When Should We Worry About Invasive Plants?

Sorry, I scraped this image of Japanese Honeysuckle from the internet. But are there any rules left anymore? It doesn’t seem like it. Thank you to whoever took it.

I was scrolling through Instagram the other day and saw one of my favorite foragers, with over 1 million followers, insist that everyone kill invasive Honeysuckle. She is not the first to say this. Some of my most vociferous critics loathe and despise honeysuckle and insist it must be banished from the woods. Ironically (or not) I live on Honeysuckle Road and absolutely adore the spring scent that fills the air with sweetness. When I was a kid, we would pick the flowers and suck the tiny sweet juice from the stem. It always struck me as one of the finest harbingers of early summer.

Now, I know, there are many types of honeysuckles, native and non-native. The specific one that people are told to kill is Japanese Honeysuckle, which is everywhere around here. It’s easy to do an internet search and find all the reasons that it is terrible and dangerous for the environment, even though birds love it and it has healing qualities. It’s harder to find out why it shouldn’t be killed. And so I did what I do in these situations…I went on a shamanic journey to talk to Honeysuckle and find out what’s up.

The first thing she showed me (yes, imagine a fairy that looks like a honeysuckle blossom but is all flowing and glowing and sparkling with mischief) was the pollinators that flock to her blossoms. All sorts of insects feed off her nectar and pollen and revel in her deliciousness.

“We are always moving. You can’t stop us. Come along with us!” She said. I also heard over and over the phrase “The Great Migration.”

The term The Great Migration refers to the moment in history when over six million African Americans moved from the South to the North, to escape agricultural hardship, Jim Crow laws, lynchings, and general economic despair. I’ve learned a lot about the Great Migration from my favorite TV show, Finding Your Roots. After watching nine seasons, I can legitimately say that migration is simply a core function of the human species. When we are in trouble, hungry, or pushed out by catastrophes, or despotic leaders we move. We move to survive. That’s what Honeysuckle is doing, too. If people do it, why can’t plants and animals?

She also showed me how the landscape might change in our future, with flooding specifically. I asked if I should build a boat like Noah (I mean, why not ask?) and she said that a boat wouldn’t save me. To drive home her point, I saw mega yachts swirling into a giant whirlpool in the ocean, like being flushed down a toilet.

“Honeysuckle is the least of your problems, my dear.” She said as the journey ended.

In fact, she showed me that Honeysuckle creates a ring of protection around things — people, places, woods, homes. I thought about how much energy people spend trying to eliminate things for man-made reasons, not realizing that nature has its own logic and wisdom for what it does. I also thought about how much people hate and resist change in general, and yet it is inevitable and unstoppable, just like Honeysuckle.

Earlier this week I finally got up the courage to go visit one of my old buildings. When it was first built by my parents, it was a distribution center and warehouse. Over time it became a repository for all the things that didn’t have a place. Old filing cabinets. Old HR files. Library book overflows. Artwork. Chairs. Tables. Supplies for annual events. A mish-mash of stuff. After we sold the company, it became the weekly meeting place for me and the last few employees, the lawyer, and Nicole, who was the master of all the logistics as we unwound every single aspect of the business. It took us almost 5 years. Fortunately, we had good sandwiches. When a retirement home community purchased our old office building and warehouse, they rented the warehouse to a local newly formed non-profit, Juxtahub, which transformed the old warehouse into an incredible artists’ community, with studio space, classrooms, galleries, and lots of nice bathrooms. I ran into a few former employees at the monthly open house, and couldn’t help but think back to the times when I tried to get everyone to see the change coming in the industry and all our lives, brought on by technology. But either they didn’t want to see it or didn’t know how to respond to it. In the end, all we could do was move out and move on. Migrate.

I think that’s the state we are all in right now. The world, America, and the global order are changing so fast that it’s hard to know how to respond and what to do. Except I do know this: We can’t go back. And spending any second trying to eliminate a plant in nature is a complete waste of our precious time. History shows that humans almost always veer into totalitarianism and insanity when power is threatened — when black people in America get too successful, for example. Or women get too smart and powerful. I saw another content creator suggest that the current backlash against women and higher education by white men is due to the fact that we have been outperforming them by all measures. They are jealous and resentful. And the only way they know how to win is by stealing power — even from other white men (scientists, doctors, men of integrity).

The other place I go to for insight into nature are the books by Ted Andrews. For plants, I use Nature Speak. I literally just looked up Honeysuckle after writing the above words and this is the message:

The new is coming, so learn from your past; adapt and endure.

“Honeysuckle is a shrub with an energy that reminds us to learn from the past (present life or past life) so that mistakes will not be repeated. It may even manifest similar situations we experienced in the past, to enable us to deal with them more productively and to eliminate the karma of such situations. Honeysuckle blossoms are powerful. They remind us it is time to overcome the past and their fragrance and energy will assist us in doing so. They awaken the power in our lost dreams.”

He writes more than this, but that paragraph jumped out at me. Isn’t this what we are all truly facing right now? History is repeating so that we can do things differently this time, or at least try to! For each one of us, that might mean different things. But we owe it to our future selves to try our best to heal, transform, and evolve. Or at the very least, adapt and endure.

So, when should we worry about invasive plants?

Never.

They are the least of our problems. And they are also our allies.

Thank you Honeysuckle!