Answering your invasive species questions: a Q&A with Chris Evans

Erin Garrett: 00:00

Hey, Everyday Environment listeners. Erin Garrett here. For our final episode of our invasive species season, we have something a little different. Last week, we did an invasive species livestream on Facebook with Chris Evans answering your invasive species questions. Abigail and I had a lot of fun chatting with Chris for an hour, so we thought we'd share that audio recording as our podcast episode this week.

Erin Garrett: 00:22

You can also find the recording on our Illinois Extension Facebook page or YouTube channel if you'd prefer to watch us have this discussion rather than just listen. Thank you so much for listening along with us this season, and we hope you enjoy this episode.

Abigail Garofalo: 00:43

Okay, everyone. Welcome to Everyday Environment Live, invasive Q and A, where we are talking with an expert about the questions you have with your everyday environment, specifically invasive species. I'm your host, Abigail Garofalo.

Erin Garrett: 00:58

And I'm your cohost, Erin Garrett.

Abigail Garofalo: 01:00

And today we are here with Chris Evans, extension forestry and research specialist to answer your questions about invasive species, whether it's about management, regulation, what's invasive, what's not, restoration after invasive removal, and more. Drop your questions in the chat, and we've also been collecting questions from comments in our blog, our podcast, social media, and our extension colleagues. So there's no shortage of questions today from our audiences. While we are waiting for people to hop on and type their questions though, we thought that we'd take just a minute to tell you a little bit about everyday environment. You may have seen us on Illinois Extension's Facebook page where you're watching us now, and or you may be a loyal subscriber.

Abigail Garofalo: 01:45

Shout out to our subscribers. We are a group of natural resource professionals who work for Illinois Extension. There's myself, Erin Garrett Amy Lefringhouse and Emily Steele. And we are all working to explore these, like, intricate web of connections that bind us to the natural world. We're looking at all aspects of our environment from water, air, energy, plants, animals, and all those really complex nitty gritty interactions in between.

Abigail Garofalo: 02:12

So our series really aims to meet you where you want to learn and where you have the time and space to do it. You can check out our blogs for an easy read. You can, listen to our podcast to keep you company on your commutes or your workouts, or you can watch our short videos while you scroll through social media. Lastly, we do have our webinars. Those are great opportunities for you to explore a topic with an expert like Chris here, and just learn a lot more about something that might be kind of interesting to you, which leads us to why we're here today.

Abigail Garofalo: 02:43

So let's introduce our fearless expert, Chris. I'll turn it over to you to introduce yourself.

Chris Evans: 02:49

Hey. Thanks, Abigail, and nice to see you again, and you too, Erin. I'm pretty excited about this. I have not done a live Q and A before, so I I'm as you said, I'm an extension forestry specialist here at the university and have done a lot of stuff on invasives, so I'm excited to see what people want to know about.

Abigail Garofalo: 03:09

Yeah. It's gonna be an awesome time. We're really excited, and we'll have Erin look at our questions.

Erin Garrett: 03:14

Yeah. Thank you. We've got a few questions coming in. So while those are continuing, add those to the chat. We're gonna get started kind of with an overall broad question about invasives.

Erin Garrett: 03:25

So, Chris, can you just talk a little bit? There's a lot of terms that we talk about when it comes to invasives, things like exotic, noxious, and the word invasive itself. Can you talk a little bit about the difference between those terms and why we use certain ones in certain instances and that?

Chris Evans: 03:42

Sure, sure. And I think it's important to kind of cover this because, you know, these words do have specific meanings. So I'll start with exotic first. So exotic just simply means that that's a species that's not a natural part of that ecosystem. So it was it either was, you know, evolved somewhere else or it was kind of from somewhere else, and it's not naturally there.

Chris Evans: 04:06

So that's exotic. That doesn't really describe that it's problematic or anything. It's just kind of aimed at where it's native to. And then an invasive would be an exotic species, so a species that's not native to that ecosystem, and then does some kind of there's some kind of negative consequence for it being in that ecosystem. We tend to call that damage, but there's some impacts, I guess you would say.

Chris Evans: 04:27

And then really, that's important to be an invasive. It has to have these kind of negative consequences of it being there. And then noxious is really kind of different. Noxious is really more of a legal term. So there's the federal noxious species list, there's state noxious weed list.

Chris Evans: 04:44

And so I tend to use, and most people tend to use the word noxious not as a synonym for invasive, but instead of a species that's regulated under those specific rules. And so that's kinda how I I like to separate those those three terms out.

Abigail Garofalo: 04:58

Yeah. I my family or I've I've heard, like, people say this, oh, that thing, it's so invasive. Right? It's usually used as a term to describe just something that's annoying. But I'm curious, like, you said it's, like, non native.

Abigail Garofalo: 05:15

Right? Like and it's also causing some kind of damage. Are there, like, things that we would consider annoying and non native, but maybe not invasive? Like, we've gotten questions about crabgrass, for example. Would we consider that invasive?

Chris Evans: 05:31

Yeah. Not really. So, again, it goes back to that kind of ecological or economic damage and and, you know, yard weeds, just things that are that are even pretty prevalent on the landscape if they don't have that that kind of negative ecological impact, it it doesn't really fall into that category. So, I mean, like, dandelions are a great example. Dandelions are a European species.

Chris Evans: 05:54

They're really, really widespread. They're certainly exotic, but they're not invasive because there's really no negative impact for them being on the landscape. So yeah, I guess that's why there's actually probably more species that are annoying or exotic than there are invasive. Right? It's just a small subset that tend to be really problematic.

Erin Garrett: 06:14

Mhmm. I like to think of Kentucky bluegrass, despite the name has Kentucky in it. It's non native. And when I did research in, like, restored prairies, it was in every single plot. And I was like, what's the deal with this?

Erin Garrett: 06:27

And my adviser was like, it's just everywhere, but it's not really causing a problem. It doesn't change really, like, the plant communities that are there. It's just it's just there. It's it's in everything. Right?

Chris Evans: 06:36

So Yep. Yep. And it's funny that it's called Kentucky bluegrass, you know, so exotic. Canada thistle, not from Canada. Right?

Chris Evans: 06:44

So some of these common names are problematic.

Erin Garrett: 06:47

Yeah. That's a good point too is is the names that we use, right, can be sometimes really descriptive, but sometimes misleading also.

Abigail Garofalo: 06:55

Yep. Mhmm. Yeah. And we've kind of we get this question sometimes too is like, how did some of these species get here? Like, we we have these common names that may be leading to where it's from, but also some of the common names we don't use as that term anymore, but it has that locational terminology with it.

