Early Detection in Public Gardens with Michelle Beloskur

Erin: 00:06

Welcome to another episode of the Everyday Environment podcast where we explore the environment we see every day. I'm your host, Erin Garrett.

Abigail: 00:14

And I'm your cohost, Abigail Garofalo.

Erin: 00:16

And today, we are here with Michelle Beloskur , who is the director of the Midwest Invasive Plant Network. Welcome, Michelle.

Michelle: 00:24

Hi. Thanks so much for having me.

Erin: 00:27

We're really excited to have you on the podcast today. I know, Abigail, I've heard about the Midwest Invasive Plant Network for years, but haven't had the chance to chat with anyone directly from it. So excited to learn more about the work that you do and a special project too that you work on as well. So we're excited to have you join us from not Illinois. Where are you calling in from today, Michelle?

Michelle: 00:54

Well, I'm fortunate enough. I I get to work remotely, so I'm actually in Mid Michigan. But make my way over to Illinois quite a bit.

Erin: 01:01

Wonderful. Well, let's get into our episode today. And for our listeners who have been following us so far this season, we've covered, you know, the basics of invasives, kind of how to communicate about invasives, and invasive regulation, which I hope you found as exciting as we did even though we weren't expecting it based on the title. But in talking to Michelle this week, we wanna focus our attention on kind of how we figure out what species are invasive. So Michelle, get us started and tell us a little bit more about the Invasive Plant Network and what your role is.

Michelle: 01:36

Yeah. I'd be happy to. So the Midwest Invasive Plant Network, you'll probably hear me say MIPIN a lot. We use the acronym. So we're a nonprofit.

Michelle: 01:44

We're a regional organization. We cover nine states as well as the province of Ontario, and we have a pretty simple to say, not always easy to do mission, which is to reduce the impacts of invasive plants within the Midwest. We have a really wonderful board of directors. We have people from state agencies, from the green industry world, from people who do land on the ground management, people at universities doing research, landscape architects, other nonprofits, so really wonderful perspectives that come to the table and help us kind of guide our work, and also help us to reach out to all different groups. And then myself, you know, I'm kind of running the organization on a day to day basis, so it's a lot of soliciting and managing grants so we can further our work.

Michelle: 02:36

A lot of that work revolves around the early detection of invasive plants. I also run conferences and do a lot of education and outreach, so this is a perfect opportunity.

Abigail: 02:46

Very nice. Yeah. We've been using them up in resources for years up in Cook County. A lot of the times, the resources regarding, like, landscape plants is really, really helpful for a lot of our local residents because people just don't know that. Oh, I can buy it from the store.

Abigail: 03:01

What do you mean? It's a problem. They wouldn't sell it if it was a problem. So and I'm like, in a perfect world, that would that would be the case. But it's not.

Michelle: 03:12

Yeah. Unfortunately, that's not always that's not always that's not always real, so I'm glad to hear that. We're always trying to put out new resources, and we could talk about some of the new things that we have available as we go on today.

Abigail: 03:24

That's awesome. Yeah. So you talk about, like, detection, figuring out what kind of invasive plants are there. Early detection is a really big focus for Mithin. Why does catching a plant early really matter so much compared to dealing with it once it's widespread?

Michelle: 03:40

Yeah, that's a great question, and it is really important, and it is one of the things we really focus on prevention and early detection. If anyone's familiar with the invasive curve, you can always Google that that's a really nice, like, visual picture of why it matters, but to explain it kind of verbally, you know, we have a small window, right? When an invasive plant is introduced to a new environment, there's a small window where we detect it, we can eradicate it, or even at least maybe contain it so it doesn't have the same level of impact. If we miss it, if it goes undetected, you know, over time, as it gets more, continues to spread and get established, the cost goes way up, right? The cost of time, the cost of literal financial cost, and the cost of the environment all increase to a point where it just becomes not really a realistic goal to eradicate that plan anymore, and now we're just locked into a long term situation where we can, you know, we can kind of target really high priority areas.

Michelle: 04:46

Maybe there's a really pristine prairie or there's important infrastructure or something, and we can kind of protect those spots maybe, but we but the cat's out of the bag, and we're really locked into long term management and cost. There was a recent report that was cited at it was at a conference in Canada, and they said that they did an analysis from 2019. Invasive species cost exceeded $423,000,000,000 so the financial cost is very real. Now that's more than just plants. That's pests and aquatic organisms and things too, but it's still a very staggering number.

Abigail: 05:23

That's why we're focusing it on on it this season too. We were like, this is a giant issue that impacts so many different aspects of the world. It's not just the fact that, you know, we're paying somebody to manage them, but, like, the cost of the degradation that they do, the the environmental quality costs that are associated with it. Like, I feel like I'm just preaching to the choir in this in this room, but for our audience, there it's not just that, like, oh, we think this is a problem and the environment thinks it's bad. It's causing incredible costs to our infrastructure, to our economy, to our land values if we're thinking of it, you know, from a a, like, a more like valuation standpoint.

Abigail: 06:03

Invasives cost a lot of money to people.

Michelle: 06:07

Yeah, and I, you know, emphasize that number, but you're right. What really does keep me, you know, coming back to work every day is the environmental cost. I mean, that's really important to me. You know, invasive species, I think your audience probably knows that once they move into an area, they outcompete our native vegetation, and they have a lot of you know, attributes that allow them to be more successful. They leaf out earlier, they stay leafed out longer, so they have this extended growing season.

Michelle: 06:39

They didn't co evolve with the ecosystem that they're now in, so there's not the same checks and balances to their growth. A lot of times they've they're prolific seeders. There's all these other things that make them really, really successful, and once they take over, you know, you lose biodiversity. And to me, that's really what it's all about, because when you lose biodiversity, you lose all the different important functions of the ecosystem, and you also lose the the systems lose their ability to be resilient to other stressors as well. So there's a whole cascading effect.

Erin: 07:13

Yeah. I know the the characteristic that I was thinking of that you mentioned is, like the prolific seeding. And I know with some, their longevity that their seeds can last is like decades. And so if they get into the seed bank, then you're fighting a battle for many, many, many years. The invasive that I did my research on in grad school was sericea lespedeza, and that one is terrible.

Erin: 07:39

And it's These have been, I think, like, up, like, forty years at one point. They they had tested and found that they were still viable, and and I've seen it. I've seen restorations that were overtaken by it, and then land managers, you know, kind of took it down to the ground, restarted it, reseeded, and it then stopped managing, and it went right back to how it was before. So it definitely can be a huge drain on resources once they get established. So really, that early detection, you know, is is definitely key and really important in the invasive plant world for sure.

Michelle: 08:16

Absolutely.

Abigail: 08:17

That was the big concern in 2020 with a lot of our stewardship volunteers. Because of COVID, nobody was allowed to go out. We weren't sure what, you know, the effects it would be, how long, if it was safe to be outside with other people, and all these things. So all of this stewardship efforts stopped, and efforts in which they were, like, two years from, like, garlic mustard reasonable management in some sense.

Erin: 08:42

I don't know.

Abigail: 08:43

And so because it didn't get managed that year, could've it went to seed and, like, progress that had been going on for, you know, ten plus years on a site just stopped. And so, we would hear a lot of rogue volunteers, and they'd be like, don't tell me you're volunteering. They'll be like, I went out and I pulled garlic mustard the other day, because I knew this is so this plant life cycle piece, understanding the the plant, like, once it's fully established, like, and then, like, really staying on it after managing it to not let it reestablish, such a big deal. So

Michelle: 09:15

And that can sometimes lead people to feel frustrated or that they just it's well, there's no hope, and I don't wanna, I don't like to let things get to that point either, but, you know, it's, it, you have to, if you're looking to do management, I think it's, I have a colleague in Indiana who's working on a new document to help landowners kind of set goals, set realistic goals, and prioritize, so you can kind of take things in pieces and have a realistic timeframe that it's going to take time, but also have these milestones where you can you can start to see improvement and and feel like not just feel you're successful, be successful. But it it takes time, and it's much harder once things have been here for a longer period of time.

Erin: 10:02

Yeah. For sure. Well, Abigail brought up garlic mustard, and I feel like a lot of people are familiar with with that plant. So how does Mippin decide which plants to keep an eye on before they become the next garlic mustard, the next plant that we're concerned about?

Michelle: 10:18

That's that's a really good question. And there's there's a few different ways. One thing that we are working on right now is we have a lot of great committees that our board members participate in. One is specifically dedicated to early detection. And every year, we've been doing this, I think, five years now, we put out a survey, and it goes to invasive plant experts from across our region, and we ask those very specific questions.

