[APWG] ARTICLE: Seattle & English Ivy

[Olivia Kwong]

Seattle Faces a Foe That's Mean, Green and Growing
English ivy is invading the city's land. Some people
are fighting back.
By Lynn Marshall
LA Times Staff Writer

December 18, 2005

SEATTLE  For the last three years, Chris LaPointe has
waged war against an enemy that he believes threatens
much of the Pacific Northwest, and he has recruited an
army to join his side. He needs all the help he can
get.

The enemy is almost supernaturally hardy: It resists
poisons, can withstand extreme temperatures and can
survive most efforts at cutting it to pieces.

The enemy is English ivy, a nonnative leafy vine that
scientists say threatens entire forests in Washington,
Oregon and British Columbia. The ivy grows and spreads
so fast that it overwhelms native plants, strangles
trees and shrubs, and  if it isn't stopped  can turn
a forest into an "ivy desert."

"I know what this plant can do," says LaPointe, an
organizer for EarthCorps, a nonprofit conservation
group in Seattle.

Since 2002, LaPointe has helped rally thousands of
volunteers to remove English ivy from one of the
city's most popular hangouts, Seward Park. His work
parties, sometimes as large as 300 people, this year
have removed about 114,000 square feet of ivy, which
had devoured a large swath of the park.

It is hard work that entails pulling up the roots by
hand. Thick vines are cut by saws or shears. Any
cutting above the roots often results in the plant
growing back. LaPointe says it can take five hours for
a crew to clear an acre.

English ivy does not grow nearly as fast as kudzu, the
infamously aggressive perennial vine that blankets
much of the South. Kudzu grows as much as a foot a day
at the height of summer and has a much thicker root
structure than English ivy, but over time the effect
on native vegetation is much the same.

In Seattle, where as much as 55% of the city's
forestlands are infested with English ivy, the mayor
has warned that "we're at risk of becoming the city
'formerly known as Emerald.' "

Officials estimate that clearing the urban forests of
ivy and other nonnative plants, and restoring the land
could cost as much as $20,000 per acre, which would
amount to a hefty bill to tackle just the 2,500 acres
deemed most at risk. But the alternative isn't pretty.

"Thirty years from now, there won't be any forest left
[in the city] if we don't do something about it," says
Mark Mead, a forester with the Seattle Parks and
Recreation Department.

English ivy, also known as Hedera helix, is an
evergreen vine with green pointed leaves marked with
white veins. If allowed to mature, the vine produces
white-green flowers in the fall. In the spring, the
flowers bear fruit, which is spread by birds.

The ivy is native to Europe, western Asia and North
Africa, and is believed to have come to the United
States with European immigrants. For decades it was
popular as a landscaping plant, and many gardeners and
landscapers still use it for that purpose.

"This ivy used to be regarded as a great landscape
solution" because of its fast growth and even
coverage, says Jeanne McNeil, executive director of
the Washington State Nursery and Landscape Assn. "It
still can be, if it is kept contained, and not allowed
to mature."

The Oregon Department of Agriculture placed four types
of H. helix on the state's quarantine list in 2002,
banning their sale and importation.

"There was a lot of concern about the damage the ivy
was doing, particularly out of the Portland metro
area," says Tim Butler, manager of the department's
noxious weed program. He says the quarantine has been
effective.

In Washington, English ivy is classified as a class-C
noxious weed, which means that individual counties may
take steps to eradicate the plant. But state officials
have been resistant to the idea of quarantine.

Mary Toohey, assistant director of the state
Agriculture Department, says that such a measure would
have little effect.

Toohey says educating the public is the best way to
combat the spread of English ivy. In addition, she
says, volunteer groups such as EarthCorps have been
effective in clearing areas of the plant.

The Washington State Native Plant Society maintains a
list of ivy-free Nurseries as part of its Ivy Out
campaign, and this year the Washington State Nursery
and Landscape Assn. started a program asking some
members to stop selling H. helix and to educate people
on alternatives.

One nursery that had no problem joining the effort was
Swanson's Nursery, which has been operating in Seattle
for 82 years.

"We had actually already stopped selling the invasive
ivy cultivars a few years back," says Gordon White, a
buyer for Swanson's. White says an increasing number
of people in Seattle are becoming aware of the
problem.

Mead, the Seattle forester, calls English ivy a
"gateway plant."

"English ivy isn't the whole story," Mead says. "We
have to get the other 'invasives' out as well and
restore the forests. But the ivy gives us a focus to
get people involved, and that's how we'll solve the
problem."

Federal agencies spend about $1 billion a year on the
management of invasive species, according to a federal
report issued this year. The report, from the
Government Accountability Office, calls the spread of
invasive species "an explosion in slow motion" with
weeds now covering an estimated 133 million acres
nationwide.

There are no overall federal controls for invasive
weeds. States are left on their own to classify and
deal with such plants, and there is little uniformity
in the regulations.

Horticulture groups say English ivy has spread to at
least 26 states, including California, but the plant
has not been recognized as threatening in all of those
areas. California lists 236 plants as noxious; H.
helix is not one of them.

Back in Seattle's Seward Park, LaPointe, the
EarthCorps organizer, says that when his volunteer
groups started working in the park in 2002, the goal
was to be rid of the ivy by the end of 2003.

Here it is, almost 2006, he says, and "we're still
working on it."