August 7th, 2014
Invasive plants like Tree of Heaven (ailanthus, a tree with orange seed pods that just seem to pop up around your property), Asian bittersweet (little vines that quickly become Tarzan-big vines), mile-a-minute, Japanese honeysuckle, Russian olive, barberry, multiflora rose, parasitic ornamental grape vines, and so on, are all becoming a huge problem in our forests.
Each of these plants displaces and suppresses native, helpful plants.
Out west, there are entire regions where it is actually illegal to have invasive weeds on your property. If the county conservation staff find those weeds on your land, you can be fined a lot of money. Why would property rights-driven Westerners embrace a law like that? Wouldn’t they pooh-pooh plants?
Because invasive weeds carry a substantial financial cost, people who make their living off the land have a healthy abhorrence of these bad plants. They are so quick to take over the landscape, and provide few to no benefits to people or animals.
Pennsylvania’s native forests are an important source of wildlife habitat, clean air, clean water, scenic beauty, recreation, and income. Yet, our forests are becoming increasingly overrun by non-native invasive plants and trees. Ailanthus is especially egregious. It got its start and continues to spread from public roadsides, where PennDot and the PA Turnpike Commission have failed to control it. The impact of ailanthus on our forests is becoming a real cost consideration.
It is time to have a public policy and a public agency work more seriously on the challenge posed by invasive weeds.
July 8th, 2011
Harrisburg is a historic, award-winning “All-America City” often noted for its majestic trees throughout its neighborhoods. Trees naturally die with age, and it was that slow but steady attrition that has had me and many of my neighbors re-planting trees and talking in recent years about how bare some of the blocks along Second Street look, in particular. Now, it appears that the city is going to take a big, exciting step forward on this issue. In a city that is going through acrimonious debate about its precarious financial situation (Act 47 takeover by the state, or a sad declaration of bankruptcy that nevertheless gives city leaders and citizens more control), good news is hard to come by and therefore all the more enjoyed by everyone. We need a breath of fresh air here, and it can’t come too soon. Stay tuned.
Josh