Invasive Species and Our Natives: Essential Knowledge

The Long Island Conservancy is leading the charge against invasive species on Long Island. We are often approached by people wishing to Volunteer For Nature. But then what do we each need to learn so that we can help out? They need first off to learn about invasive species and our natives. Our world here on Long Island depends on it.

The first task that we each face is coming to understand what is native. What belongs here? What would be growing here if we weren’t here? We live in an age where increasingly we are alienated from Nature. We assume that if it’s green, it belongs here. That’s called “Plant Blindness.” We no longer know what we are looking at.

We used to know when we lived off the land, before TV, the internet, the suburbs. In 1900, 40 percent of the U.S. lived on farms, and 60% in rural areas. Today, it is 1% on farms, 20% in rural areas. Here was a time before landscaping became so pervasive. This was before our yards became an amalgam of cheap plants brought in from all corners of the world, alien plants that didn’t belong at all here.

Invasive Species And Non-Native Plants For Sale

We stop in at Lowe’s or Home Depot or the local garden center, and the vast majority of us never think to purchase native plants. Indeed the offerings are sparse. We chose the exotic, or the mundane. We choose ornamental plants because insects leave them alone. We chose what the nursery industry grows or imports, not what is needed for our environment.

The result is this: Our yards have become practically lifeless. These alien plants have no ecological use here. Our native insects, all specialists that evolved over eons to feed off our native plants, have nothing to eat. Fields of milkweed and native wildflowers were replaced by sterile lawn. When I was a boy, milkweed was quite common in people’s yards. Not so today. No caterpillars then, nothing for the songbirds to feed their nestlings. It takes 3000 caterpillars to raise raise them all, so the songbirds have all but vanished.

The result of all this is mass extinction. Suburbanization and the soulless lifeless lawn culture that comes with it has gone global. Globally, we have lost 45% of our insects since 1974. At the same time, we have lost 1% of our insects every year since 1964. The insects that feed off of other insects in turn have nothing to eat. Beyond that the birds, the bats, the reptiles, amphibians and mammals that feed off them have nothing to eat, and they are also largely vanishing.

The local food webs are collapsing. It’s like a game of Jenga. Pull out a block, remove a species. Soon enough, it all comes tumbling down. Again, most of us, alienated from Nature, see green and see no problem. They may hear from grandparents how it once was, but increasingly our former relationship with Nature, what Nature was, is vanishing from our collective memory.

Getting to 70%: Removing Invasive Species and Planting Native

The fact is, we need to get to at least 70% native plants to have enough to create habitat for our local critters, removing invasive species while planting native. Long Island is nowhere near that, at around 25% by my observations. The worst aspect of this is our lawn fetish. Lawn, if it was a crop, would be, at 40,000,000 acres, our second largest crop, after corn. So-called Kentucky Blue Grass, is Eurasian, and requires enormous amounts of water, fertilizers, herbicides for the inevitable weeds, fungicides, insecticides. See The Lawn is an Invasive Species.

Note: All this fertilizer does a great job of killing our fireflies and our cicadas. The summer nights were once full of buzzes and flickering lights. Now maybe every tenth house has this kind of summer magic. I remember as a boy when in summer our car windshields were plastered with insects. Gone.

Look at all the effort we expend for lawns! Long Islanders use on average 50% more water per day than the average American family of four: 150 gallons versus 100 gallons. That 50 gallons a day is going on our lawns. This should be our grandchildren’s water. Worse, the fertilizers we dump on our lawns to achieve that iridescent green so favored by the lawn care industry are rapidly poisoning our drinking water, leading to Blue Baby Syndrome, and likely elevated cancer rates.

Further, the runoff from lawns is helping to kill all our lakes, ponds, rivers and bays. We are feeding the algal blooms. We clear cut the woods and replace that with lawn so that we get a nice view. Soon enough, there is nothing in the soil to capture the excess nutrients before they seep into the water. Now the view features a dying pond or lake

Planting Native Is An Imperative

Planting native then is a matter of survival — for local nature, and for our own well being. But where to start? We start with the lawn. Turn it into a native meadow. Plant some Purple Love Grass, Little Blue Stem, Switchgrass, Phlox. Get some milkweeds in there, some native pollinators. Build habitat where once there was a lifeless moonscape. Plant what would be there if we weren’t here.