Abigail Garofalo: 07:15

You know, how are they getting here? What's, you know, I guess what's the deal with kinda like that terminology too?

Chris Evans: 07:22

Yeah. So in terms that's kind of a two part question, I guess.

Abigail Garofalo: 07:24

So the first one is Yeah. That was confusing.

Chris Evans: 07:26

It's alright. It's alright. In terms of how they they get here, so it's it's not like on their own. So it's not a normal migration. So there's some kind of barrier that's kept them from being here.

Chris Evans: 07:37

A lot of times that's our big salty oceans. And so really it's it's us people moving them. Sometimes intentionally because we introduce new species, often with the best intentions. Right? And then sometimes accidentally as hitchhikers.

Chris Evans: 07:50

Think about emerald ash borer. Right? Nobody intentionally introduced emerald ash borer to The United States. It just kinda hitched a ride on on packing material or wood crates. And so that's why, like, we kind of allow those species to jump over these barriers to migration through a bunch of different means.

Chris Evans: 08:10

In terms of naming, yeah, we we often have named species by their their country of origin, and that's really kinda going away now, and I I approve of that because I think, one, it's not very descriptive of the plant. It's more kinda descriptive of one place where it may be found in the world, And it kind of assigns like, oh, that's a species from over here. It's not what we want. And that's not really why we're concerned about invasives. It's more what they do in this new landscape and some of the impacts they have.

Chris Evans: 08:42

So I I like that a lot of the new names that we're kinda moving these species to are away from a place based to either a descriptive name like roundleaf bittersweet or kind of an action name or maybe a habitat where they grow, and I I think that makes a lot more sense.

Abigail Garofalo: 08:59

We learned about this in one of our podcasts as we were talking with them about, you know, the different descriptors and and how the community in which these invasive plants are growing in now in our in, like, North America isn't the say reflective of the of the way and the conditions that they were grown in or that they have in their native landscape. The genetics episode is really, really cool if you get a chance and to listen to it. Sure. But she she was mentioning how, like, they're like, for example, we talked about collardy pear. That is planted more densely in North America than it was in its original landscape.

Abigail Garofalo: 09:43

And so that it has different selection pressures on it for growing. And so, yeah, going back and, you know, using that original name and terminology isn't even accurate possibly of what it how it grows here as well.

Chris Evans: 09:57

Oh, absolutely. Sure.

Abigail Garofalo: 10:00

Very cool. So we have some really awesome questions coming into the chat. I say we dive into one, Erin. What do you think?

Erin Garrett: 10:07

Sure. Yeah. There's one that is kind of talking about, like, communicating with others, right, that that you might have. So this question is, how would you respond to someone who, after you have a conversation with them and they know that a plant is an invasive species, they respond, it's not invasive in my yard. I think we get that one a lot.

Erin Garrett: 10:28

What do you say, Chris?

Chris Evans: 10:30

Well, I think that I would say that any plant in your yard, it's not going to show its invasiveness in your yard. Just because you don't see seedlings growing underneath of your plant, your burning bush in your yard or something like that, or growing in your grass, doesn't mean that that plant isn't contributing somewhere to invasives. We know that a lot of these invasives, they're spread either by wind, a lot of the shrubs are spread by birds, so you may not even see the consequences of your planted plants. So you may not see the proof that they're invasive or evidence that they're invasive if all you're looking at is your yard. And so I would I would challenge those people to go out into natural areas or go out into native ecosystems in and around where they live or or in the neighborhood and see what's growing there.

Chris Evans: 11:21

And a lot of times, you'll that's where you'll find that evidence of those invasives moving around.

Erin Garrett: 11:26

Mhmm. I feel like there's certain times of year too in certain species that it's really apparent. Right? We just had calorie pair season, and I always love driving, and you see them planted planted planted, and then that scrubby area that no one pays attention to next to it, it's just full of them. Right?

Erin Garrett: 11:42

And so you can see like, oh, it was here, and now it's everywhere else. Right? You don't always get that close of a correlation right sometimes it is definitely further away but I think just paying attention to your surroundings more which people don't do right there's a lot of plant blindness out there we just see green we don't see what all of the different plants are. But once you kind of are able to tell the difference, sometimes it's kind of shocking how much you can see, right, and that you just maybe never paid attention to before, and that's okay. We're busy.

Erin Garrett: 12:14

We have a lot of things going on. But yeah, just I'd say keep your eyes out when you're just driving along the road. Oftentimes you can see a lot of different things that are in your home landscapes, and they're out there too.

Chris Evans: 12:26

Oh yeah, absolutely. And it's funny, like, once you start seeing invasive species, it changes your hikes, your ability to enjoy the the outdoors, and you're walking around, and you still enjoy the outdoors, obviously, but then it's you're like, you're going through an area and you're hiking, and suddenly you just you just see, like, there's a honeysuckle, there's a buckthorn, and it it does change your perceptions, which is this could be a challenge to some people. Some people are really they they have to adjust to that kind of knowledge, I guess.

Erin Garrett: 12:55

Anyone If comes on a hike with us, you're gonna hear about it.

Abigail Garofalo: 12:58

We're the worst hiking partner. We all are. We're just that's beautiful. Oh, well, yeah. I don't know about

Chris Evans: 13:06

Yeah. Have alarmed a few people where we're just going on a hike, then I silently get off the trail and rip a plan out of the ground and then just keep hiking like nothing happened. And so they they quit You in

Abigail Garofalo: 13:19

don't say anything, Chris?

Chris Evans: 13:21

Well, you know, I I forget that people don't know what what we know, I guess, sometimes.

Erin Garrett: 13:27

Yeah. That's

Abigail Garofalo: 13:28

That's fair. Yeah. Sometimes we all have to keep our mouth shut a little. Like, let them let them connect and be appreciative, and then and then rip down the length of the

Chris Evans: 13:37

That's right.

Abigail Garofalo: 13:38

So that's awesome. Well, I wanna go back to back to a little bit of about language because we did have a question about another term, which is a term endemic and naturalized. So what would those two mean in this context?

Chris Evans: 13:55

Sure. So naturalized is usually used to mean that a species has developed a free living population in that new area that's capable of sustaining itself. Right? So a plant escapes. The term escape means that, you know, it's it's reproduced from an intentional planting or something, and it's there.

Chris Evans: 14:17

But that doesn't mean it's naturalized because those escaped individuals may or may not survive, may not may not happen. So a naturalized species is one that's, at least the way that I use it, is it means that it's a free living population now. It it's self sustaining. It's moving on. Endemic, the way that I use endemic, and feel free to jump in here, that's more talking about where a species is native to or where it's naturally found.

