Published: November 14, 2009 11:54 pm         

B-Sides: Honeysuckle: A guest that has long overstayed its invitation

TERRE HAUTE — The ideal climate for honeysuckle bushes is temperate, but they probably grow well in hell.

Sorry, my Bart Simpson side seizes my self-control at the mere mention of those heinous plants, commonly known as Asian bush honeysuckle. The scientific names of the varieties growing in Indiana are Lonicera maackii, Lonicera x bella, Lonicera morrowii, Lonicera tatarica and botanicalpain inthe rearus.

OK, the last one was a joke. Still, plant and wildlife experts aren’t calling these honeysuckles “insidious” for nothing.

They came to Indiana, and other states, from Japan and East Asia shortly after World War II. No doubt, they seduced Hoosier gardeners with their sweet-smelling tubular flowers and Ferrari-red berries. But, like gossip and communicable diseases, they spread. A half-century later, they’ve infiltrated parks, forests, prairies, wetlands, orchards, road sides, gardens and back yards.

Worst of all, it behaves like John Belushi’s character, “The Thing That Wouldn’t Leave,” on “Saturday Night Live.”

Instead of rummaging through the host’s refrigerator and making a few long-distance phone calls, the honeysuckles hog the nutrients, sunlight and water that native plants also need. The Lonicera grow fast, sending multiple “runners” — new plant starts — in every direction, and release a chemical that inhibits the growth of other plants. By elbowing out their botanical brethren, they also eliminate sources of food and canopy cover for birds, leaving them open to predators.

Environmentalists suspect that honeysuckle may even chase off honeybees, for cryin’ out loud.

This summer, Gov. Daniels signed a law creating a state Invasive Species Council to help battle a problem that costs Hoosiers millions of dollars annually to manage.

The unwanted influx of Asian bush honeysuckle at Dobbs Park in Terre Haute inspired TREES Inc. to conduct the second-annual campaign to remove it from the 105-acre nature preserve. The volunteers were scheduled to work there on Saturday. Other groups, such as the Audubon Society, college fraternities and sororities, and youth and school clubs have tugged, pulled, chopped and cut the stubborn honeysuckle at Dobbs.

“This is really an ongoing project,” Jane Creedon, director of the park’s Native American Museum, said Friday. “We could still be doing it [daily until] a year from now, and still not be done with it.”

I can relate to that.

A few years ago, my wife and I decided to get rid of the jungle-thick row of honeysuckles — dozens of them — bordering two sides of our property. It was the largest honeysuckle crop east of the Mississippi. (That’s an exaggeration, I think.) It seemed like a simple project. Fire up the chainsaw, cut, load, dispose, and voila — no more honeysuckles.

Three years later, we’d sawed and chopped enough bushes in our free time to qualify for loggers’ union cards. We’d endured poison ivy injections, and more scrapes and abrasions than a UFC fighter. Honeysuckle is unforgiving. When you try to reach under its canopy to cut at its base, its limbs whip back and smack you. Its wood is uneven and scratchy. The most effective way to get rid of it is to pull up its root crown and attack any remnants with herbicide, said Purdue University weed science professional Glenn Nice.

Otherwise, after superficial chopping and cutting, it just grows back.

“It’s very aggressive, and it bounces back very well,” Nice said. “It can re-colonize an area very well.”

More aptly, he added, “It becomes a real nasty kind of thicket.”

Nasty.

That’s exactly how I viewed honeysuckle after waging agricultural war on our row. Just when we’d healed more cuts and skin rashes than we ever cared to, and worn out our chainsaw, a neighbor — thankfully, and without having to be asked — finished the plants off. As I headed out to work one morning, this kind fellow — a farmer — was using his backhoe knocking down the last of the honeysuckle stumps and stray trees that had managed to survive amidst the bushes.

Nowadays, the honeysuckle-free air around our place couldn’t smell sweeter.



Mark Bennett can be reached at (812) 231-4377 or mark.bennett@tribstar.com.

     

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