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Invasive Plants
- Identifying and understanding the plants that are changing the North American landscape forever - Full-color photographs make identification simple An easy-to-use, wide-ranging guide to invasive plants in North America. Features full-color photos and descriptions of some 175 alien species--both terrestrial and aquatic--that are in some cases changing the landscape to an almost unimaginable degree. Accompanying text describes the plant's environmental and economic impacts as well as management techniques used to control it. Also includes an explanation of what an invasive is and a step-by-step identification key. An essential guide to understanding this unprecedented environmental challenge.
464 pages, Paperback
First published March 22, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
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October 14, 2023I didn’t know, until I started reading the comments on some online forums, that the subject of invasive plants is incredibly contentious. It may start out all right, with people asking innocent questions, or saying, “I love that plant. I have it in my yard and it’s covered with bees,” and soon everyone is shouting. Half the people are quoting Doug Tallamy, and the other half are quoting Fred Pearce, and everyone is yelling, “Jane, you ignorant slut!”
It is an important subject, and if you want to learn more about it, this book is pretty much just facts. Every invasive plant gets two or three pages. There are photos that are good at helping you identify the plants, and detailed descriptions of their characteristics (hairy or smooth leaves, color of berries, placement of thorns).
For each plant it tells what the problem with it is. Not every nonnative plant is a problem plant. Usually the problem is that it spreads into natural areas, forming dense stands, preventing the native plants from growing, and that is usually a problem because the local wildlife depends on the native plants. Sometimes the invasive plants change the soil chemistry. Sometimes they are a problem for agriculture.
There is also a section telling how each plant came to North America. That is usually interesting. Often they were imported as pretty ornamentals, but sometimes they were brought here to do a job: to prevent erosion of hillsides, to restore degraded land after mining, to provide hedgerows or windbreaks. And the plants did those jobs. They did them way too well.
Then there is a section telling how to control each plant. They are usually very hard to kill. That’s why they’re invasive. If you cut them down they spring back, often more densely than before. Herbicides are often recommended. That is one of the reasons people are yelling at each other online. Some people think the use of chemical poisons is worse for the environment than the presence of invasives. But the recommendations are for hack-and-squirt or cut stump applications, which target only the plant in question, not like spraying a whole field indiscriminately. Some other people compare this to the use of antibiotics to restore a body to health. Sometimes the use of flamethrowers or goats is recommended for controlling invasive plants, and that sounds like it could be fun.
I do think that invasive plants are a problem that deserve greater attention. As the authors say in an introduction, many people know almost nothing about plants. It’s all just so much greenery to them. Once you begin to know what you're looking at, the garlic mustard, and Japanese knotweed, and buckthorn are everywhere.
I guess I consider myself a moderate in the invasives debate. Sure, if we leave nature to its own devices, and do nothing, evolution will balance things out over time. But that will take centuries or millennia, and meanwhile, some of our favorite species will be extinct. On the other hand, I don’t believe we will ever return to a landscape of pure natives. Eradicating all nonnative species is certainly not possible, and perhaps not desirable or necessary. But humans have caused this problem, and humans, going forward, are going to have to manage more wild spaces that previously didn’t need to be managed.
It is an important subject, and if you want to learn more about it, this book is pretty much just facts. Every invasive plant gets two or three pages. There are photos that are good at helping you identify the plants, and detailed descriptions of their characteristics (hairy or smooth leaves, color of berries, placement of thorns).
For each plant it tells what the problem with it is. Not every nonnative plant is a problem plant. Usually the problem is that it spreads into natural areas, forming dense stands, preventing the native plants from growing, and that is usually a problem because the local wildlife depends on the native plants. Sometimes the invasive plants change the soil chemistry. Sometimes they are a problem for agriculture.
There is also a section telling how each plant came to North America. That is usually interesting. Often they were imported as pretty ornamentals, but sometimes they were brought here to do a job: to prevent erosion of hillsides, to restore degraded land after mining, to provide hedgerows or windbreaks. And the plants did those jobs. They did them way too well.
Then there is a section telling how to control each plant. They are usually very hard to kill. That’s why they’re invasive. If you cut them down they spring back, often more densely than before. Herbicides are often recommended. That is one of the reasons people are yelling at each other online. Some people think the use of chemical poisons is worse for the environment than the presence of invasives. But the recommendations are for hack-and-squirt or cut stump applications, which target only the plant in question, not like spraying a whole field indiscriminately. Some other people compare this to the use of antibiotics to restore a body to health. Sometimes the use of flamethrowers or goats is recommended for controlling invasive plants, and that sounds like it could be fun.
I do think that invasive plants are a problem that deserve greater attention. As the authors say in an introduction, many people know almost nothing about plants. It’s all just so much greenery to them. Once you begin to know what you're looking at, the garlic mustard, and Japanese knotweed, and buckthorn are everywhere.
I guess I consider myself a moderate in the invasives debate. Sure, if we leave nature to its own devices, and do nothing, evolution will balance things out over time. But that will take centuries or millennia, and meanwhile, some of our favorite species will be extinct. On the other hand, I don’t believe we will ever return to a landscape of pure natives. Eradicating all nonnative species is certainly not possible, and perhaps not desirable or necessary. But humans have caused this problem, and humans, going forward, are going to have to manage more wild spaces that previously didn’t need to be managed.
April 21, 2025
I liked the way the pages were so thick and detailed and easy to turn!
You can never know everything about plants so it was good to learn..... Calloway Pear BradfordPear
on the list boo Invasives good to know!.
You can never know everything about plants so it was good to learn..... Calloway Pear BradfordPear
on the list boo Invasives good to know!.
June 3, 2008
Too often, plant lust gets the best of you and, if you're not careful, you wind up with an invasive plant you have to rip out of your garden at a later date. We inherited Coreopsis that had pretty much taken over the front of the house and it took me two years to get rid of it. This book is invaluable in identifying those plants, good and bad. The color photos make identifying easy and management lets you control what you want to keep.
March 4, 2012
Great resource for identifying and managing invasive plants in the garden, field and forest. I particularly found the "what it does in the ecosystem" and "management" sections for each plant helpful. So often we are told it is non-native therefore the pant is considered bad - I appreciate the explanation and deeper understanding of the broader impacts of the plant discussed. Of course the photographs were invaluable as well.
July 27, 2012
An must have book for any gardener. Lots of pictures to easily identify those plants that will take over your garden and your house if you let them. Some invasives I bet you didn't know about: butterfly bush, nandina, English ivy, Japanese wisteria, Mimosa, Princess tree, forsythia and loads of others. Get rid of these!!
February 13, 2015
I really liked this book - its detail and its balanced approach about what an alien is, what an invasion is. What I could have done without was the conservative polemics in the intro. However, I would use it again.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews