I recently ordered and received an Invasive Plant guide from Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources. It cost me $5 to get it sent to me; but it is really a beautiful guide with may colored photos per plant for identification. The guide also explains where you’re most likely to find the plants and to what degree they are invasive here in Wisconsin (ex: restrictive, prohibited; more on that later).
The guide is important to me for a couple of different reasons. The first being, I want to understand what I should and should not be planting on our property when we get to that phase. It turns out that much of what am even identifying on the property currently is invasive in nature (ex: the edges of our woods and some decorative bushes around the house are morrow’s honeysuckle which are invasive in Wisconsin). As we go through our landscape and garden planning phase, I want to do as much around native plants when applicable and avoid invasive plants; especially invasive plants that can be weed like and prolific in nature. We’re not there yet and probably won’t be for a couple of years yet; however, I’ve been jumping ahead in my thoughts and research.
Second, Wisconsin has a relatively new invasive species rule which classifies invasive species into two categories of concern: "prohibited" and "restricted." With certain exceptions, the transport, possession, transfer and introduction of Prohibited species is banned. Restricted species are also subject to a ban on transport, transfer and introduction, but possession is allowed (with a couple of exceptions which are not terrestrial plant exceptions; rather, they relate to aquatic animals). Monetary penalties associated with “prohibited” terrestrial plants can be significant (as the penalties are tied to the cost of removal).
But back to my new colorful and useful guide. What I’m finding is that there’s actually quite a number of plants on our property (and all around for that matter) that are invasive in nature. In fact, because I see a lot of these plants wherever I go here in Wisconsin, I’ve just assumed they were native; but they are not. For example, walking through our back woods a couple of weeks ago with Ed, I commented on the cute little rose bushes that seemed to be prolific. He told me that they too were invasive (and sure enough, they are).
I’ve known about garlic mustard and buckthorn being prolific invasive plants for quite a while; now I’m learning that there’s so many more plants on the list.
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