Michelle: 10:45

What are you seeing that's new to your area? What do you see spreading? What are you concerned about? And then we, you know, we summarize those results, and we usually publish them during Invasive Species Awareness Week, which is, the National Invasive Species Awareness Week is the February. So our, we have a page on our website dedicated to early prevention, and that summary will be available there.

Michelle: 11:08

Some of the things that have been at the top of the list from those surveys the last couple of years include things like stiltgrass, chaff flower, lesser celandine, probably plants that, if you're in the same part of the Midwest that we are, you may be familiar with, or if you're not, it'd be really good to get familiar with. MIPN also keeps track of invasive species lists and watch lists, and all the different states and provinces that we, you know, that we include in our outreach, and we have an invasive plant list that we maintain, but that list is over four fifty plants long. So again, we can't have Lee equally, you know, engaged in all of those different ones, so again, which ones do we prioritize? So again, that survey helps. We also have a Forest Service project right now where we're working with citizen science programs in a few different states, in Minnesota, Michigan, and Wisconsin, so that's a great way for us to be talking to people who are on the ground, who are working with volunteers, are doing the early detection work.

Michelle: 12:10

And then I think what we're going to start talk what we're going to talk about next probably is public gardens have been a really important source of this information, because they are, you know, they maintain these collections of plants sourced from all around the world. You know, they do that for conservation purposes and for, you know, beauty, aesthetics, for research, so and they care about invasive species too, so they've been a great source of information.

Abigail: 12:38

Yeah. I so I used to work at the arboretum, the Warren Arboretum, and so I remember, like, being like, this is a tree museum on my talks and talking all about those different aspects. Mhmm. And never once had it occurred to me that this idea of, like, oh, planting collections from all over the world is something we should take really seriously, and they do take it really serious. But like, that wasn't my job to think about taking it seriously.

Abigail: 13:02

I was an educator at the time there, so I was like, oh, but like, now that I'm in this role and then I heard about this program, was like, oh, this is like a big deal. We should think about the plants that we're bringing in to plant and showcase, and uses these tree museums, or these these plant museums essentially, and how we're keeping track of them. So that leads us to this program that we invited you to talk about. Chris actually Chris Evans actually was like, oh, you gotta talk to Michelle. I think it'll be really cool.

Abigail: 13:29

So I'm excited to hear more of this. This is the back to to kinda reference, but so this program is called the Public Gardens as Sentinels Against Invasive Plants. It's a fascinating ideas. So how did the concept of public gardens acting as, like, this early warning system come about, or just even generally, what is the program? Right?

Michelle: 13:52

Yeah. So I really that credit to that goes to one of our founders. She was traveling to a lot of different public gardens for other aspects of her work, and just realized she kept kinda having the same conversations. They were, you know, seeing plants within their collection, sometimes spread from where they were intended to be. You know, they sometimes just slowly, kind of a slow creep from, you know, in the bed they were planted, sometimes popping up in, like, natural areas on the other side of their garden.

Michelle: 14:26

And they were monitoring their collections, so they knew this was happening, and they were addressing it, and sometimes even completely removing the plant from their collection if they felt that was warranted. But they weren't sharing that with other gardens, and they certainly weren't sharing it with anybody outside the garden network. And there's reasons for that. There's, unfortunately, a long history of a lot of invasive plants have originated from horticulture. Not only way by any stretch of the imagination, but it is an important vector.

Michelle: 14:55

So they know this, and they're on top of it, but they weren't really sharing that. And so she got together with another one of our founders from the Morton Arboretum, Kurt Dryselker, and they organized an event where gardens, think think about 26 different gardens, came together, and they talked about this issue. And they said, Yeah, we're all dealing with this, and it would be really helpful if we had a network and we were sharing this with each other. So that's kind of how it started, is gardens talking to gardens, and that's still a valuable part of the program. Because if one garden's seeing a problem, it's good for another garden to know that and make sure they're carefully monitoring their collection and maybe not selling things that another garden is seeing be problematic.

Michelle: 15:34

But there's also a key there was also a huge capacity for this to go this information to reach other stakeholder groups as well, and that's kind of where we've evolved to now. So after that meeting, when all those gardens came together, there was a decision to form a working group, and that working group ended up creating a set of guidelines, which was really important, so that gardens participating in this program were all collecting data in a standardized way. And then also there was the creation of a database where all the information could be stored. So those were two really important pieces to make the program functional. Right?

