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Invasive Plant In PA That Harbors Ticks With Lyme Disease, How To Spot And Remove It


mr.d

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Invasive plant in PA that harbors ticks with Lyme Disease, how to spot and remove it


by Ed Russo

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Japanese barberry, an invasive ornamental plant, is a perfect home for deer ticks

FRANKLIN COUNTY — Pennsylvania is a beautiful state. Gorgeous rolling hills, to endless mountain ridges, and countless streams and rivers. Unfortunately, the landscape is also host to the deer tick.

As a result, the state is one of the worst in the country for Lyme Disease cases. There's one plant in particular that harbors them.

Japanese barberry, an invasive ornamental plant, is a perfect home for them.

"In Michaux State Forest, they recently removed eight acres of this plant. It's highly invasive and it crowds out our native plants," says Heather Andrews, known as ‘The Thoughtful Gardener’ in Mechanicsburg.

"The challenge of importing these exotic plants is because we don't know what they'll do, they can have a really terrible effect on the environment. Because deer and other wildlife don't eat them, they can absolutely harbor ticks," says Andrews.

You can’t just pull Japanese barberry out of the ground. It’s tough. You have to cut it, and then you have to rip it out making sure you grab all of the roots. The first thing you need is a cutter... a pair of loppers... or clippers!

Wear gloves! The plant is prickly.

You must have the right tools for removal or this bush will come back time after time.

And what's worse...

"It puts out a chemical that tells the native plants to stop growing." says Andrews.

This is the bush's *true colors*.

The next step is to shovel, like I said you have to dig the roots out and sometimes that requires going deep. It's tough. When near a tree, it’s even tougher because when you dig deep, you often hit the roots.

With lots of effort, you can eventually get the job done.

Try and remove as much of this bush from your property as possible. Don't just do it to help decrease the tick population. Do it for the exercise, do it for the environment, or do it because you just want to have fun!                                                                                                                                    SEE VIDEO    ;    https://wjactv.com/news/local/invasive-plant-in-pa-that-harbors-ticks-with-lyme-disease-how-to-spot-and-remove-it

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  • mr.d changed the title to Invasive Plant In PA That Harbors Ticks With Lyme Disease, How To Spot And Remove It

Removing Japanese barberry from your yard isn't going to remove the tick population from your yard. One of the prime culprits for harboring the tick is the white tailed mouse as well as other mammals that live in burrows. The white tailed mouse is one of the prime carriers for the bacteria that causes Lyme Disease. The ticks and their offspring feed on the mice in the winter. You and the deer are summer food. The ticks like shade so that is where they congregate. You are just as likely to find them hiding in tall grass, hedgerows or deep woods. I got my first tick picking leeks not pruning barberries.

I have no problem with the idea of removing barberries if they become invasive but I haven't seen it locally. It might happen but give that as a reason for removing them not some questionable study that counted ticks and counted barberries and decided there was a correlation. There are a million other factors out there that can affect tick populations. Did they count the mice and the deer that the ticks feed on? Fewer mice, fewer deer equals fewer ticks. Since the ticks only use the barberries for shade in the summer there isn't any reason that any other planting that produces shade won't work as an alternate. Are they going to remove their food source which would be more effective?

This is like the masks. Let's find a scapegoat and use that as the solution to a complex problem. If you can't run an experiment that has controls and can be repeated with the same results then don't call it "science." 

 

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We had to remove a huge beautiful Barberry at the Demonstration Gardens in Brookville.  It took days of digging and cutting roots, and finally a truck to haul out the root ball.  You can still find them at every Big Box store and Nursery.  I've never seen one spread around here, but further South, lots of plants are more invasive such as Yellow Honeysuckle, Privet and Buddleia (Butterfly Bush).  

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