Chris Evans: 14:41

So you talk about an endemic species to Illinois as a species that's kind of only found in Illinois, and that's its native range. We talk about endemism a lot of times in kind of specialized habitats, so like the Great Smoky Mountains has a lot of endemic species that are only found there, just for one example.

Abigail Garofalo: 14:57

Mhmm. Yeah. I think of the Kankakee Malo is always like my classic endemic species example.

Chris Evans: 15:06

It may be the only may be the only endemic plant in Illinois. Yeah.

Abigail Garofalo: 15:13

See, normally, we all for our listeners, we get the chance to look these things up and pause the recording. We can't do that today. So we're live, living free and loose. So okay. And then just a little bit further too, diving into this language a little bit.

Abigail Garofalo: 15:27

I think this is a really important question a lot of people have is, like, these nuisance plants, they're native. If it's not invasive, but it it's a nuisance in some way, you know, is there places where we should be removing it? The example that Lori gives is poison ivy. Right? It's everywhere in the forest preserves in her yard.

Abigail Garofalo: 15:48

So is that something that, you know, management might be necessary?

Chris Evans: 15:53

Yeah. So we make decisions as managers. We make decisions on on the the ecosystems we manage. We decide to, know, prescribe fire in there, plant different things. And so managing native species is a normal part of natural resources management, and there are nuisance species when they impact our objectives for our land, even if they're native.

Chris Evans: 16:15

Right? And so one example that I use a lot is we manage a lot of maple and, you know, ash and things like that or or hackberry out of oak forest to change the light conditions to promote a healthy understory and a diverse understory. You may manage, like, Canada goldenrod, which is also a native, if it becomes too abundant in a prey because you want to promote other species. So, I think we certainly do manage species, and we can call them nuisance when they they're impacting our objectives. But I I still don't that doesn't make them invasive.

Chris Evans: 16:47

Right? It's not the same category as an ecological invasive. But certainly, we manage nuisance Invadives invasives all the time or, sorry, nuisance natives all the time.

Erin Garrett: 16:58

Yeah. And I think too, it's important to think about, like, the human side of that landscape. Right? So if poison ivy is in a really popular hiking area right you might that might be a priority for that those land managers to manage it because it is a high use area right if they had the resources to do that so kind of thinking about that context I know we had poison ivy in our yard and we definitely didn't want to have it in our yard anymore so we took efforts to get rid of it right because it was impacting like our our objectives right and kind of our use of that area so Sure. Okay, I think this next question is another communication question.

Erin Garrett: 17:40

I love these. These are always fun to think about. Is what if you were to hear that maybe your municipality is considering planting an invasive plant and landscaping. In this case, they're talking about creeping Jenny's, you could talk about the invasiveness of that too. Like, how would you, you know, if you were here that was going to be going in, how could you advocate for maybe that not being planted or a placement?

Erin Garrett: 18:07

Kind of how would you approach that one?

Chris Evans: 18:10

Yeah, that's a good question, and we do see this a lot, right? We see a lot of communities planting species that have invasive tendencies or are known invaders. You know, think the big thing is education, right? Just go to the decision makers, go to other members of the community, bring information about that species, and and especially information that demonstrates its invasiveness, whether it's its distribution, any research that's out there about what it does, and try to educate them. I think the best thing that I would recommend, and feel free to jump in, would be don't just say don't do this, but instead give them an alternative.

Chris Evans: 18:47

Well, instead of planting this plant, have you considered this non invasive alternative or this native species? And here's why I like native species and here are the benefits. I think, like, of the big things is not dwelling on negative, but actually giving positive actions. I think it's usually a lot more effective, I guess you would say.

Abigail Garofalo: 19:06

Mhmm. Yeah. I would agree.

Erin Garrett: 19:09

And thinking about just in general, right, there's kind of a set group of plants when it comes to landscaping a lot of the time. So sometimes people just don't consider other options. Right? It's like, I want a plant to look like this and act like this. This is the option, and this is what I do.

Erin Garrett: 19:26

So kind of finding plants like you said with similar characteristics that are hopefully available maybe not to the same extent but are readily available right a lot of our natives do have lower availability but that's increasing, which is great to see. And so just getting that kind of doing a little homework, right, like you said, and kind of sharing that as an option is always helpful.

Chris Evans: 19:50

Well, and it's it's a great opportunity too to encourage people to move beyond getting their plants or or whatever at kind of like the normal big box stores, which there's nothing wrong with that. But seeking out some smaller local nurseries that may have different options out there or local, you know, native plant sales, things like that, it just gives you gives you a lot more options and also kinda promotes some of the the local businesses, which I think is a great thing too.

Abigail Garofalo: 20:15

As far as, like, a resource goes for that too, like, if you're like, okay. I saw them plant this. I know it's bad. What's a good option? I love the resources from Midwest Invasive Plant Network.

Abigail Garofalo: 20:26

Nippon, they do some really great, like, here's an in like, a commonly known, like, to be invasive tree or or bush or whatever that's planted, here's some alternatives that are native that, like, provide similar properties, have similar conditions. So that research already kind of been provided a little bit for you that I think is really great.

Chris Evans: 20:46

Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Yep.

Abigail Garofalo: 20:48

So definitely yeah. Looking having that communication. I always say, like, too, like, this is your community. Right? Like, it's okay for you to have a voice in your community and to take pride in what you wanna see planted because it's yours too.

Abigail Garofalo: 21:04

Absolutely. Yep. Well, I think we had a comment in here after hearing your hiking endeavors about that you just, you know, randomly go and just pull something up unspoken just to throw in a hike. Are we allowed to pull invasives up on public lands? Mark wants to know.

Chris Evans: 21:23

So no. Not not unsolicited. I would say don't don't do as I do, but do as I say or whatever they say. If you do want to pull invasives and do things, check with the check with the, you know, the office or go to the nature center or or just demonstrate that you know what you're talking about, you're concerned about invasives, and then you ask permission to do some. I think that's the way to do it instead of just randomly, you know, pulling plants out of the ground.

Chris Evans: 21:55

So that was a bad example I gave. I'm sorry.

Abigail Garofalo: 21:58

Well, and here's the thing too. In a lot of public lands, one, taking plants, whether it's, like, any kind of plants, and this may seem like a weird term to assign it, is considered poaching. Mhmm. And, you know, you'd be like, oh, poaching, that's for something that's, like, not not what I do. But taking plants from a natural area that is public land is considered poaching, and many of these places have fines.

Abigail Garofalo: 22:21

And they don't somebody who might be like see that and report that might not know that you're reporting or that you're pulling an invasive. They might think that you're stealing something like ramps or morels or something like that, and you don't want to put yourself in a situation where that could occur. So this is why a lot of our natural resource areas have badges that identify you as a volunteer, or there's a group or a vest or some kind of thing. So it's a safety thing for you as well, not just like this isn't allowed. It's like this is safety for you as well so people know that, like, you're supposed to be here in this space.

Chris Evans: 22:56

Absolutely. And I'll say that there most of the the public land, you know, whether it's state or or county land, are happy to have volunteers that are wanting more volunteers and would welcome assistance on controlling invasive species. So I think that it would be a fairly easy ask if you wanted to do that.

Abigail Garofalo: 23:17

I would agree. Or become a master naturalist.

Chris Evans: 23:20

Absolutely.

Abigail Garofalo: 23:21

And you could get connected within your community. Extension has a lot of already good connections with natural resource stewardship if that's something you're looking to do. If you're a pyrotechnic and you love to burn stuff, you

Erin Garrett: 23:33

can

Abigail Garofalo: 23:33

get certified in burn boss training. I've heard the best way to get rid of garlic mustard is over a fire of buckthorn. So I heard that smell is just so.

Erin Garrett: 23:48

Alright. Well, we have a ton of species specific questions, and I wanna get into those, but we have one that's more on the reporting side. So I wanna ask that one first, is just in general, if we see invasives, how do we report them? You know, it could be invasive we're talking plants here for the most part, right? If you see them along the highway or in parks, like, how do you what do you do with that information?

Chris Evans: 24:15

That's a great question. There's a couple options. I think if you're in a park or a defined public land, I think contacting the ownership of that park. Now, I think if you're in an area and there's 78 acres of buckthorn, they probably know they've got buckthorn. But especially if it's something rare or something unusual, you know, calling the park or stopping at the office or stopping at the nature center and just letting them know can be really useful because they may not know of that new species.

Chris Evans: 24:44

They it may be actually very helpful to allow them to kind of rapidly respond and kinda control that one before it's out of there. In general, outside of that, if you're just on the roadside or walking around or or anything like that, there are apps that you can use. You can put on your phone and report. One of the ones that we like to recommend a lot is called EdMaps. So it's e d d m a p s, EDDMapS.

Chris Evans: 25:08

And so that's kind of a nationwide database that tracks invasive species. And so it keeps records from everybody. They're reviewed for accuracy. So you're you can basically take a picture of that species and then report it fairly easily. It takes a minute or less.

Chris Evans: 25:26

And then that goes into this large dataset. And it's actually been really, really useful because it allows us and and other managers to kind of assess where these species are moving. You can develop target list. You can know what to look out for. And it it's very, very helpful to kind of share that knowledge at a at a larger scale.

Chris Evans: 25:43

So I would recommend kind of everybody kind of keeping that on their phone and reporting species when they're when they're out and about.

Abigail Garofalo: 25:52

EDVAPPS is so cool. We did an interview this last season with that was Rebecca Wallace. Right, Erin? It was so cool. It's like the kind of dream that all of you listeners are like, man, wouldn't it be cool if or like, you're feeling a little down on like, our inability to work together as communities and spaces.

Abigail Garofalo: 26:12

Support EDDMapS because EDDMapS is like it's got conservation professionals together. They're like we have a case study story from her that says, like, something was reported and less than twenty four hours later, there was management that occurred on that site. So it's a really, really cool way to just like advance scientific research and just like do something good. So if you're looking for something small to do something good, this is the this is the thing in my opinion.

Chris Evans: 26:38

Absolutely.

Abigail Garofalo: 26:39

There's many things. This isn't the only thing, but it's a thing, I guess.

Erin Garrett: 26:42

But this one too, I would encourage folks to check out that episode because, like, we learned tons of new things. Abigail and I were like, yeah. We know EDDMap. We know how it works. It's great.

Erin Garrett: 26:52

But, like, the connection to, like, the on the ground work is, like, amazing. So we didn't really realize that, but it's like, what was it? She's like, yeah. People who are signed up to get emails about this species in this area, they can get an email, like, once every four hours, once a day. We were like, every four hours?

Erin Garrett: 27:11

That's crazy. So, like, that information, like, when you put it in a report and it's verified, like, it does, like, send a note to someone out there that that was reported. So it is connected in that way. So it's not just going off into the Internet. Right?

Erin Garrett: 27:27

And you're like, oh, I added something to a map, but no one's actually looking at it. It does have that closer connection, which is really cool.

Chris Evans: 27:33

So Absolutely. And and I'll just add is in addition to management, they very much informs regulations. In terms of speech, like a state deciding what to regulate, where it's at, things like that, that data, having verified data on the ground, is is super powerful that for those efforts.

Erin Garrett: 27:51

Mhmm.

Abigail Garofalo: 27:51

Yes. And if you want more on regulations, check out Chris's episode on Everyday Environment because we if you're if you're digging this conversation between all of us, Chris does a really great deep dive into invasive regulation on just like what should like, just all the things that you're like, I don't wanna read this. I don't know if this is what I should do, or like if if this is what's allowed or not. Like, he really breaks it down really well, so thanks for doing that, by the way.

Chris Evans: 28:18

Boy, you all are very practiced at at pitching the other episodes. I'm really impressed here.

Erin Garrett: 28:23

We got it going, Chris.

Abigail Garofalo: 28:24

Yep. I've been listening to them as they come out too, so it's been great. Mhmm. So alright. So let's get into our a little bit of, like, rapid fire management question.

Abigail Garofalo: 28:37

So just a little bit of, like, explanation for our audience is we didn't wanna spend this whole episode just being like, and here's this species and what to do about this species and things like that. There's a lot of really great information out there, but we will do a rapid fire. And then we also wanna say that site specific questions are hard to answer. So I guess, do we wanna start with that? It's like why it would be difficult to say like, here's like, here's the we can't just say that, you know, here's what you do about this specific species all the time.

Abigail Garofalo: 29:07

Right? Like, Chris, if you wanna go into that a little more?

Chris Evans: 29:09

Sure. Sure. Yeah. So each situation is a lot different. Right?

Chris Evans: 29:13

So the species may have different levels or density, may have different sizes, it may have a different phenological situation, and maybe other native species or sensitive species mixed in there. So it's hard to just do a blanket, this is the way you kill this plant, or something like that, just because you have to consider all these other considerations. You have to consider, you know, nontarget impacts. You have to consider cost, feasibility, equipment. And so that's why you for each situation, it does take kind of a bit of thought into it.