Abigail: 16:08

Instead of sending an email out or a once a quarterly meeting or whatever that everyone had to have time for, I could, like, look it up on my own time.

Michelle: 16:16

Mhmm. Yeah. Very cool. Absolutely.

Erin: 16:21

So in thinking about how this program works, like, what kinds of patterns or red flags are these gardens kind of looking out for that might otherwise go unnoticed if it and then become too late?

Michelle: 16:36

Yeah. So the again, this was this protocol basically was developed with public gardens. So it works, I think, quite well. There's a few key things that we ask about to kind of gauge how problematic a plant is, to have kind again, some kind of a standardization. So how many escapees are they seeing?

Michelle: 16:57

So if they have a plant and they're seeing, you know, we don't ask them to tell us the exact number and go out and count every single stem, but we say, you know, are there 100 plants escaping? Are there more than 1,000 plants escaping? Right, gauge the extent. And then how far are they spreading? And then some other questions about like the context, like are they popping up in natural areas?

Michelle: 17:18

Because that could definitely be a sign that that's what they would do if they were part of a broader landscape, right? They would pop up in these kind of natural areas or uncultivated areas. And also, are these plants already in the greener landscape or not? You know, gardens, as we kind of said, they collect these really rare and unique plants from around the world, so sometimes the only place these plants currently reside is in public gardens. And that's, like, one of the real strengths of this program is if there's a plant that's not out there yet, it's not in trade, it's not being planted anywhere else, and it's problematic, let's let's get that information out sooner than later.

Michelle: 17:56

So those are kind of the main red flags, if you will, that gardens are looking for when they participate. And then based on the answers to these questions that we ask, gardens we have a ranking system. So gardens plants will either be ranked as watch list, which is like lowest level of concern, and really just means like, we're not even saying this is invasive, we're just, there's some spread, there's some concern, let's keep an eye on this, let's see if we can get more data, to then potentially invasive and invasive. And an invasive if a garden says a plant is invasive, it's generally also pretty well established in the greater landscape.

Abigail: 18:33

Very cool. I love this program because it really kind of takes what we like, infrastructure we already have and incentives we all already have as well. Right? Like, gardens are already like, they're managing for them. Right?

Abigail: 18:50

Like, if their their goals are typically science related, you know, public related, public good related, trying to get this understanding. They're well managed in some way. Like, their people are looking and wanna know more about the things they're planting, and then their interests are like, well, we we also want, like, these spaces to thrive. So how can we manage that? Because, you know, no matter how much you love a certain plant, if it has invasive tendencies, like any home gardener will tell you, maybe don't plant that in your yard.

Abigail: 19:22

Right? Like and so, like, they want to they, like and they want to help people out in that way too, like, to help us understand that from for the greater good, for these larger organizations, for these smaller organ smaller groupings, keep things off the market, stuff like that, because, you know, we're always they're always looking for, like, a new tree or something, like, horticultural variety that could be planted, and so to have this kind of living lab existing and data, standardized data, big deal.

Michelle: 19:49

It's it's, yeah, it's a very important piece of the program. And it's also important to note that, like, you know, if for for a garden to report a plant, it needs to be non native. It needs to be considered part of their collection, and it has to be exhibiting some level of escape. But we always like to point out that most non native plants are not invasive. They're, you know, I love native plants.

Michelle: 20:14

That's what I love to grow on my own property, but most non natives are not the problem. But the few that are, as we talked about at the beginning of our conversation, can be incredibly damaging, so we do have to be really careful. And most gardens there was a survey that this group did kind of early in their formation about what gardens were currently doing, like what were they noticing, how were they dealing with situations, and the vast majority of gardens are monitoring their collections. They're very thoughtful about what they're planting, what they're removing. So they're great allies in this work.

Erin: 20:49

So one of the things I was gonna ask is, you know, this program is kind of like an early detection to kind of note new invasives that we don't already know about, but are there methods where they're collecting data on, like, known invasives that they have in their collections? Like, for example, I was at a botanic garden on vacation, I don't even remember where, and I found I saw an amarcork tree, and it was huge and, like, this big specimen, and I was like, oh, I know that's on the invasive list in Illinois. That's interesting, and it's like this huge, beautiful specimen. Right? I've never seen it before.

