Weekend Blog Blogging

The past week in invasive species via the rest of the blogosphere:

• Missouri Stream Team #2945 discovered evidence of someone dumping the contents of their aquarium in the Spring River...either that or Missouri's riverbeds have got naturally royal blue gravel :-).
• Hoosier Wordsmith muses about planting English ivy...and later unplanting it.
• The From the Field blog has a post about soil sampling as a way of learning more about the distribution of black and pale swallow-wort.

Weekend Photoblogging

Dirty Tricks
Originally uploaded by Anita Gould.

Today we have a nice demo of the power of invasive ivy (Hedera sp.). Anita cleared a spot in her backyard and sowed some native wildflower seed, but the allelopathy of the ivy has forced a buffer zone of a foot or two where very little can grow.

You can read more about English ivy and allelopathy here (.pdf).

Weekend Photoblogging

Invasive Ivy #3
Originally uploaded by urbanwild.

Nice photo of a full-blown ivy invasion (Hedera sp.) in Vancouver, BC, Canada. For more information about English ivy as an invasive plant, visit the No Ivy League website.