Stopping the Spread?

 

In an earlier post, I suggested that we might plant the three spicebush, Lindera benzoin, seedlings or starts in the south knotweed expanse, near the new river birch. Instead we chose to put them in the area between the woods and our back yard native garden and lawn to the west of our house. This area has been infiltrated by the knotweed, but apparently fairly recently without totally taking it over. 

It is a wet area that should be a good location for the spicebush. Earlier this week, my wife dug out a number of knotweed shoots that had popped up, and on Wednesday we planted the three seedlings. The mature spicebush are thought to be fairly unattractive to deer, but since they are so small we built small cages for them from the end of a roll of coated wire fencing. We planted them about six feet apart in a wide "V" shape. This area already has a number of prolific ostrich ferns, Matteucci struthiopteris.

We are hoping that the spicebush grow successfully and quickly in order to combine with the ferns to counter the return of the knotweed. Both the spicebush and the ferns prefer the kind of partly shady and wet environment found in this location. The spicebush is a pretty multi-season shrub with flowers in the spring, vibrant yellow fall leaves, and red berries (or drupes) on the female plants if a male plant is nearby to pollinate. We won't know for a while if we have both male and female plants, but we can always plant additional ones if these three are only one sex. 

In addition to the berries being attractive to birds, Lindera benzoin is the host plant to the spicebush swallowtail butterfly, Papilio troilus. So, while not a keystone plant, the spicebush is a specialist host plant. Diving into iNaturalist, Papilio troilus have been observed nearby, so if these young spicebush thrive, we will be helping these butterflies too. Here is an interesting video about Specialist Host Plants and the bees, butterflies, and moths that need them. 

For this year, our biggest task is not to focus on specialist pollinators, but to revegetate towards managing the knotweed expanse at the southern end of our property. This tray with our order arrived via Fed Ex yesterday from Pollen Nation with 25 plugs. The tray has ten mountain mint, five common sneezeweed, five cutleaf coneflower, and five New England aster. Some of these are keystone plants, and developing a plan or design concept incorporating these along with my wife's seedlings and her ordered plants is our next task.

Small Successes and Dealing With our Biggest Obstacle

I signed us up on the Homegrown National Park map a few days ago, and I plan to continue adding new as well as existing native plantings. As I mentioned in my last post, celebrating small successes helps to keep us from being overwhelmed with our ongoing knotweed issue. 

Here is a photo from just a few days ago of the serviceberry, Amelanchier x grandiflora, that we planted in the fall of 2023. We have taken photos of it in full bloom on May third both this year and last. This is in front of our house, in an area of the turf where we have put down cardboard and then covered it with composted wood chips from our township's maintenance yard. We also have a white snowberry, Symphoricarpos albus, that we planted last year leafing out in this area. This is one of several garden areas or beds that we have started this way amongst or on the edge of the turf yard. This one we are referring to as "the shrub garden," but we also plan to include other plantings here.  

Over in the south knotweed expanse, we installed a cage around the newly planted birch which has been leafing out, to protect it from browsing. Sadly, a fair number of young knotweed shoots have emerged as well. The shoots emerging such as the one in the photo can be dug up to be "properly disposed of" after they dry up in the sun. The ones emerging from large clumps from past years are more worrying. 

Yesterday, I came across an article here about trying to eliminate knotweed and instead resolving to manage it. I think that the author of the PennState Extension article is dealing with a larger expanse, but her article makes me think about a couple of issues. One is the site and why the knotweed thrives there. Just past our property line a mini bog is formed from the overflow from our spring house. This feature of the area needs to stay. Mini bogs and vernal pools are precious features. We might start thinking of other plantings that will compete with the knotweed. The portion of the knotweed expanse on our property is in full sun. Whether we eliminate or only "manage" the knotweed, we will need to be very aware of a plan to "revegetate" the site which is a major point of Joan Jubela's article. Outcompeting the knotweed and planting keystone natives will need to combine as goals as we move forward in this area. 

It's Back, but Two Trees Planted!

 

Birch planted, but it needs a cage!

This week, we planted a second tree, a river birch, Betula nigra, along a band of the Japanese knotweed we are trying to eliminate between the driveway and the south property line. This six foot birch is a "keystone" tree for the Atlantic Highlands, although not really native to the Pocono High Plateau. We planted it here where we will see it from the sunroom and where the runoff from our sump pump and gutters flow across the driveway. We will need to not let this major project for this summer, reclaiming the knotweed infestation, become overwhelming. One approach can be celebrating small steps such as planting this tree, instead of fretting over the size of the task.

While planting the birch, we found several thriving rhizomes and dug them up. The large clumps of stalks and associated roots do appear dead, but some of the younger plants with smaller rhizomes are sprouting as seen in this photo. If you click on the photo to enlarge it, you can see the emerging red pods. Walking around in the field yesterday, we saw many new pods/leaf shoots appearing. Again, it will be a challenge to keep from becoming overwhelmed or demoralized. Focus on the new tree, which needs a cage to protect it from browsing. That may be our next small step!

The first tree, really a pair of twigs, that we planted a couple of weeks ago is surrounded by a cage to protect it. The twigs are red oak, Quercus rubra, seedlings growing together that we transplanted from right next to our house's foundation. Quercus rubra is also a keystone tree and clearly native to the Pocono High Plateau. We have several other oak seedlings growing next to another section of the foundation to transplant out to this back section of the knotweed fields. Since the monetary cost of transplanting these is low, we may transplant some on the far side of the property line. 

