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The new city park's 'native plant' section is a total mess
I checked out the grand opening of Riverside Park's new garden area yesterday. They had a big sign calling it a 'native habitat showcase' but half the plants looked wrong. I spotted at least three species that are invasive here in Ohio, like that awful garlic mustard taking over a corner. They planted them right next to some struggling butterfly weed, which makes no sense. It felt like someone just grabbed whatever was cheap at a nursery without checking. How can a city project get basic local botany so wrong? What's the point of a native garden if it's not actually native?
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quinn_burns3mo ago
You mentioned garlic mustard, but that stuff spreads by seed like crazy (it's a biennial). If they just planted it, it wouldn't be "taking over a corner" yet. It might be something else that looks similar, like a young wild ginger. Still, if they used the wrong plants, that's a huge problem for a native showcase. The struggling butterfly weed next to it says it all.
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pat_rivera3mo ago
Hope they fix that before it spreads.
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michaelgrant1mo ago
My neighbor planted what she thought was "native lupine" last spring and it turned out to be some kind of tall vetch from a discount seed mix (the packaging had fallen off in her shed). It basically strangled her entire front bed by July and the bees couldn't even get to the actual wildflowers underneath. She had to pull the whole thing out by hand, which took her three weekends and a lot of grumbling about cheap shortcuts.
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