Chris Evans: 29:44

And a lot of times, the answer I give people initially is it depends, which I know is a horrible answer, but it really does. Right? You have to have more information to kind of really figure out the best way to do things. And so I think when we're here, we're gonna talk about options and kind of best management practices, but we can't get into those specifics.

Abigail Garofalo: 30:04

Yeah. Awesome. Well, let's jump into it. Okay. I'll start with one that's real common in my area.

Abigail Garofalo: 30:11

I'm in Northeastern Illinois, buckthorn.

Chris Evans: 30:14

Sure. So buckthorn is a challenge because it can grow so thick, and so there's a couple options. When you have really, really thick stands, a lot of people will come in and do some type of, you know, mastication or cutting or some way to kind of grind it down, either using a big machine, something like that, and then treat the sprouts. So that's one option. For less dense stands, often people will do a cut stump treatment where you cut it low to the ground, you paint the stump with herbicide to try to prevent it from sprouting.

Chris Evans: 30:46

The big thing about buckthorn, as you know, it's a dioecious plant, right? So it has male and female plants. And if you have a really, really big stand, kind of focusing on those larger, fruit producing plants is probably a good idea to start with. Just simply that way, you're kind of reducing maybe further spread, moving forward if you can't control it all.

Abigail Garofalo: 31:06

Like these.

Chris Evans: 31:07

Yeah. Exactly.

Abigail Garofalo: 31:10

These are fruits. So you'll you'll notice, I always when I discovered that about buckthorn, I thought that was very a very cool, very, tangible explanation to understand, like, what are ways that we can target management, you know, because this is too much to do. Right? So thinking about the female plants. Right?

Abigail Garofalo: 31:30

The ones that are berry producing are going to be like, for limited resources, the best bang for your buck. Right. Right. Alright. What's next?

Erin Garrett: 31:42

We got quite a few questions about honeysuckle.

Chris Evans: 31:46

So the bush honeysuckle? Yep.

Abigail Garofalo: 31:49

I don't think people have clarified, but yet.

Erin Garrett: 31:51

They're not specifying, but I'm guessing by the phrasing of the questions.

Chris Evans: 31:55

Sure. So just a a little bit about the reason I asked that is so we have a viney honeysuckle that's that's invasive around a lot of Illinois, and then we actually have three or four different species of shrubby or bushy honeysuckles. And so we tend to lump them all together and just call them bush honeysuckle. The most abundant one in the state is called amber honeysuckle, Linus rheemachiae, but we certainly have you know, there's two or three others like tartarean honeysuckle and others. So with the honeysuckles, again, it it depends.

Chris Evans: 32:26

Right? Like I say, of the things that I like about the honeysuckles is that they have tend to have very shallow root systems, so they don't really hold into the ground very well. And so if you're somebody that wants to do more mechanical style control instead of chemical control, you can even a surprisingly large plant, you can pull them out of the ground either by hand or with a a pulling aid like a weed wrench or one of those things. And they tend not to sprout from any, like, roots that were broken. They honeysuckle tends to only sprout from the root crown itself.

Chris Evans: 33:03

So as long as you get that root crown out of the ground, you're pretty much gonna prevent the the sprouting. So that's one way of a a non chemical technique that works really, really well on honeysuckle that may not work well on some of these other woody shrubs. In terms of other things you can do with honeysuckle, it has what we call an extended leaf phenology, which means it it greens up earlier, but especially it stays green much later than a lot of our native shrubs and our native trees. So one thing I'm seeing a lot now in Illinois in very, very dense stands where you have 80 acres of solid honeysuckle or something like that, people are using aerial applications of of herb. That for a pretty decent price.

Chris Evans: 33:51

Right? You know, they're usually it's drone applications. And so we've seen that be very, very effective in those right situations. And and it's it's long as the timing's right, so the natives are are dormant and the honeysuckle's still actively growing in green, that is certainly an option that is proving to be very effective in those situations.

Abigail Garofalo: 34:10

Now is that common of buckthorn too? Like, it's an early leafer, so we tend to be able to is that a more effective time to address that?

Chris Evans: 34:19

So not usually in the early side of things. Right? So a lot of times, especially if we use an herbicidal control, we tend to stay away from the early green up simply because a lot of times that's the least effective time to control these plants when they're actively growing or pushing kind of that energy out. Instead, we look at them later in. So as there's kind of predormancy, as they're starting to go dormant or just before they're starting to go dormant, that tends to be that that window of opportunity is a little little more effective then than it is in the spring.

Chris Evans: 34:51

Buckthorn is a little little less in terms of its extended extended leaf phenology than honeysuckle, so if you do that, the the window's a lot tighter, I guess you would say, or sometimes it's not there. You know?

Abigail Garofalo: 35:04

Yeah. So it's very this is what I'm hearing is, like, it's very dependent. It's know your know thy enemy. Right? Like, your enemy.

Abigail Garofalo: 35:12

Yeah. Because that's what Paul was asking about, is there a bad time of year? What's the best time of year to cut some of this stuff back? And so there's questions about multi flora rose with that and related to that as well, like the greening and best time to cut.

Chris Evans: 35:26

Yeah. And and multiflora rose multiflora rose is the same thing. In general, most of these woody plants stay away from that early spring green up for most treatments with the exception of what's called a basal bark treatment. So a basal bark treatment is when you apply an oil based herbicide, usually it's an ester herbicide in oil, and you apply it directly to the bark and let penetrate through the bark and kill the plant. Research has shown that that's effective pretty much year round, And so you can kind of ignore that spring green up with these these basal bark applications.

Chris Evans: 35:59

But any other application, whether it's spraying the foliage or cut stump where you cut the plant and treat the stump, those avoid that that spring green up. The mechanical stuff, you can certainly do that. And and if you're gonna look at something like multiflora rose, which you can't really easily pull out of the ground because it's so thorny, it's more like repeated cuttings. And so then you would start early, let it flush, and kind of use that energy to put on a new growth and cut it again. And so there's been some research out there showing that, you know, three or four cuttings over a season can really drastically reduce, maybe not eliminate, but at least reduce significantly things like multiflora rose.

Erin Garrett: 36:38

Interesting. I know we said rapid fire, but we had a couple specific questions, honeysuckle, that I wanna address because it goes into a broader issue is, like, cutting honeysuckle near a creek or near a stream, and if there are, like, herbicides that are okay to use or not okay to use near water. So I just kinda wanted to have you talk a little bit about that.