Earlier this week, we journeyed to Edge of the Woods,  a relatively close native plant nursery. We purchased the two Virginia bluebells, Mertensia virginica, to plant under the majestic oak at the south end of our house. Our plan is to allow that area to naturalize with leaf litter and some spring ephemerals there instead of turf. Although much harder to see in the photo, we also picked up three spicebush,  Lindera benzoin, seedlings (basically six inch sticks) and the one gallon pot with a young witch hazel, Hamamelis virginiana.  Although we don't have a specific final plan yet, we are thinking that these will be associated or visually layered with the birch. While the spicebush will be somewhat deer tolerant once established, we will need to cage them and the witch hazel while they become established and can be gobbled in a couple of bites. Speaking of caging, I just came across an interesting how-to video on making various kinds of cloches. It is kind of a rabbit hole, but kind of fun too! Celebrating small successes and having fun will be key moving forward!

Our Setting and Ecoregion

 

In considering joining the Homegrown National Parks, a movement restoring habitat and biodiversity by adding native plants and removing invasive ones, we need to know our ecoregion. An ecoregion is an area that shares common ecosystem characteristics. They range from broad regions to more localized regions. The screen shot here is from a map of ecoregions on the website of Wild Ones, another organization working towards a similar goal. In addition to Wild Ones and Homegrown National Park, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (at least for now) has a collection of online maps that break down the different ecoregions into four levels. 

In looking for the most appropriate and productive native plants or the keystone plants, finding an authoritative list based on ecoregion location seems prudent. Our property, as best as I can tell, can be identified as the following, going from broadest type to the most local type:

1. Northern Forest
2. Atlantic Highlands
3. North Central Appalachians
4. Pocono High Plateau

I want to consider our very local setting before joining the Homegrown National Park movement to put "your place" on their Biodiversity Map.  Our house is on a square lot just under .7 acre. We also own an L-shaped  area bordering it to the north and west at just over .7 acre, so combining the two, our "place" is 1.4 acres. In the front, to the east, is a somewhat busy, two-lane road, and on the other three sides are mixed woods owned by a local family corporation. 

Here, to the north, on our property and beyond is a lovely stand of eastern white pine, with some beeches, maples, red oaks, and a couple of younger hemlocks mixed in. This plot of woods contains about a third of our property. Looking at an arial photo from the late 1930s, this part was clear, except what may be the large red oaks along the road. So, my assumption is that although substantial, the eastern white pine stand is no older than around eighty years. 

To the west and beyond our back yard, the woods become more mixed. One red oak, right along our property line, is larger (and apparently older) than the rest. Almost entirely deciduous, these woods include a lot of maples. While the woods extend quite a ways to the west,  our property only extends around 75 feet into them. As seen in the photo here from 2022, the Japanese knotweed had started to spread to the edge between the woods and turf of our back yard. 

Here looking to the south in this photo from the winter of 2023, is another view of the Japanese knotweed infestation extending from our property into the mixed woods surrounding us. While the invasive knotweed here and fairly extensive yard around our house are obstacles, we do have several mature native trees. In the center of this photo one sees a black cherry. Next to the house, we have a large red oak, two red maples, and what I believe to be a black maple (the Yellow Sapsucker certainly likes it better than the others). 

Knowing our setting and ecoregion, we can move forward with  adding our "place" to the HNP Biodiversity Map. On a somewhat more pragmatic level, we can move on with planning and planting on this summer's goal of reclaiming the knotweed field. Knowing the ecoregion, we can be informed and purposeful in choosing native and keystone plants. As spring is somewhat here and we have already started planning, we will be posting with updates! 

Perhaps Our Biggest Obstacle!

 

Southwest Corner of Our Property, March 2025

This photo shows the beginning of our third year of fighting the invasive Japanese knotweed on this end of our property. While we were aware of the issue, it wasn't until 2023, our second summer here, that we started trying to deal with the problem.

We hired Strauser Nature's Helpers to help us. We followed the plan presented by Penn State Extension and suggested by Strauser's expert on knotweed eradication, Robin. In the photo here, one can see where their crew had started cutting all the knotweed to around three feet in late June of 2023. If it is not cut then, it will be too high (10+ feet) to spray later at the appropriate time. Then in September, between flowering and the first hard frost, they returned and sprayed with an herbicide. It is at that time that the leaves are pulling nutrients into the rhizomes, the true nemesis. They repeated the process again in 2024. We are hoping that we can continue the eradication on our own starting this year, without the expense and extensive use of herbicide. 

We need to take several steps to try to eliminate the knotweed: remove the rhizome clumps, plan and plant to provide competition, and watch for young knotweed sprouts. The larger rhizomes are roughly the size of a boot or football. Several sources suggest digging them up and storing them in black plastic bags in the sun before "disposing properly." I have seen conflicting advice about dealing with young shoots that appear. Some have suggested digging them out, while others have suggested letting them grow and applying herbicide in September. We are in the first phase of planning and planting a mix of trees, shrubs, and other plants, many of them native. The development of the plan and first steps of planting may be topics of further posts. 

Intro to Hemlock Homegrown National Park

The "Homegrown National Park" movement, a conservation approach based on starting in your yard, provides guidance and an opportunity to do something positive during what seems to me an overwhelmingly negative time. 

Douglas Tallamy, in his book, Nature's Best Hope, lists ten steps: 

• Shrink the lawn
• Remove invasive species
• Plant keystone genera
• Be generous with your plantings
• Plant for specialist pollinators
• Network with neighbors
• Build a conservation hardscape
• Create caterpillar pupation sites under your trees
• Do not spray or fertilize
• Educate your neighborhood civic association