Removing Invasive Honeysuckle & Burning Bush

This weekend, I spent a good amount of time and energy removing invasive plants from the "yard". For this blog post, the "yard" refers to both a traditional mown and fenced backyard space which we call the Dog Yard because we built it for our dog and the wooded acre in front of our house. I mainly removed Burning Bush but I also cut back Japanese Honeysuckle. 

In this post, I'll share what I am learning about those two plants (Burning Bush and Japanese Honeysuckle) and some of my reasons for removing them. I'll start by explaining why I work to remove invasive plants from the land around my house. 

There are many plants that are native to USDA Zone 7a. These awesome plants include Dogwood, Sassafras, and Eastern Redbud Trees. Native plants support native insects and other native animals. I believe that native plant species have a right to exist and a right to exist here in their indigenous region. They have lived here for thousands of years. These native plants were here before this land was invaded by English colonists. 

Indigenous people had extensive trade networks before the arrival of the English colonists and cultivated plants that they farmed. Plants traveled to this region along those trade routes. I have heard that those pre-colonial Indigenous people had a great respect for and knowledge of plants. Hopefully, that respect for plants meant that there were no great extinctions of plant and animal species due to human activity prior to the arrival of the English colonists in the 1600s. 

After colonization, many new plant species came to this land from all over the world. Some of those plants came from Europe. Recently, many plants have come here from Asia.  Some of these plants were brought in from different parts of the globe to be used for agricultural purposes. Many other invasive plants were imported for horticultural purposes as ornamental garden plants. 

Non-native plants can spread quickly when they find themselves here in this land without predators or competition from other plants from their native ecosystems. Plants from Britain, Europe and Asia literally choke out native plants of Virginia. Theses invasive plants also compete with native plants for sunlight, water and space. They grow and cast shade over native plants that need sunlight. Their roots suck up the water that should be watering native plants. 

Native insects and other animals evolved to rely on, and to live in close relationships with, native plants. Native ecosystems flourished here prior to colonization. Many of the native fauna are not yet extinct, but are threatened as the native plants that they eat become scarce. 

Both of the invasive plant species that I have been removing this weekend are from Asia. According to Brandeis University, "Japanese Honeysuckle is native to Asia, and it was introduced to New York in 1806. It arrived in New England as an ornamental vine."(1) According to the USDA Forestry Service, "Burningbush was first introduced in the United States in the 1860s. It has escaped cultivation or become invasive mostly in the northeastern United States."(2)

Japanese Honeysuckle was imported from Asia for ornamental use in gardens. It has completely taken over Virginia. I grew up thinking that honeysuckle was a native plant because it grew along so many fences throughout Virginia and because of the tradition of sucking nectar out of the trumpet-shaped flowers. Honeysuckle was a big part of my childhood in rural Virginia. I only learned that it was invasive and called Japanese Honeysuckle, not simply Honeysuckle, a couple of years ago. At that same time, I also learned that there are native honeysuckles including Coral Honeysuckle. I am working to remove the Japanese Honeysuckle that is growing on my dog yard fence and replace it with plantings of native vines. 
That is a picture of one section of my dog yard fence covered in Japanese Honeysuckle earlier this evening before I cut it all off of the fence. 
I got these very handy pruners from Tractor Supply today. Since I'm writing this during the COVID-19 pandemic, my husband drove to Tractor Supply after ordering the pruners and other items online for curbside pickup. He wore a mask as the items were delivered to his truck and washed his hands and sprayed disinfectant on everything as soon as he got home. I thought it was funny that my new little pruners are Corona brand because I bought them during the Corona-virus pandemic. 
These pruners are great for cutting down Japanese Honeysuckle! I really like them. 

I had to be cautious while cutting the honeysuckle off of the fence because some native Poison Ivy was also growing there! I carefully cut the Japanese Honeysuckle and left the native Poison Ivy. 

There also was a bunch of Japanese Honeysuckle growing on the fencing around my vegetable garden raised beds. 
That picture shows what it looked like before I cut the honeysuckle down. The honeysuckle was pulling the fencing down which would make it easier for deer to eat my vegetable plants. It was also blocking the sun from my vegetable plants. I'm glad I was able to use my pruners to cut it off of the raised bed fencing. 
Here is what it looked like after my work tonight. 

I have also been removing a plant that is commonly called Burning Bush from all over the front yard. I am a member of the Virginia Native Plant Society and I'm in their Facebook group. I posted a photo of some shrubs that I had noticed growing in my yard and around my neighborhood. Other members of the Virginia Native Plant Society Facebook group identified the shrubs as "Burning Bush". The PlantSnap app identified the shrubs as poison sumac which I knew was incorrect, but that app eventually did suggest Burning Bush as an option for one of the photos of the shrubs. 

The plant that I'm referring to as "Burning Bush" is also called Winged Burning Bush, Winged Wahoo and Winged Euonymus. It's Latin name is Euonymus alatus. (3) I am not very familiar with this plant because I only learned how to identify it this week. Hopefully I'm identifying it correctly! I'm not entirely sure that I am. 

We do have a native Euonymus that is commonly called Hearts-a-bursting (Euonymus americanus), but it looks, from pictures, like that plant has flowers that are spaced further apart and stems that are smoother than the invasive Euonymus alatus. 

It appears as though Asian Burning Bush has been planted in gardens along my road, although I never planted any in my garden. 
Birds probably ate the seeds produced by those Burning Bushes (5) and defecated them out into my yard. Many hundreds of Burning Bushes are growing in my yard! 
Luckily we have had a huge amount of rain this week so I have been able to pull the small Burning Bush saplings out of the wet ground fairly easily.
Pulling the plants out, roots and all, is definitely the best way to remove them. 
Notice the lovely little native Eastern Red Bud Tree that was trying to grow under the Burning Bush who will now have more sunshine since I pulled out the invasive plants. 
I had to use large tree pruners to cut down the larger, more mature Burning Bush plants, one of which was giant. 
It feels like a never-ending task because there are so many of these invasive plants, but the good news is that I am finding small native trees like Dogwoods, growing beneath them. The Red Buds and Dogwoods will be able to grow much bigger now that I have removed some of the Burning Bush. 
This native Sassafras tree is much happier now that I have removed some invasive plants that were crowding it, although you can see in this photo that it is still threatened by the invasive Japanese Honeysuckle growing nearby. 
I'm to drag the Burning Bush cuttings and saplings out of the woods and I plan to pile them into a bonfire to be burned once it stops raining. 
Very frustratingly, this highly invasive plant that is taking over the yard is still being sold at nurseries and garden centers. I been spending a huge amount of time and energy removing it. My back and arms are very sore from doing this work.  Please don't plant Euonymus alatus in your garden! 

UPDATE: I read a guide called Invasive Plants and their Native Look-a-likes and now I think that the plant I thought was "Burning Bush" was actually our native Hearts-a-bursting Euonymus. I'm concerned that I may have removed a bunch of native plants by accident. Luckily I left a bunch of the plants and I just won't remove any more. 

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