Transcript:

music
ambience: dawn chorus, Sierra Nevada

This week we've been talking about weeds - non-native invasive species which crowd out native planets. You can try to eradicate them with herbicides and other methods, but that's not the only way to control weeds. I'm Jim Metzner, and this is the Pulse of the Planet.

"There's another thing that anyone can do to really help with weeds, both in their own yards, and also in the environment, and that is prevention: wise gardening."

Barry Meyers Rice is an invasive species expert with the Nature Conservancy.

“If you've got a plant which is growing in your yard, and you notice that it's not staying put, but it's sneaking out into the, into the lawn, or in other people’s gardens, this is a plant which might be an invasive plant in your area. But I think that the people who garden, and who should be the most concerned about wildland weeds, are those people who live near wildland areas. And that also means streams, because what you put in your garden is not necessarily going to stay in your garden. Birds can carry the seeds, streams can carry the seeds, and they can even go down through drainage pipes. What you put in your garden doesn't necessarily stay there. Preserves near populated areas often have weeds that you can trace right back to gardens. Prevention and wise gardening can really help.”

Now whether a plant is considered an invasive weed or not often depends upon which region it’s growing in.

"Because obviously there might be a weedy cactus, and it's not going to be likely to survive easily in Illinois. These are all regional things. You can't say that a plant is a weed across the entire United States, or across the entire world."

To hear about our new CD, please visit pulseplanet.com. Pulse of the Planet is made possible by the National Science Foundation.

music