Chris Evans: 37:00

Sure. Absolutely. So, and the answer basically is you want to make sure, right? So herbicides, they come in a lot of different formulations even if it's the same chemical. So one example would be glyphosate.

Chris Evans: 37:13

We know glyphosate is Roundup and some of these other brand names, but it has labels that state that you cannot apply them near water, and then there's labels that say that it's safe to apply near water. So anytime that you are applying herbicides that have the likelihood of getting into the water, whether that's hanging over the water or stream side or anything like that, you would want to check to make sure that the herbicide you're using is labeled. On the label specifically, it'll say that's for aquatic sites or safe for aquatic sites. It'll have some language that makes it really obvious that it can be used in those situations, simply because we know that there's some herbicides that have a lot of toxicity to fishes and aquatic invertebrates, and so you wouldn't wanna apply those in those situations. So just do your homework.

Chris Evans: 38:05

Look for herbicides that are that are labeled safe for aquatic use, and a lot of the herbicides that we commonly use with invasive species have versions that are safe for aquatic use. Right? There's triclopyr and imazapyr and glyphosate. All these ones have aquatic safe versions as well. So just make sure that you are getting the right ones.

Abigail Garofalo: 38:31

Right. Yeah. And the label is the law. That's the thing I always say.

Chris Evans: 38:33

Yeah.

Abigail Garofalo: 38:35

The label is the law. Alright.

Erin Garrett: 38:37

It's overwhelming too. I'll just say. Because it can be like a really thick label with a lot of things in it. But getting used to like, I feel like we have some resources out there that explain like how to break down what that label means and what to look for but getting familiar with like you know like you're able to scroll through and find the parts that are relevant to you right and find those different parts but getting familiar with doing that because it will have, like like Chris said, don't use around this location or around these other plants. Right?

Erin Garrett: 39:08

You don't wanna unintended consequences, and that is on the label is there and that's our recommendation, right? Is that you have to read the label, it is the law and so we can't necessarily answer all those questions specifically but it is in that label for you to look at yourself. So we know it's overwhelming. I've read them before and like, that was a lot, but has answered lot of my questions that I've So

Chris Evans: 39:33

And I I would recommend too, if somebody, like, if you're applying herbicides as part of your job or you're applying them as a volunteer on somebody else's land, you have to have some type of certification. So if it's part of your job, you're going to have to have a license through the Department of Agriculture. If it's a if you're a volunteer, there's a volunteer certification, and there's training requirements. Even if you're applying on your own land, it wouldn't be a bad idea to kinda go through those training classes. And so with an extension, we have our PSEP program, pesticide safety education program, and they do trainings that are on, you know, how to understand herbicides, how to develop rates, and how to kind of go through these tests.

Chris Evans: 40:15

Again, even if you don't need to do that, it's really, really good training. And so I would recommend that that's a good way to kind of understand how to get this information out of a label is to is to go through one of their programs.

Abigail Garofalo: 40:28

Awesome. Alright. So back to some of our species. And some of them are a little more specific, but like when we talk about managing garlic mustard, Susan was asking, do they continue do the pods continue to develop after the plants are pulled? What about the flowers?

Abigail Garofalo: 40:46

Do those continue to develop? Like, is it a matter of, like, like, how do you get rid of it once you've removed it, essentially, kind of thing?

Chris Evans: 40:52

Sure. And that's there's been a little bit of research on that, and there's a lot more kind of anecdotal information. And so once the pods are formed on the plant, most people say, and there's been a little bit of research saying that, yeah, they can continue to develop. So if you just pull a plant out of the ground and it has its leeks, its fruit on it, and lay it on the ground, a certain percentage of those that are kind of well along that way of the path to ripening, I guess you would say, will continue to do that and can be viable. If you look at garlic mushroom, the way it blooms, they all the flowers don't bloom at once.

Chris Evans: 41:30

Right? So they have initial blooms, and then those will start forming seed pods, and then the the flowering stalk will continue to elongate and form new flowers. So any garlic mustard, you'll have this this this flower seed head mix that'll have riper seed heads on the bottom, transitions to immature seed heads, then all the way up to you may have flowers still at the top. So if you pull it up, those lower ones that are larger and kind of farther along in that path could certainly have seeds that may be viable at that time. So it's not guaranteed.

Chris Evans: 42:02

It depends on when you pull them up and and things like that. And so there are some options that you can do. If you're pulling garlic mustard and it does have seeds on it, one of the things that is recommended and and has been shown to be very effective is to bag those. So put them in a, you know, a a garbage bag, basically, a black garbage bag or a clear garbage bag, and then we do what's called solarizing them. And so don't just throw them away right away because they could certainly go to a, you know, a a city dump or something and and break loose and and get out there.

Chris Evans: 42:31

But instead, leave them in the sun for a couple days, and then that thermal increase that they they heat up in the sun. And there's been some research showing that that is usually hot enough to kill those seeds. So you leave them in out there for a couple days and then throw them away. They're generally nonviable at that point.

Erin Garrett: 42:50

I I will

Chris Evans: 42:51

oh, go ahead.

Abigail Garofalo: 42:52

I just wanna add. I love a recommendation that allows me to forget things. Like, I forget to clean up my yard all the time. I'm like, oh, I was out there. I just left everything out there.

Abigail Garofalo: 42:59

It's like, well, I could leave the bag out there. That was actually a good thing.

Chris Evans: 43:02

Yep. I'll just add one other thing, and and it's a good way to plug a little research that that I was involved in. So a couple years ago, we had the same question. Right? And so one of the things that is usually said is once the flowers and the seeds start on garlic mustard, you can't use herbicide at that point because the seeds will be viable.

Chris Evans: 43:21

The seeds will still form. So we wanted to test that, so I partnered with some colleagues from the University of Wisconsin and other folks here at the University of Illinois, and we tested that. We intentionally waited later than we normally would and then used herbicide on garlic mustard and and and then collected the seeds after they dried up and tested them for viability. And we found that even those late applications, we had, like, 95 to 99% reduction in the viable seed. So it's not the best because you're not killing everything, but it does drastically reduce the seed set.

Chris Evans: 43:55

So that is still an option if you if you still wanted to spray herbicides kind of later than you normally would with garlic mustard.

Abigail Garofalo: 44:04

Yeah. And I was gonna add what I'm hearing too about a lot of the management around here is like and we I've been noticing a lot of questions about, like, what's the best herbicide to use? Can I do it without herbicide? Like, how do I make sure I'm doing this right? It is like a we call it integrated pest management.