Plant Native and Rediscover Wonder

Do this and Nature will reward you with it’s beauty. Almost immediately, you will encounter wonder. The insects, the bees and butterflies will start arriving, with the birds not far behind. Make your yard a nature sanctuary, and watch as your plant blindness, season by season, is cured. See how attentive you become. How many fine details in a leaf or in the body of say, a milkweed beetle or a Black Swallowtail.

We emphatically recommend the work of Prof Doug Tallamy, most recently author of the best selling Nature’s Best Hope. He argues that we as homeowners are essential if we are to build enough habitat for local wildlife. He is working to transform his scientific understanding into a social movement via Homegrown National Park.

The Future of Local Nature Depends On You

This is the essence of The Long Island Conservancy’s mission: To put back what belongs here, to restore native habitat, starting with our own yards. Our approach must include our yards, otherwise, there would not be nearly enough land to create the amount of habitat necessary to stave off this mounting ecological crisis.

Invasive Plants: Losing A War We Don’t Even Know We Are Fighting

The next area of concern for Long Island, and indeed the U.S. and the world, is invasive plants. Once again, we suffer from plant blindness. Our inability to identify them just spurs their spread. How many invasive plants can you name?

Invasive Plants: How Did This Happen?

Long Island is being overrun with invasive plants. With no natural enemies, that is insects that have evolved to feed off them, they grow unchecked. They outcompete our native plants for nutrients, light and water. Drive along any highway, and the woods along the way are covered with a mass of vines that smother and kill off our native trees. This disaster was centuries in the making, but has been accelerating as they take hold and spread unchecked, their progress unnoticed.

It was for this reason that The Long Island Conservancy, in conjunction with The Science Museum of Long Island, The Sands Point Preserve Conservancy, and The Town of North Hempstead launched The Dirty Dozen Campaign to raise public awareness. The task before us all is immense though. The sheer amount of invasive plants, combined with our general ignorance of the problem, is more than daunting.

English Ivy: An Invasive Species… And Scourge That Helps Spread Disease?

English Ivy, we assume, is just part of the landscape. It has been growing here since the English brought it over so they could duplicate the aesthetic of the country gentleman — the lawn, the privet, and the English Ivy. All invasive. Now we see countless trees being killed. English Ivy is a death sentence for them. Injuries to the bark invite fungal infections. They steal light from the tree, weigh it down.

People will say, “But I like the look. It’s my property. It’s my business what I grow here.” The problem is that birds will eat the berries, then fly some miles away and poop out the seeds, often, as noted along the edge of a woods. Soon the ivy blankets the forest floor, and our native plants are driven out. Worse, English Ivy provides ground cover for the White Footed Mouse, which is the carrier for all our tick-borne illnesses. When the ticks feed from them, they then become dangerous to humans. The layer of ivy helps the ticks overwinter, compounding the problem. Their natural predators – owls and snakes for instance – can’t hunt as they had.

Most were introduced out of ignorance. English Ivy can still be readily bought, despite it’s destructiveness. We assume it belongs here. Ditto Phragmites. It is literally everywhere, and seemingly has aways been. It is though a “monoculture.” It pushes out all the local vegetation, sends out chemicals that kill off it’s would be competitors, leaving little of sustenance for native wildlife.

Invasive Species: Phragmites — It’s Everywhere and Not From Here

Japanese Knotweed: The Planet’s Worst Invasive Species?

No doubt you’ve seen Japanese Knotweed along our roadsides or along our rail lines. Our rail lines are in particular vectors for a whole host of invasive plants — every one of the “Dirty Dozen.” The LIRR/MTA is asleep at the switch on this, and we are all paying for this inattention.

The plant was introduced here in 1870, part of the globalization of gardening. A late flowering plant, and extremely hardy, it was supposedly Frederick Law Olmstead, the architect of Central Park, who imported it. In it’s native Japan, it grows at the base of volcanoes. It’s roots can blast through 7 feet of volcanic rock. It can regenerate from the tiniest piece of root. If their roots are that powerful, what house foundation could withstand them? In England, which introduced the plant in 1820, if you have it on your property, you can’t get a mortgage, and the property loses 15% of it’s value. Small wonder it is considered our worst in our Dirty Dozen.

Indifferent Lawn Care And Invasive Species

Landscapers, and indeed municipal mowers, aid in its spread as they move from property to property. The mowers are never cleaned between jobs. It may all look flat and green after a mow, but at what cost? A lot of our weeds are spread this way. And few know this.

Importing Disease: The Tragedy of the American Chestnut, Repeated Over and Over

The American Chestnut once dominated our forests along the Eastern Seaboard. One of every four trees were American Chestnuts, 3-4 billion trees in all. This was as recently as 1904. That was when disaster struck. A Chinese Chestnut was imported by The New York Zoological Society, now The Bronx Zoo. The curator noticed that the tree was sick with a fungus. Within thirty years, the fungus had spread throughout the tree’s range, and all but obliterated them.

These forest giants could grow 100 feet tall and ten feet around. They were a keystone species: They fed everything, including the people living in this region. There was also a vibrant furniture industry dependent on the chestnut. When we import plants, we rarely consider what pathogens or invasive insects are coming with them. The American Chestnut is the most famous example, but Beech Leaf Disease, Sudden Oak Death, The Emerald Ash Borer and others came to us because frankly there is no good way to screen all the plants coming in from elsewhere.

Returning The American Chestnut

The Long Island Conservancy is dedicated to the task of returning this forest giant, and with that the biodiversity it brought to them. There are in fact still American Chestnut trees here and there. They regenerate from their roots. Since the fungus is now pervasive, they are all destined to die as well. And they die without producing any fertile chestnuts because the air is no longer thick with their pollen.

Those trees that grow old enough to flower can be hand-pollinated, however. One must climb up to the tree’s canopy twice — once to pollinate, once to gather the nuts. From there, we grow American Chestnut saplings. We have grown about 2000 so far, and planted at least half that amount around Long Island, creating orchards that will be treated with a blight resistant pollen when it comes time for them to flower. It’s a new approach, and shows a lot of promise.

We can and will restore The American Chestnut.

The Spotted Lanternfly: The Latest Horrific Invasive Species

How did The Spotted Lanternfly arrive here? Via an egg case on some landscaping stone imported in 2014 from China. We are now looking at the worst insect invasion in 150 years. They are predicted to reach California by 2033, with dire consquences for agriculture, particularly the vineyards.

They have 56 host plants here in the U.S. that they will feed off: Red Maple, Willow, Walnut, Sycamore, Poplar, Blueberry, fruit trees. They particularly like grapevines. They have so far decimated the vineyards of Pennsylvania, resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars of damage each year. and they are now coming east. What defense do we have, with over 50 vineyards out east? We need something more impactful than being told to step on them. That won’t be nearly enough. Yet again, we must ask where is the leadership on this? The economic hit we are about to take will be enormous.

The preferred host plant for The Spotted Lanternfly is one of our Dirty Dozen invasive species: The Tree of Heaven. It was introduced way back in 1750, and has spread everywhere. The Spotted Lanternfly seeks the tree out, and as they feed off it, they absorb toxins that make them inedible. Their tails actually get redder to warn would be predators.

So an obvious strategy would be to systematically remove The Tree of Heaven. So where are our towns on this? Nassau and Suffolk County? New York State? The Federal Government? We need a massive effort here, as with all of The Dirty Dozen. At present, invasive plants cost us an estimated $120 billion a year. Assume that number will climb ever higher if left unchecked.

In Conclusion: Remove Invasive Species From Your Community and Plant Native

So, what do you do, now that you know all this? You plant natives where ever you can while removing the invasive ones, starting in your yard and your community. You put back what belongs and remove what doesn’t. Find inspiration in the beauty and wonder you create. How quickly Nature can respond and return to us if we make the effort!

We are in the midst of the Sixth Great Extinction, with millions of species in peril. That includes so many species that now call Long Island home. The best thing each of us can do is to build habitat for them. We control what goes in our yards. Let’s act intentionally and plant what we need to have for the sake of local wildlife. The experience will change you.