Sweet & Sassy Scribblers
​
  • Genres
  • Fiction
    • Books for Children
    • Fantasy
    • Thrillers
    • Mysteries
    • Women's Fiction
    • Science Fiction
  • Nonfiction
    • Well-being
    • Spiritual Psychology
    • Poems, Essays, Etc.
  • Heart Song Ghostwriting
  • MindSlap! - Spiritual Psychology
  • Let's Get Our Hands Dirty
  • The Scribblers

Intruder Alert!

9/22/2023

0 Comments

 
Picture
My neighbor is a sweet lady. We get along just fine except for one thing. Our ideas of having a nice yard differ significantly. She prefers large expanses of manicured grass interspersed with big, showy, non-native plants placed just so. My taste runs more toward organized chaos.

I cringe when I see new exotic plants in her yard. Even so, there’s never been any conflict between us since there’s nearly a mile of woodland and fields between our homes. Problems began, though, when her plants started spreading outside her yard and taking over the ‘wild’ area between us.

The two worst alien invaders creeping my way were:
​
Elephant Ear or Wild Taro (Colocasia esculenta) – personally, I have no idea what the attraction is with these gigantic heart-shaped green leaves. There are no flowers; all they do is tower over all the other vegetation, smothering everything in its path. These invasive monsters have taken over a large portion of the roadside bordering her yard and have even somehow jumped across the road, taking over that side as well.
Elephant ears are considered a major invasive weed in the southeast, displacing native flora and are next to impossible to get rid of since they spread underground.
Luckily, they’re partial to the wetter areas around the ditches and aren’t spreading too far from home. Hopefully, they’ll stay in the swampy spots and leave the rest alone.

Picture
​I used to like the Daylilies (Hemerocallis fulva) until they became a nuisance. The orange flowers made a lovely border along my neighbor’s fence. Unfortunately, they spread big time and have now established themselves for at least a quarter mile along the shoulder on both sides of the road and along the tractor paths leading to the farm fields.

​Earlier this summer, a lovely stand of volunteer lance-leaf coreopsis beautified the grassy edge. However, within a few weeks, they fell victim to the fast-growing daylilies. There’s no stopping them!

PictureMimosa tree, Chinese privet, Chinese wisteria, and Sicklepod
I’ve noticed a number of other invasives taking over as well. About eight years ago, chainsaws ruthlessly clear-cut about an acre of virgin woodlands. All the native undergrowth was torn from the ground as the pine trees were loaded onto trucks and hauled away to the paper mill. The felled hardwoods were left abandoned to slowly decompose.

The faster growing Mimosas (Albizia julibrissin), Bradford Pears (Pyrus calleryana), Chinese privets (Ligustrum sinense), and non-native wisteria (Wisteria sinensis), along with lots of weeds like sicklepod (Senna obtusifolia) have taken advantage of the unoccupied space and created a haven for themselves.

​Unfortunately, vines from native morning glories (Ipomoea) and muscadines (Vitis rotundifolia) have totally overgrown most of the other vegetation, so now it looks more jungle-like than forested. 

Picture
It’s sad to watch the destruction of indigenous trees, shrubs, plants, and wildlife and be unable to do anything about it. According to the National Wildlife Federation, without native plants, there would be no web of life. Every strand in the web is vital in ways we are still coming to understand. Meanwhile, our native plant populations are declining, becoming fewer, fragmented, and imperiled by threats such as extreme weather, competition from invasive species, and development. Thirty-four percent of plants and 40% of animals are at risk of extinction, and an alarming 41% of ecosystems in the U.S. are at risk of collapse.
​

So please refrain from introducing non-native flora to your neighborhood and help keep our ecosystems strong with lots of diverse native plants. Thank you


0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Greta Burroughs

    Through the Lens of a Nature-Lover

    ​

    No creature, whether it has two, four, six, eight, or no legs, should ever be homeless. Every living being deserves the basics of food, water, and shelter. By planting native plants, trees, and shrubs, I can do something toward providing the food and shelter these creatures need.

    ​It's amazing how plants and insects evolved to interact with each other, and how one could always instinctively rely upon the other for survival.

    That's what Mother Nature intended.

    Unfortunately, humanity's carelessness and greed disrupted her master plan.


    ​I'm on a quest to help restore Nature's balance by collecting seeds from, transplanting, or propagating the indigenous plants I find along the roadsides and fields before they are mown down or poisoned with pesticides.

    Then, if my gardening skills don't fail me, my yard will eventually provide a year-round oasis of native flowers, trees, and shrubs that'll provide the food and shelter insects need to thrive and never be homeless again. 

    Through the Lens of a Nature-Lover will share my journey as I discover, photograph, and rescue the plants and bugs no one else notices.

    Please join me in my quest to end homelessness. Thank you for caring.


    Archives

    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023

    Categories

    All
    Conservation
    Garden
    Invasives
    Native Flowers
    Other Creatures
    Pollinators
    Pollution
    Stewardship

    RSS Feed

    Picture
I will read forever because it lets me visit in my mind the worlds that I will never be able to see; it helps me put away the stresses of the day and relax into the rhythm of the story before me; it lets me bring to the surface and experience without regrets those feelings I hide away; it lets me re-experience the thrill of first love through someone else's eyes; it keeps my mind juiced so that it will never desert me; it is always there for me even when there's no one else. I will read forever no matter whether it is print or digital because the words will always call to me. ~ A Sassy Scribbler