Iris Cohen wrote:
Rob Davison expounded:


Not meaning to offend anyone, but I'm not sure I
entirely understand the 'horrid weed tree' attitude.


You're in New Zealand, where things may be under better control.

Hi Iris. For your information until quite recently NZ had no
'pest plant' control laws at all.

On the one hand our geographical isolation has helped to limit the
arrival of exotic plants and animals - but on the other that same
isolation has produced specialised plants and birds which do
not tolerate a change in the ecological balance at all well.

I believe that change is a part of nature however (and a part of
gardening!) and feel that those who seek to control and prevent
all change, who seek to 'preserve' nature without accepting the
fact that it is by its very nature(ha!) a dynamic, evolving,
system are working on something far more artificial and ultimately
more damaging to the environment than the introduction of new
species - which happens without human intervention anyway.

In the long run they're also on a hiding to nothing as we're all
on the same ball of rock. Keeping an eye on that fact is far
more important than trying to wall off your particular bit of
it from the rest.

I do not advocate open slather. I do advocate commonsense, education
and personal experience of how the natural world really works.

You would understand if you spent hours every spring pulling Norway maple
seedlings out of your flower beds,

How about hours crawling around under old Rhododendrons looking for the
roots of Elderberry, Blackberry and mulenbeckia vine (two out of the
three are exotic here. The native is the biggest weed. Go figure...) ?


Or hours tracing chickweed plants through wet Astilbes to find their
hairlike root (how such a fine root supports so much lush top is
truly amazing)?
http://www.pbase.com/mapleglen/image/30800907


Hours spent picking creeping epilobium, clover and native orchid out of
the heather garden?
http://www.pbase.com/mapleglen/image/15553064

That same area is also infested with two garden plants that 'do too
well' here. Viola biflora and Scilla campanulata. We work at keeping
them away from that part of the garden as they don't fit with the
neat shapes of the ericas, callunas and dwarf conifers.


Time spent ripping lotus out of clumps of sibirian and higo iris
perhaps?

Spraying tall willow weed (another epilobium) and californian thistle
around newer plantings of rhododendrons, shrubs, dormant daffodil and
colchicum borders?
http://www.pbase.com/mapleglen/image/4936223
http://www.pbase.com/mapleglen/image/15585714
http://www.pbase.com/mapleglen/image/23342262

Pulling swamp grass in patches of Ishriach hybrid primulas and
P. japonica? http://www.pbase.com/mapleglen/image/24189585

Tellima grandiflora that (left unmolested) will climb on top of a
healthy clump of Hosta and smother it?

Purple creeping oxalis crawling around the rock garden?

All of the above, plus a few more making merry in the perennial borders?
http://www.pbase.com/mapleglen/image/7327907


Would my lifetime (34 years and counting) involved in such activities
do me in lieu of your experience with Acer platanoides do you think?

Does it add weight to my opinion, or at least grant me the right to
hold and express one that I'm well aware is (at least in part) contrary
to the prevailing eco-friendly, 'green' point of view espoused by so
many city dwellers?


My elderly parents and I have a garden of about 20 acres in size
called Maple Glen. We design, create and keep it by ourselves, for
ourselves and we're still extending it.
http://www.pbase.com/mapleglen/image/25803639
http://www.mapleglen.co.nz/

Believe me Iris, I know my weeds.

I also know which garden plants have the potential to become weeds in
our location and what to do about it. I do not appreciate being told
that I can no longer grow something on my own land that has lived here
(without causing much trouble) for 40 odd years by somebody with soft
hands and no honest dirt under their fingernails who has read a study
that finds the plant in question causes serious trouble in southern
Louisiana and then decides on that basis to ban it here - where the only
thing between us and the earths south pole are a couple of penguins.

There is also (I believe) a political agenda at work and that riles
me too. If people want to grow only natives then that is fine by me.
I defend their right to grow whatever they want on their bit of dirt.

Provided they grant me the same.

Now, how much of the above do you have trouble with and if you disagree
with me (as I assume you will) can we at least see each others point of
view and agree to disagree? :-)


Rob.
--
Maple Glen http://www.mapleglen.co.nz/
Images http://www.pbase.com/mapleglen/