November of 2019 was the last time I was able to weed the eastern red cedars on my property, but this summer I felt good enough to finally tackle the job. Meanwhile, the buckthorn, common snowberry, common ninebark, grape vine, Virginia creeper, and thistles of all kinds continued to multiply. The ginko, coffee, witchhazel, and lilac trees branched down to the ground, and Japanese lilac and rough-leaf dogwood shrubs grew so large that I didn’t know what to do with them. In just four years the multitude of invasives seems to have grown! (I now think of invasives as non-native and native.)
After I decided to remove the invasives, I took some pictures. The “Before” picture is actually the piece of the planting that hadn’t yet been removed. I will keep the Virginia waterleaf and the wild ginger, along with some Virginia creeper.
Read Battling a Green Glacier, an article in “LivingBird” magazine, published by Cornell Lab of Ornithology. And check out Reconsidering Cedar: A Short Film from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Recently spreading across the Great Plains, conifers such as the eastern red cedar, pose a very real threat to economies and grassland habitats.
Double-click the photos to make them larger.
The featured image for this blog post (photo that shows on the Home page for this blog post), shows a Japanese lilac that was a gift from my dad. Photo taken: June 13, 2019.
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