Granby Drummer (https://granbydrummer.com/category/grow/not-wanted/page/4/)
Since October 2019 the Not Wanted Drummer column has profiled seven damaging invasive plants in Granby, describing how to identify and control them over time. Now it’s the peak of the planting season, and this month’s column lists Wanted plants—good alternatives to invasives.
Autumn Olive is an inoffensive looking shrub or small tree with silvery green leaves, yellow flowers, and red berries in the fall.
Japanese Knotweed is an incredibly vigorous plant that forms dense mounds six feet high or more. Once established, it is extraordinarily difficult to remove.
Garlic mustard is a small green invasive plant with leaves that smell like garlic when crushed. It’s an unusual invasive because almost anyone, regardless of age, ability or tool readiness, can pull garlic mustard plants.
Multiflora Rose is an extremely vigorous shrub that is nearly impossible for humans to control because of its super-sharp thorns borne on long, arching branches that can grow six feet a year in every direction. It thrives best in full sun but persists in partial shade, in a wide range of soil, as long as it has adequate draining.
Bittersweet is an extremely vigorous woody vine that can grow dozens of feet, smothering the tops of small trees, strangling them, and pulling them down, similar to the southern kudzu vine. In large mature trees, bittersweet can wrap around the trunk, climb 60 feet or more and follow branches out in search of sun.
A dense bush 2 to 7 feet high, Japanese Barberry has spikey thorns every inch or so along each branch. Small leaves along the branches are green in spring and summer.
Purple Loosestrife – Lythrum salicaria —is October’s Invasive of the Month. Here is how to identify it, and what to do about it.