and the small orchard nearby.  Unlike the long-ago bamboo that presented only a single line of attack, my nemesis now strikes from all sides.      

A recent landowner trend has been creating more natural landscapes that offer restorative and contemplative opportunities.  This ideal becomes problematic when large investments of time are spent in physical combat against plant invaders. 

What makes my struggles more personal is the lack of much apparent publicity about this particular foe.  I’ve seen lists of more common invasive or nuisance flora.  Among those making the top five or ten lists in Louisiana can be giant and common salvinia, water hyacinth, kudzu, alligatorweed, hydrilla, torpedograss, and water lettuce.  Some of these are nuisance aquatic species, while others are terrestrial annoyances. 

The Bible and basic American history describe plagues of locusts.  The term locust is commonly used for a few botanical species, as well as for types of grasshoppers.  My negative experiences involve both black locust and honey locust.   

For those hiking or wandering hardwood forests in Louisiana, black locust can provide a pointed lesson.  The thorns of young black locust trees can inflict at least minor damage to those careless or distracted.  Some varieties of honey locust also have thorns or spines that can be painful for unwise human contact.  I should be grateful that the overabundant honey locust bushes that I have to combat are a thorn less variety.  Still I take only small comfort in this fact, as I try to avoid many scrapes and cuts in my battles with honey locust.  

  

I initially wondered what soil and conditions on our property caused the honey locust there to display exceptional vitality and spread.  Internet sources informed me that thorn less honey locust can thrive in a wide range of soils including acidic, alkaline, moist, dry, and salty soils.  The suckers or shoots from the underground roots of existing honey locust can produce rapidly spreading plant growth.      

I’ve also been advised that I should inspect honey locust for sucker emergence weekly.  The price for a lack of such vigilance is that in a few short weeks removing the suckers and new growth by hand becomes impossible.  The suckers become too large and well-seated to handle without relying on a pruner, machete, or shovel to cut the suckers as low as possible. Good luck this effort, because many of the honey locust roots will likely survive to produce more suckers.   

You probably have more serious botanical targets for your own complaints or foul language, and honey locust might seem a minor irritant in comparison.  I raise this complaint, partially because honey locust hasn’t seemed to generate widely the very low regard that I have for it.  If misery loves company, I might be relatively alone and unsupported with this complaint about honey locust.  Regardless, I appreciate the chance to vent.