Friday, November 24, 2017

Growing Liriope And Ornamental Grass

By Stephanie Brown


There are a variety of methods gardeners utilize to border their flower beds, and all of them are delightful. Some might use bricks or stones, especially in states with a great deal of shiny, white quartz rock available. Some gardeners, and many landscapers, prefer to use natural borders such as liriope and ornamental grass.

Such bordering grasses require consistent monitoring and upkeep in order to prevent them from taking over the entire garden bed. Without a dutiful gardener present, some forms of this plant can take over a whole lawn. This might not be such a problem when it comes to the lawn, as it lessens the need for mowing, but it can be a serious problem if it takes over flower or vegetable beds.

There is more than one species of this flowering border plant. One, L. Spicata, is also known by the names creeping lily-turf and monkey-grass, is a runner. It is this particular species that is known for its invasiveness because it will create a thick ground cover if left to its own devices for the season.

Any foreign plant that becomes overly aggressive has a tendency to alter the landscape. When large patches of indigenous grasses are replaced by foreign varieties, this can create problems for other creatures who eat the indigenous varieties. Deer, bison, cows, and even human beings can be impacted by the destruction of such an ecosystem.

As landscaping and gardening have become more and more popular, we see more and more foreign plant species being brought to our Nation. Occasionally some get here by accident, hitching a ride on human shoes or in the stomachs of birds. However, most foreign plants have immigrated to America by invitation.

Our first import from China was just such an aggressive plant. Kudzu grows quite well in the temperate climate of the Southeastern United States. While the livestock it was intended to feed would not eat it, the fields where it was first cultivated became the first death fields of healthy vines killing massive trees.

The one good use they did find for this plant was preventing weed encroachment from the railroad lines. This is why one can see fields of the stuff emanating out from the train stations and rails. Keeping it controlled in other areas has proven to be a nearly impossible task.

Because it has literally hundreds of pounds of roots in every small patch, no human can really dig it up. Burning it is only a temporary solution, and one would wish to avoid doing that when the season is extremely dry. Bulldozing an area to around ten feet deep then discarding the dirt, or scorching it free of all life forms, is the only method of eradication which has shown promise.

Hopefully we humans have learned our lesson about moving plants from one part of the world to another. What is a well-controlled succulent in one country can become an out-of-control, seed-tossing, watery nightmare in another. Many of the plants that the Native Americans lived on are now believed to be extinct due to plants like kudzu and L. Spicata.




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