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Kill Russian Olives!
- To: "Carolina Birds" <carolinabirds@duke.edu>
- Subject: Kill Russian Olives!
- From: "Tim Lewis" <tlewis@buncombe.main.nc.us>
- Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 13:38:15 -0400
- Sender: carolinabirds-owner@acpub.duke.edu
Speaking of native plants: Growing & Propagating Showy Native Woody
Plants (Richard E Bir, UNC Press) is now remaindered at Deadalus Books
for $6.98. Stock #10378. Something for everyone in this great book.
There is a companion book on native wildflowers available at botanical
gardens and better bookstores.
Deadalus also has Paradise By Design: Native Plants and the American
Landscape $4.98 Stock #01021. By a landscape architect.
Contact Deadalus at 1-800-395-2665 or www.salebooks.com to read the
blurbs and order.
Russian Olive makes nice wood so when you cut it down invite a wood
turner to take the big stuff and turn it into something useful and not
so destructive. I wish we could use Mimosa that way.
Tim Lewis & Lori Unruh
Weaverville, NC
tlewis@buncombe.main.nc.us
>Waxwings continue to descend on our Russian
> Olive's, usually 25-50 in a flock; this has been going on since
> mid-March.
>
> I saw something similar this morning; the Olives were growing along
> the
> route 147 overpass where it crosses Erwin Road in Durham. Sorry to
> say,
> these things should be ripped out of the ground, no matter how much
> (or
> maybe because) the waxwings like them. It's an ecological threat of
> the
> first order. While a handful of bird species feed on the fruits,
> virtually none nest in the dense monocultures it forms, and it also
> wipes
> out native plants and the butterflies and other insects that depend
on
> native plants. Irvin Farm, where I'm leading a Duke Natural History
> Society trip this weekend, is being overrun with the stuff; one of
the
> Triangle Land Conservancy's top priorities for the site is to spend
> lots
> of money eliminating this botanical plague.
>
> For more details about just how nasty Russian Olive (and its cousin
> Autumn Olive) really is, and why it should be removed no matter how
> many
> Cedar Waxwings eat it, see the following websites (especially the
> first
> one, which has an animation sequence showing how it spread across
> Massachusetts):
> http://omega.cc.umb.edu/~conne/jennjim/elangust.html
> http://www.nps.gov/plants/alien/fact/elan1.htm
> http://www.cwma.org/russ_olive.html
> http://www.dcr.state.va.us/dnh/fselum.pdf
> http://infoweb.magi.com/%7Eehaber/factoliv.html
> http://www.mdflora.org/publications/invasives.htm
>
> If you want to attract birds to your yard, use native species, not
> exotic
> weeds like Russian Olive! The Cedar Waxwings have been all over the
> Duke
> campus for weeks attacking the Yaupon Hollies, which are native to
the
> coastal plain. There are some other native hollies to this area,
> like Inkberry and American Holly and Possumhaw (a deciduous species).
> Will
> Cook has some great information on his web site in this vein, and I
> recently gave my fiance a big list of native plants for Valentine's
> Day
> which she is using for her own yard now. I'd be very happy to share
> this
> with anyone who promises to destroy all their Olives, Privets,
> Multiflora
> Roses, Japanese and Bush Honeysuckles, English Ivy, Bamboo, Purple
> Loosetrife, and other non-native weeds...