Abigail Garofalo: 44:22

Right? Like, it's a a multipronged way to manage. We're not just saying herbicide to kill it. You know, it's about when you do it, how you do it, and also, like, the other management strategies you're integrating, solarizing, you know, cutting early. Great example of garlic mustard.

Abigail Garofalo: 44:40

It's a biennial. Right? So, like, trying to get it before it goes to seed, like, thinking about the phonology of the invasive. All of those different pieces are essential for the management of invasive species. Yeah.

Chris Evans: 44:54

Yeah. Absolutely. And we and it's a good point. We don't tend to and we don't definitely don't recommend relying on one technique, right, to control because no single technique is 100% effective. We know that that could lead eventually to resistance development and things like that as well.

Chris Evans: 45:10

So this integrated approach where you're using multiple techniques, you're even using replanting with natives or alteration of the ecosystem to make it less suitable for those plants, all those things should be kind of put together in a whole, like, system or approach to managing invasives.

Abigail Garofalo: 45:27

And those different approaches too are gonna change based on the the environment you're in. Right? Like, we've had questions about, you know, oh, like, my invasive is next to this oak tree I wanna save or something like that. So that's gonna change your methods based on what kinds of things are around and where like, the water nearby too.

Chris Evans: 45:49

So Oh, absolutely. And and it'll change as as you control the situation on the ground changes. So what you do initially with a really, really dense heavy stand is certainly not going to be what's best a couple years into this effort when you have just sparse plants around, right? So you may switch from a more heavy handed spray to individual plant treatments or pulling them or something like that later. Right?

Chris Evans: 46:13

So you you reevaluate each year and determine what's the best approach now instead of just sticking to the same thing every time.

Abigail Garofalo: 46:20

Nice.

Erin Garrett: 46:23

Alright. Another one I'm gonna do is winter creeper. Best way to remove winter creeper that's already climbed a tree. I see this all the time. I've dealt with this myself, but I'm gonna let you answer it, Chris, to see if I did it the Chris Evans recommended way.

Chris Evans: 46:38

Right. Oh, this is really putting a lot of pressure on me. So winter creeper has two growth forms, right? On the ground, it grows, it kind of forms these dense mats, and it does not flower or produce fruit when it's on the ground. When creeper grows vertical and it climbs up something like a tree or a cliff or something like that, it tends to get into a higher light environment.

Chris Evans: 47:02

And in that case, that's usually when you see it flowering and producing fruit. What I recommend when it's up in a tree is I tend to cut it I tend to cut a section of the vine out. So winter creeper tightly hangs onto the tree through these little aerial roots, and so you cut, like, a three or four inch section out and kinda knock it out of there. Get it out. So do two cuts, one cut, two cut, and then knock that section out.

Chris Evans: 47:27

If you just do one cut, they can actually grow back together. And so, yeah, I've seen that. It's really wild. So you knock this, you know, four inch section out, and then you can treat that lower part of that cuts with with with herbicide, or you can pull it away or do something like that. I then completely ignore the rest of the the plant that's hanging in that tree.

Chris Evans: 47:48

It's not connected to the ground. It's not going to be able to survive. It may stay green for quite a while, surprisingly a long time, but it's not getting any resources, and it'll eventually die and kinda dry and eventually kinda fall out of that tree. It may take a few years, but it's not going to be able to live. So I don't wanna pull it out of the tree because it has those tight connections.

Chris Evans: 48:11

You can actually rip and damage the bark of that tree and do more damage than than you're doing good. Just cut it out, get it down to the ground, and let the the stuff that's in the tree rotten, fall out on its own. That's my recommendation.

Erin Garrett: 48:24

Alright. I did it the right way. So Perfect.

Abigail Garofalo: 48:27

I was, like, also waiting on my I was like, did she do it? Did she do it?

Erin Garrett: 48:31

I'll tell you, it does work because we've done this. And that was something new that I think Abigail, we were on that episode that we learned that it doesn't flower until it's up in a tree. We were like, mind blown. Like, we never thought about it. But like, now that you think about it, we see it all the time.

Erin Garrett: 48:45

Right? Yeah.

Chris Evans: 48:47

It is interesting because, like, the leaves, some people don't even recognize it as the same plant. Mhmm. Because the leaves change form. They're thinner leaves, like, not as thick, and they're broader in terms of their wider leaves. They really look a lot different.

Chris Evans: 49:00

And I've seen people have, you know, on the ground wintercreeper the same plant connected to the same vines as the wintercreeper in the tree. Mhmm. And they don't even recognize them as the same plant because they look so different.

Erin Garrett: 49:11

Well, it puts out like a branch too. It looks like a tree branch of like foliage that's come out.

Abigail Garofalo: 49:19

Oh, it knows what it's doing.

Erin Garrett: 49:20

Yeah. It does know what it's doing. But yeah, cutting that section out, I think we did a little herbicide on it and then it it like took care of it. Yeah and then we just removed from the ground we've just been kind of mowing that area to keep it at bay and I honestly haven't seen it come back and I think it's been two years now so it was kind of in like an area between our house and the neighbor's house and there was a bunch of it and it did the trick. So the Chris Evans method works.

Chris Evans: 49:49

I don't think it's my method. I think it's been developed way before.

Abigail Garofalo: 49:51

Nobody quote him. Nobody quote him. I believe that was also the same species in the genetics episode that we talked about that has, like, something weird with its, like like, triploid or, like, something weird with its, like, reproduction that, like, she mentioned. So, yeah, I don't know. I'd have to go back and listen to it, or maybe I'm just teasing it too much so y'all will go listen to it.

Abigail Garofalo: 50:15

But we had a lot of really cool realize like like, information shared that we all just had to stop recording. So and I think the that species had the same was the same one that we were talking about. So alright. Another question. So and this is kind of getting to, like, almost, like, emerging invasives or, like, what people think might be coming up.

Abigail Garofalo: 50:39

Do you ever hear anything about clustered bellflower? Is it an issue? You know, we have some in our flower beds. We grow it, but it's aggressive. Like, is it something that's emerging?

Chris Evans: 50:51

So that's not one that I've heard a lot about. I've heard the the name before, but I'm not as familiar with it as as I am with other kind of emerging ones. So I would say that I'm not the right person to answer that question. I will say that there are folks that are looking at these emerging invaders. Right?

Chris Evans: 51:08

And so there's folks that are keeping this data. And so hopefully somebody's tracking it, and if it is, kind of recording these and looking at maps and see if there's any risk escapes found. But I myself have not heard a lot about it, so I I can't answer it.

