'Invasive' Plants Are Threatening Parks

The Cleveland Metroparks is getting tough on some intruders in the park system -- invasive plants.

The plants -- fast-spreading species not native to this area -- are "pushing our biodiversity around like neighborhood bullies," a Metroparks news release says.

"They're some tough tigers, so to speak," said Bob Rotatori, marketing director for Cleveland Metroparks.

The plants aren't your normal unwanted weeds. They spread quickly to take over an area, choking out other vegetation and disrupting essential relationships between animals, plants and the environment, like food supplies, breeding habitat and water availability. 

Conservative estimates say invasive plant populations now cover 1,000 to 1,400 acres in the Metroparks.

That translates to an average cover of 11 percent per reservation, with a range from 1 percent invaded area to 64 percent.

"They get planted in people's gardens, and then they spread," Rotatori said. "The garden centers are doing a better job now of not selling these plants."

The Metroparks, which has removed invasive plants for years, in 2009 formed an invasive plant strike team that now aggressively pulls out some offenders, like garlic mustard, and uses a gentle herbicide on others. 

The team has held events asking the public to gather to help pull garlic mustard from the Hinckley Reservation.

The park district has identified 12 high-priority species it is taking aim at this year: 

Norway maple, garlic mustard, Japanese barberry, Japanese honeysuckle, Asian bush honeysuckles, purple loosestrife, reed canary grass, phragmites, Japanese knotweed, lesser celandine, glossy and European buckthorn, multiflora rose and narrow-leaved and hybrid cattail.