Pushy Plants
BRADY TWP — Everyone has heard the advice, “When life hands you lemons, make lemonade.”
But, “When life hands you multiflora rose, make tea?” Not so much.
On Saturday, more than 80 volunteers donned gloves and slogged through steady rainfall across the grounds of Jennings Environmental Education Center, not only culling some of the invasive plant species there, but also learning how to incorporate those plants into meals.
The lunch provided to volunteers by North Country Brewery included black bean loaf made with dandelions and garlic mustard, as well as knotweed soup.
“(The food) alone makes it worthwhile,” said volunteer Bill Mertens of Clay Township.
Bill and his wife Linda Mertens are regulars at the annual event, done to help restore native habitats at the state park.
“We've done this the past three or four years,” said Mertens, adding he used to work at Jennings when he was in high school. “I've always had a special fondness for this place.”
Dale Margus and Jammie Kikel each have spent more than five years as state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources' maintenance men at Jennings.
They said the volunteer program is a great help with preventive maintenance, since invasive plants are a major factor in the decline of native plant species.
“The biggest things we're going to be going after today are garlic mustard, multiflora rose, Japanese barberry, Japanese knotweed and autumn olive,” Margus said.
“The list is even longer, but that's just the main stuff we're going after today.”Also on that list: Norway maple, bush honeysuckle and purple lustrife.“People get to learn what the invasive species are, so they know what to look for in their own yards,” Kikel said.“Our biggest problem here is the garlic mustard. Nothing here eats it.”Kikel said the plant, native to Europe, draws insects like the West Virginia White Butterfly to lay eggs on it, thinking the young will eat the plant; they don't.“(Invasive plant species are) a problem the world over,” Kikel said.“If you look at some Japanese forests, American red maple is taking them over.”Jenna Kessler of Boyerstown, Pa., worked alongside two of her Slippery Rock University classmates, pulling garlic mustard plants around the environmental center.As a junior in environmental studies, Kessler must devote 100 hours to community service for her major.“Sunday is Earth Day and I really wanted to do something for the environment,” she said.“(The outdoors) is very easy to fall in love with. I would love to come back and do this again. We're with good people.”In addition to its small white blossoms, the garlic mustard plant is easily identified by another trait, Kessler said.“You can smell the garlic on the leaves.”Jennings center Manager Wil Taylor said he thinks the multiflora rose is the biggest threat at Jennings.The berry-producing multiflora rose was introduced and its planting encouraged by the state game commission in the 1970s.“Animals love to eat it, and it provides great cover, but we didn't realize it would be so prolific,” Taylor said.The thorn-covered multiflora rose, as well as the garlic mustard plant, can produce a million seeds per year, making it very important to pull the plants before they begin to seed.Other plants, such as the knotweed, are best treated with chemicals, since pulling them leaves behind small portions of roots that can grow into multiple new plants.
The Mertens pulled the unenviable assignment of yanking thorny multiflora rose from the foliage around Jennings.“They're like barbed wire,” Bill Mertens said.Linda Mertens though said pulling the plants has educational value, in that people know what to identify in their own yards.Also, multiflora rose berries aren't just popular with the birds.“I make tea out of (the berries) all winter. They're an excellent source of vitamin C,” Linda Mertens said.Girl Scouts Elena Messina of Grove City and Abigail Brockett of Jackson Township, both 12, represented Troop 20595 on Saturday to earn scouting badges.“It will be fun, I think,” Messina said.Brockett said she is likely to return to the event in future years, joking “I just like yanking things out of the ground.”The battle against invasive species is one of three big volunteer events at Jennings throughout the year, with the other two being trail maintenance and prairie improvement.“You all are doing a great service,” Taylor told the assembled volunteers.“And you'll have a chance to get revenge on some of those plants (by eating them).”In addition to a tasty, invasive species-based meal, volunteers got a native plant to take home, either a black-eyed Susan, bee balm, blazing star or false sunflower (also called ox eye), to plant in their own gardens.
