Eastern and Western Dogwoods

Dogwood In Bloom by pearson251
Dogwood In Bloom by pearson251

This spring has been an amazingly beautiful one florally. Usually during most springs on the east coast one sees the magnolia trees burst forth in bloom; but very shortly after they open there is a deadly frost that kills all the flowers. So what were once beautiful magnolias trees are now laden with frozen, brown ugly flowers. Nothing can be uglier than those big brown dead flowers. But this year it was different. The magnolia flowers remained looking lovely every day. Some magnolia trees were literaly wrapped in flowers.

The daffodils were spectacular. Everyone greeting one another saying, “isn’t this a magnificent year for daffodils?”. And it seemed like every house had amazing displays of daffodils. People in my area even had planted them in the center islands that were built to slow down traffic. So roads were beautiful as well as the gardens.

And this year wisteria were blooming their “vines” off. Visitors from the west coast were amazed to see tall trees covered with flowering wisteria. Sadly those vines strangle the trees; but still it was amazing to see all the wisteria blooms going up into the sky. Even TheGardenLady’s recalcitrant wisteria that had been dug up from her parents farm where it graced the front porch, had finally flowered this year after approximately 35 years in just this location alone- they are antiques.

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How Invasive Plants Came Here

Glechoma hederacea - Hondsdraf, groundivy by AnneTanne (on flickr)
Glechoma hederacea - Hondsdraf, groundivy by AnneTanne (on flickr)

In the last post, TheGardenLady explained the problems caused by invasive plants – that is, plants that have come into the environment and take over the native plants’ environments, eventually choking out the native plants.  In this post, TheGardenLady explains how invasive plants came to this country.

Some invasive species came accidentally in ship ballast, packing materials or even on people who travel around the world and return with small seeds adhereing to shoes or clothes, etc.

Some came purposefully.

Some were brought as medicine or food. Ground ivy, Glechoma hederacea, with many common names one of them being Gill over the Ground, is an invasive that was brought here by our earliest settlers. Ground ivy has a long history of use in alternative medicine and as an edible herb, dating back to the first century A.D. Ground ivy was considered to be such a miracle medicine that it is said to be one of the first herb and edible plants brought to the North American continent. Now it has become so invasive that it is the bane of most people with lawns and there is not much one can do to get rid of it other than repeatedly plowing every tiny stem of the plant until it finally gets killed. But even saying that repeated plowing will kill the ground ivy may be wishful thinking because it sends out runners and may come to  our lawn from a neighbor’s.

Callery pear blossoms 1 by chasqui01 (on flickr)
Callery pear blossoms 1 by chasqui01 (on flickr)

Some were brought for horticultural use. The Callery pear was brought here from China and was used to decorate streets, parks and gardens. The thought was that the Callery pear would not fruit and was therefore sterile. They didn’t know that when the callery pear met other desirable pear species in this country, it wasn’t so sterile and started going forth and multiplying.  See here.

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