cac0fae8c8f092b7d7e32f10d5d4e9c220d2969b My Health Is My Life: Caring For Liriope And Ornamental Grass

Caring For 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.

Grasses such as these can grow quite thick, and should be dug up and thinned out every few years. They are regarded as a low-maintenance border or ground cover plant. Even so, it is an invasive species, and if not maintained with reasonable regularity, it can completely take over a garden bed or even an entire lawn.

Bordering grasses such as L. Spicata, also known as monkey-grass, grow in runners and can fill an area quite thickly in a short span of time. For this reason, this particular species is regarded as invasive. L. Muscari is a much less invasive form of such greenery, but these grasses are routinely mislabeled when being sold to gardeners.

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.

This plant has been reported to grow more than a foot a day in summer, and the foliage lays above hundreds of pounds of roots for every few feet. This means eradicating it is costly, and not always successful. Many people will burn it back weekly just to prevent their house from being eaten.

Since then kudzu has continued to encroach anywhere it gets left to do so. It can grow more than a foot a day in the summer, so unless people are there to cut it or burn it back, it will destroy everything around. Trees, grasslands, and even houses easily fall prey to the tendrils which can go on for miles.

We humans have failed our planet in many ways. The spread of invasive animals and plants is just one manner in which we have used the planet without asking for Her blessing. Now our native plants and grasses are diminishing due to the careless nature of human beings.




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