Fighting the never-ending battle against invasive species
The kids and I have spent several hours in the past few weeks working on our never-ending battle against multiflora rosebushes.
If you’ve ever seen it in full bloom in a field somewhere, you may have thought it was pretty, what with being covered in clusters of small white flowers and all. But if you’ve ever had to attempt to mitigate its effects in a cow pasture or along a bank anywhere, you know it was designed by the devil himself.
According to a 2012 article by the Ecological Landscape Alliance, multiflora rose is an invasive species of perennial shrub that first came to the United States in the 1860s. It was planted heavily in the Midwest by the 1930s to mitigate soil erosion and to keep cattle in pasture, owing to its ability to quickly grow into dense thickets of nearly impenetrable brambles.
Other areas followed suit, and before long it was everywhere.
It took nearly 100 years from its first introduction before anyone began to recognize its invasive and dangerous nature, especially in areas that aren’t managed. By then it was too late.
These things grow so quickly that, if you take even one season off from clearing what you can, it looks as if you’ve abandoned your property completely to nature’s claim. Long branches that touch the ground can sprout roots, as can broken stems. As it grows, leaves, sticks and dirt clog up around it, choking out grasses and legumes and composting itself. It’s like Audrey Two from Little Shop of Horrors, a plant that knows what it needs and how to get it.
Every spring, for as many weekends as I can give to the project, the kids and I do battle. The smallest ones can be cut down with a weed eater, but the larger ones require a chainsaw or loppers. I prefer the loppers because of the odd angles I need to undertake to get to the bottom of the buggers.
One of the kids usually sticks a pitchfork into the mass of thorny arms, pinning them back so that I can get close enough to cut them down. Then we have to pull them up and put them into piles to be burned. Even a small area can take hours to clear because of the care that must be taken to prevent injury.
The thorns on these things are as sharp as a razor.
They also have some kind of mold or bacteria on them that gets pushed into the punctures causing swelling and extreme discomfort. (These roses, also like Audrey Two, enjoy drawing a little human blood from time to time.)
Still, we can’t give in to them without losing all of our pasture, so we keep trying. We mow all of the open areas twice a year and cut as many banks and wooded areas as possible annually. We have increased our rotational grazing intensity, which allows the cows to both nibble the tender young shoots and to trample on what they won’t eat.
What isn’t handled that way will hopefully still be manageable with the weed eater this fall.
We have made two small paddocks rosebush free so far this year, with many more acres needing attention. Hopefully, I’ll have a few more good weekends that I can devote to the project before other things become more pressing.