Operation Eradicate the Invasives
I had looked at them long enough, threatened to get rid of them since the moment I first spied their wretched branches invading my sacred forest. For the last time I gazed through my sliding glass door with nothing but contempt and hostility. In the words of my dearly departed mother: “This mess is about to meet its Waterloo.”
This year, the thick patch of invasive privet hedge will leave my holy forest, or my name isn’t Renea “eradicator-of-the-privet-hedge” Winchester.
The hedge that grew in the Mother Country isn’t the same shrubbery currently overtaking Appalachia. Hailed as a glorious shrub, folk planted boxwoods, Buxus sempervirens, everywhere; particularly to frame their homestead, and also beside the outhouse for wind protection. Like the Knights who say “Ni” in Monty Python and the Holy Grail—whom, of course, were the keepers of the sacred woods—planting shrubbery on the holy ground of a homestead is incredibly important. In Appalachia during the 1930s and 1940s, having a shrubbery was a symbol of prominence, and you can come across them at old homesites while hiking the back country.
However, boxwoods and privet are not the same. Like all good deeds which eventually become punishment, privet was introduced centuries ago and we’ve been trying to reclaim the ground ever since.
Back in the day, Appalachian settlers built homes, tended their fields and put down the roots of the boxwoods, which are notoriously slow growing. Then along about 1952, someone bought a sack of rootlets advertised as a “garden plant.” Suddenly, there was a new shrubbery in town. One you could plant in rows as a privacy fence. As an added bonus, Ligustrum vulgare, known as European or “wild” privet, has lance-shaped leaves which would grow rapidly, filling in spaces far quicker than the native mountain laurel and rhododendron. These new-to-us varieties came with an added bonus of producing flowers. I’m sure no one mentioned at the time that every obnoxiously smelling flower puts forth a seed, and behind every seed is a hungry bird waiting to gobble down the rock hard seed, then expel it into the fertile Appalachian mountains in a wet clod of poo.
It should also be noted that any botanical plant with the name “vulgare” as a species should be highly suspect. While the name means “common” or “plain,” eradicating the vulgar privet is a pain.
Privet, you see, loves to take root in forests near a body of water, stream, or pond where the dappled sunlight encourages the bird-pooped seeds to find a home. While peddling their promises, the shrubbery salesmen failed to tell us privet will crowd out every other plant you have, especially our beloved mountain laurels and rhododendron. Privet will escape on the wings of birds, and like other plants that have adapted to man’s concocted chemical sprays, privet also escapes using runners.
It’s a vile plant straight from the pits of ... well, you know.
My friend Doe has fought a losing battle with privet for decades. At the bottom of her property is a private cemetery with graves predating the civil war. There are also bushes that have grown several inches in diameter which are pushing the stones over. Being a good steward of this cemetery, she’s cut down the wayward privet with the chainsaw only to watch water sprouts emerge alongside the stumps. This is why spraying isn’t effective, nor is cutting the plant down to ground level.
“You know the only way to get rid of them?” I asked one evening while we were on the phone.
“Pull it up by the roots,” she said.
“Then burn it.” I added.
Encouraged by our pep talk, I stepped into the woods beside my house, and, using my best accent proclaimed to the uninvited shrubbery: “Woe ye vile privet, this is the year ye shalt leave my noble estate. I am sick to the teeth of gazing upon thine branches. Thus, for one hour each day, I shalt pull ye up by ye wretched roots, beat the dirt from betwixt ye gnarled tubers, and then place thee in the fiery embers where ye shalt surely perish. Never more shalt ye reside in this land.”
I made this official proclamation in December. Yeah, I know ... it’s cold.
The temperature was above 50 on day one of my mission, and I managed to remove a goodly amount of “The Invasives.” Trouble was, I had piled them onto a tarp that was now too heavy and bulky for me to slide through the forest and onto my burn pile. After tugging and pulling, huffing and puffing, I gave up and carried the privet out in small bundles, which was made far more difficult because they had invited another offender to the party, the wild rose.
It’s remarkable how much one accomplishes with discipline and a firm timeline. One hour. No phone. No Facebook. No distractions. Nothing but head-down real work.
Since the privet took residence in a wet weather stream, the land is rocky and soupy with murky water that quickly covered my boots and pants legs. Upon liberating the plant from the earth, I slung the roots against the nearest tree, shedding excess dirt. This effectively covered my face and hair with grit. However, all who manage their forest know to leave every possible ounce of dirt in place. Ideally, we want to remove what isn’t native and leave behind the moss and leaf litter.
Day two: Scratched with the barbs of roses and sore from the tugging, I enter the zone undefeated.
Day three: Husband says, “Honey, you’re overdoing it. That mess will still be there tomorrow.”
Me: “It shalt not. For I shalt pull up more today!”
On day three I wised up and took three bungee cords into the forest which I used to tie up the bundle of displaced privet for easier extrication.
Operation Eradicate the Invasives
The slow-growing, good-natured boxwood.
Ideally, the stacking of a proper brush pile begins with the placement of tinder which, when lit, will burn hot and fast, casting minimal smoke. However, I had lit what my Native American friends call a “white man’s fire,” meaning that joker smoked up half the holler.
Ok, it was the entire holler. Thick as pea soup it was. Cut me some slack. I’m trying to be a good steward and tend my forest so that privet doesn’t cover all of Western North Carolina.
I had piled an abundance of pasteboard boxes at the bottom of the pile and tried my best to stack privet with the wet roots pointed away from the flame so that the heat from the burning would dry the roots. Privet burns hot and soon the fire needed to be fed.
This is where the smoke came in.
Remember the wild rose entangled in the privet?
It isn’t enough to pull up roses by the roots, one must also burn them to a crisp. Trouble is, it takes a mighty hot flame to burn wild rose, and so when I tossed them upon the fire, tendrils of white smoke boiled and traveled far down the holler. My husband was inside, as he is wont to let me do what I want to do in the forest.
“Smoking out the entire community, I see,” he casually said from the porch a few minutes later.
I paid no mind. Back to the forest I went to pick up the fallen limbs of dead poplar to feed the fire. I piled the last bundle of privet onto the blaze and then turned to go get more.
I shalt not be defeated in my quest. Nay, I shalt emerge victorious, and the forest shalt be healthier for it.