Gardener Maddy (@flowertentatl) had been wrestling with Chinese privet in her garden, and found a fix to share with her TikTok followers.
Maddy showed how she identified Chinese privet seedlings in her garden, and suggested weeding after it rained, as the soil would be nice and loose.
@flowertentatl Here's an easy invasive removal you can do TODAY- especially if you're in the Atlanta area and got all that rain last night ⛈️ Invasive plants can strangle out your other plants, which harms your local ecosystem and makes it harder to garden! The best thing is to never have invasive plants in the first place… the second best is to do what you can every day. #flowertent #flowertentatl #gardentok #gardening #invasivespecies #invasiveplants #gardening101 #gardeningtips #gardeningforbeginners #gardenhacks ♬ original sound - Maddy from Flower Tent Atlanta
Chinese privet has managed to outcompete other plants so well thanks to adopting tree-like behavior despite being a shrub. Specifically, it has notably wide leaf coverage, able to catch sunlight, and leave little for plants below it. The berries are readily eaten by birds, allowing privet to spread far and wide. Even without the help of birds, the plant can reproduce asexually, making it highly adaptable.
Effectively dealing with invasive species often involves brute manual labor like Maddy is demonstrating. Some gardeners may opt for herbicides, but they tend to be indiscriminate, polluting, and the source of health issues from exposure. It's much better to find chemical-free options for weed removal. One study showed that mechanical removal of Chinese privet is just as effective as chemical methods.
Though keeping your garden clear for whatever else you might want to grow may be reason enough to wrestle with the likes of the Chinese privet, invasive species are a huge ecological problem.
Invasives are typically transported by human activity into new areas where the checks and balances they evolved with simply aren't around. This empowers a species to spread quickly in its new home, monopolizing resources like food and space. Over time, this squeezes out native species, thus reducing biodiversity and vital ecosystem services. Some estimates put the economic impact of invasive species worldwide at hundreds of billions of dollars.
The TikTok community could relate to Maddy's struggle with invasive plants in the garden.
"The bane of my existence," said one viewer.
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