Abigail Garofalo: 51:23

Yeah.

Erin Garrett: 51:25

Yeah. I'd worked with we'd heard about, like, creeping bellflower, which is in the same genus related. When I did work up in Minnesota it wasn't like a major problem but it was something that we were just like noting that could be in like prairie restorations so but yeah you can and even if it's not reported on Edmaps and you see it as a problem you can still report it and get it on the map It might be intimidating to be that first report. I know there's been some grasses that I've seen and there's not a lot of reports and I'm like well no if no one's gonna put it out there I'm gonna do it and and get that word out there. We won't be able to start getting that data unless someone puts it out there so.

Erin Garrett: 52:05

Okay

Abigail Garofalo: 52:07

well we have about six minutes left. We do have some other species we could talk about but I also have some other more generalized questions if that that's what we wanna do, folks. Sure. Let's do it. Alright.

Abigail Garofalo: 52:19

So let's say, you know, there are, like, invasive species and then there are, like, sometimes a lot of the times when we're looking at identifications, there's, like, native look alikes. Right? What is some good ways? And this person was specifically asking about asters. Is there some, like, good methods to tell the difference between invasive asters and natives, or even just, like, generalized tips about telling the difference between invasives and natives?

Chris Evans: 52:46

Yeah. So I that's a great question. And, course, it's hard to give tips because there's so many different things. But I I would say, really look at the the the data out there. Look at the the field guides about the characteristics.

Chris Evans: 53:00

And so instead of just looking at the overall, you know, gestalt of the plant, say it looks like this, key in on those characteristics. I mean, count ray flowers if you need to and things like that. There's there's there's techniques to identify different plants, and sometimes it is subtle. Right? There's, like, the difference between the roundleaf bittersweet, which is an exotic, and the native bittersweet.

Chris Evans: 53:22

Sometimes it's subtle. You have to look at the location of the flowers and things like that, and some of the grasses are certainly subtle. And and asters are notoriously difficult even within the native asters. Right? So I would say focus on those characteristics, take pictures, and then look at, like, specifically what makes that species that species and and key in on those kind of things.

Chris Evans: 53:45

There are some assistants. You know, there's there's apps like iNaturalist and things that help you identify. But when you're looking at rare things, a lot of times it, you know, it doesn't always get you there. So don't simply rely on an app to identify something for you, particularly if there's a common thing and then a rare thing. A lot of times, it'll default to the common thing.

Chris Evans: 54:06

Right? So you can certainly use those as a start, but but dig a little deeper and focus in on those characteristics. I like to say anytime you're identifying a plant, try to line up, you know, three or four characteristics and don't just go on one. Don't go on petal length because that may not be enough to have it be unique to that plant. Try to key in on multiple characteristics, and then you're building your confidence that your your identification is right.

Abigail Garofalo: 54:32

Mhmm.

Erin Garrett: 54:33

And there's also a lot of there's some field guides that are really good about talking about lookalike species, so it'll say, like here's the description of the plant and it might look like this one and here's how you tell them apart and have those couple characteristics that do distinguish them so there's definitely a there's a lot of information out there and I feel like with a lot of invasives there are kind of those here's like the three or four main things to look for. So some of us have been identifying them for a really long time, and so we've looked at them a lot and maybe found things that that don't look obvious at first glance, but like once you learn it, like, I'm thinking like stiltgrass, the like mid ribbon of grass I'm gonna talk of grass because I'm the grass person and everyone's like grasses are overwhelming but the like vein in the middle of the leaf is not in the middle it's off center and like when you learn to look for that it's like that's like so easy to look for and is a really easy characteristic that kind of clues you in that you're looking oh, maybe this is stilt grass because that's not a super common characteristic.

Erin Garrett: 55:30

So there are sometimes those like main ones that like, look for this and if you see it, then you're on the right track. If you don't, then it's probably not that one.

Chris Evans: 55:39

And utilize Extension as a resource. Take pictures or take, you know, samples or something and utilize your county Extension office. Get ahold of us. You know, we can certainly help out in those situations when need be to.

Abigail Garofalo: 55:51

Mhmm. Awesome. Well, actually, we are nearing the end of our time today. So if you didn't get your question answered or if your question is, like, highly specific to your site, definitely feel free to reach out to Chris, myself. I might refer to Chris.

Erin Garrett: 56:09

Erin, if you're

Abigail Garofalo: 56:09

it's a grass question or other things, or to your local extension office because our local extension agents are experts in your area. So usually, if a question comes through like the general email, it usually gets filtered to that local unit, or if it comes to me, I'll be like, who's the local educator there? Because they probably have seen this before. And it's helpful for the local educator to know as well, like, oh, I've been getting at least three questions a week on this specific thing. So we always recommend going to your local staff first because then they'll just reach out to us anyways.

Abigail Garofalo: 56:41

Like, and you'll get the answer, and you'll get to know a local friendly face in your community. So Sure. Well, that is all the time we have for our q and a live. But like I said, you can always reach out to us. Be sure to subscribe to our Everyday Environment newsletter.

Abigail Garofalo: 56:56

Our series on invasive species is almost over, but we do monthly topical newsletters in the summer and winter. And so you can be the first to hear, about all of those things. And we have a new series, coming in the fall. It will be out in August on nature based solutions. So some of those things, if that sounds resonating to you, I highly encourage you subscribe so you can get first notification when it comes out.

Abigail Garofalo: 57:20

If you missed the first half of our session or if you just wanna go back and re listen to any answers from Chris, Erin, or myself, be sure to check out our coming podcast that's coming out next week. It will be the recording of this session. So maybe your question will get asked and was was asked and you wanna make sure it gets and it will be featured on our podcast, which is pretty cool. Lastly, if this session was so inspiring to you, you wanna actually go out and see invasive species in the field. You wanna learn how to manage them on the ground, and you want some field experience.

Abigail Garofalo: 57:52

Chris, I believe you run this program. Right? The introduction yeah. So Chris runs the introduction to invasive species management course. It's on June 9.

Abigail Garofalo: 58:00

It's a statewide program with regional field days. So you can definitely go out and, like, see invasive species management and learn, from more awesome extension folks and Chris again. So, definitely check that out. Otherwise, this has been another episode of the Everyday Environment series. Thank you for joining us for our season on invasive species, and we hope you learned something new.

Abigail Garofalo: 58:24

This podcast is University of Illinois Extension production hosted and edited by Abigail Garofalo Erin Garrett and Amy Lefringhouse. Marketing and communications are by Emily Steele.

Chris Evans: 58:37

University of Illinois Extension.