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Ted here! This month I wanted to talk about the native gardener’s nemesis: invasive plants. Winter offers an opportunity for sneaky invasives to spread and grow while native perennials lie dormant. These invaders suffocate desirable plants with their aggressive quick growth in early spring. But, their strength is also a weakness: many invasive plants are green in winter. Once you identify them, you can pull them up by the roots on a warmer day when the soil is soft. There are several apps that can help with plant identification; I recommend iNaturalist.
Below, I list some invasive plants that grow in winter months:
Rosette-forming invasives
Rosette-forming invasives
Visible all winter and easiest to pull before spring:
Visible all winter and easiest to pull before spring:
Garlic mustard (especially important to remove before March)
Woody invasives (excellent winter window)
Woody invasives (excellent winter window)
Cut-and-remove
Callery pear (Bradford pear seedlings)
Tree-of-heaven (small plants only—large ones need summer treatment)
What to leave alone in winter (important!)
What to leave alone in winter (important!)
Middle Tennessee natives benefit from winter structure:
Leave native seed heads and stems (coneflowers, asters, goldenrods). This might result in propagation and provide a food source for native animals.
Hollow stems support overwintering native bees.
Leaf litter shelters fireflies and other beneficial insects.
I hope this information helps ensure your native plant gardens impress your neighbors (both human and animal)!
Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.
Ted
What if each American landowner made it a goal to convert half of his or her lawn to productive native plant communities? Even moderate success could collectively restore some semblance of ecosystem function to more than twenty million acres of what is now ecological wasteland. How big is twenty million acres? It’s bigger than the combined areas of the Everglades, Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand Teton, Canyonlands, Mount Rainier, North Cascades, Badlands, Olympic, Sequoia, Grand Canyon, Denali, and the Great Smoky Mountains National Parks.
― Douglas W. Tallamy, Nature's Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation that Starts in Your Yard
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