- The process for creating the test plots is simple. A square is cut and pulled back with a hand rake before the dirt is fluffed and mixed with potting soil to replace the turf. It’s then marked with a yellow pyramid or signage, which protects it from mowing and can draw the attention of citizen scientists, who can add their observations to iNaturalist.
What emerges can be unpredictable. Irons stopped by the three Wheaton plots over Labor Day weekend, and although they’re no more than 100 yards apart, they were distinctly different.
“One is totally covered in purslane, plantain, dandelion, spotted spurge, and carpetweed—all low-growing, mat-forming, or rosette-forming species—it’s a green carpet,” she said. “While another one nearby has lots of bare soil, but has five pokeweed plants coming up in it, which grow tall and bushy, and will have deep red berries if they get the chance to go to seed before winter. I didn’t see any pokeweed anywhere nearby, so I really wonder how long those seeds have been hanging out in the soil.”
. . . I love this guy. Thank hoh for showing him to me. From the comments, a useful tip . . .Cardboard boxes, flattened & rocks on top helped us to kill a section of lawn without using chemicals. After the grass was dead we rented a sod cutter, flipped the sod, then planted native wildflowers. Now it's a beautiful butterfly garden & I take lots of photos of the beautiful butterflies! Love the video, thanks!!
He's so good, and you'll pick up a half decent botany education if you watch enough! It'll change how nature looks -- my wife has extensive training in botany, and after a few walks through the woods now all these little details show up that I would have missed beforehand. (Also I have a newfound hatred for honeysuckle since it is an invasive species out here.)
No. No berries or flowers of any type. Just green leaves and very red stems. I don't know a lot about plants, but if I had to guess, it was in the knotweed family. That doesn't narrow it down much, I know, but even with field guide books and iNaturalist, plants can be tricky to pin down.
Might be pokeweed. Though at this time of year they usually have berries
It's probably bias from knowing already, but pokeweed looks like it's poisonous and it wants everyone to know it.
Well, there's tons of different methods of seed dispersal for plants, besides just birds eating seed bearing fruit. Other animals, such as deer, coyotes, etc., also eat fruit and carry seeds. But seeds also spread by floating on the wind (think dandelions), catching rides on fur and clothing (think burs), to literally practically bursting forth from their pods and letting fate decide what happens to them. Additionally, some plants, instead of spreading by seeds, like to spread by establishing root colonies and branching out in clusters. Anecdotally, I know the majority of the prolific plants in my yard don't make fruit eaten by birds, so they must be spreading in other ways. As for native/invasive species, plants grow where they can thrive. That said, like animals, plants compete for space and resources. If someone wants to let their yard go fallow and wants to help prevent against invasive species, there's a lot of things they can do from cautious weeding to planting native plants and seeds that can be gotten anywhere from local seed/plant swaps, nurseries, and even stateagricultural and department of natural resources programs.