Here’s a quote for you: “Highly invasive plants left unchecked and not controlled will cause mass destruction of native wildlife”. When you look at the photo below, you begin to understand the hyperbole and goofiness of these people (not to mention the redundancy in their writing due to the fact that they can’t see straight 😡 ).
The above is a more appropriate example of ‘mass destruction of wildlife’, I’d say. Nevertheless, to the NPN, there is little difference in benefit to our native animals between having a yard of non-native plants, or a full-on, red-earth alert followed up by proliferative housing. I wonder at the wildlife potential in a minimally managed, multiple invasive plant greenscape. One thing is for sure…the birds and the bees will come.
Anyway, without further adieu…ever wonder how an NPN (native plant Nazi) is birthed?
Maybe a person is flipping through a mag, or surfing the inter-web, and reads for the first time about the scourge of invasive plants. Then, all of the sudden, a guiding light appears in the deep recesses of his/her aimless mind showing them the way to a purposeful life (becoming a self-deputized volunteer of the plant police force).Or, maybe (unbeknownst to you) an environmental charlatan blinds, then binds you with the fantasy that “You CAN go home again—you can remake the natural world into the way it once was.”
Who would have thunk it that, for some people, what a life renewed ‘looks like’ is to start killing non-native plants by any means necessary. Even God…well, in fact, any god out there would be opining, “That’s nuts.”
George W. Bush once famously said, “I’ve abandoned free market principles to save the free market system.”The NPNs liked that riff so much that they came up with their own variant: “To save the natural world, we must first poison it.” Some day NPNs will be referenced as ‘insanity defined’ (like Bush and his speech writer should have been).
Emotions are powerful. They often overrun reason making it difficult to process information and, therefore, notice that you’ve fallen overboard. Here is a fact for you: You can never go home again! And, another fact: You can’t win the war on these ‘bad’ plants, so you better look for some other purpose for yourself.
Lucky for you, I have an idea for how you can re-purpose. If you want to do something, look in on the ‘alpha original intent’ and ‘makeover tips’ pages. Reason reigns there.