Erin: 21:25

So it was kinda cool to be able to see it. Right? Because I'd heard about it. But does it work in that way too? Or they are able to

Michelle: 21:32

It does.

Erin: 21:33

Blossom.

Michelle: 21:33

Mhmm. And I get this question all the time from new gardens that are enrolling. They're like, well, you probably don't need me to report on calorie pear or, you know, something like that. And I said, actually, you can. Like, report on if you have the data, share it, because one of the things, like the the early detection stuff is is definitely, like, probably the most critical part of the work we do, but even collecting information on what we consider known invasives, we've been able to use that data when states like Illinois just went through this process, right, of assessing plans and deciding if things needed to be regulated, and we can just provide additional information from a trusted source, which is Public Gardens.

Michelle: 22:16

So we can say something like, in your case, Corktree, we've had, at this point, 15 of our 68 enrolled gardens have said Amur Corktree's spreading at our garden. And we can also be more specific too and say, you know, this many gardens have said it's invasive or potentially invasive or watch list that kind of rank the level of concern as well, and that's just another piece to help them make their decisions. So it can be even helpful with those more common commonly known invasives.

Abigail: 22:46

I love data. I just I because, like, I tell like, it's Erin, you and I have talked about this a lot. It's like, you know, you see calorie pear in a neighbor's yard or a community that has calorie pair all up and down their parkway, and then in the little scrub areas across the hall or across this the tree or the street or whatever, you see calorie pair everywhere. Right? And that's a common anecdote that we could all say.

Abigail: 23:11

Right? And we can say to, you know, as they're making decisions about those things, I see them everywhere. But for something like a garden, like a established arboretum, established botanic garden, things like that, to say, we are seeing these, we are monitoring them, researchers, there's just a little weight behind that that feels really, really important, so.

Michelle: 23:32

Yeah, they have a lot of expertise, as you know. You worked at Morton Her Freedom, and they've really been a keystone to this initiative. So yeah, having those layers of expertise, and we do really encourage them, like when gardens enroll, to talk to all these different layers of their I mean, some gardens are small, some are very large, but some of these large gardens have a lot of layers of expertise, and we like to try to bring as much of that to bear as possible. I mean, from your director of horticulture to your regular volunteer, they all have different kinds of information to share.

Abigail: 24:05

Mhmm. Okay. To clarify, so you say public gardens as sentinels against invasive plants. Do you abbreviate that at all, or do you, like, is there a short term, or do we do we say the whole thing every time?

Michelle: 24:19

We say so it it depends, so you ask. Most of us say p g s I p, which isn't a lot better, but I've I've probably said it at some point already. We've toyed with with shorter names, but I think it's we keep coming back to the that it's really important for us to have public gardens in the name, to have sentinels in the name, to have invasive plants in the name.

Erin: 24:42

Those are all important parts

Michelle: 24:44

of what this initiative is all about. So the name the name is what it is for the foreseeable future.

Abigail: 24:50

Well, this program, PGS IP, issues a plant alert when that happens.

Michelle: 24:56

Yes.

Abigail: 24:56

Like for Japanese tree lilac or golden rain tree. What do you hope different audiences will take away from that information?

Michelle: 25:05

Yeah. That actually, I just had a meeting with our working group today, and we were talking about this. It's very much on our minds. So each of our alerts is you know,

Erin: 25:16

they all have a similar look, but there

Michelle: 25:18

is different content, and there's a section right on the front that says recommended actions. So and those recommended actions vary based on the level of concern that gardens have raised about a particular plant. So it's, you know, important to say that we're not necessarily labeling every plant that we issue an alert on. We're not necessarily saying is invasive. But we want people to be paying attention to these plants.

Michelle: 25:42

So our first one that we issued was amuricork tree. That's now a regulated plant in Illinois. There's not a ton of debate about that plant being invasive. I think it's listed or regulated in, like, 12 different states now. And it's pretty uniform, like, especially in the, like, Northeastern Quadrant of The United States.

Michelle: 26:01

I think most areas are kind of on the same page about this plant. And gardens' observations back that up. They have similar levels of concern. Most of them have ranked it as invasive. But the ones you mentioned are newer alerts on Japanese tree lilac.

Michelle: 26:18

The majority of gardens have said that's potentially invasive, and it's only listed, it's only considered invasive by, I think, Maine and Ontario. So definitely not like universal acceptance that it's an invasive plant, we're not necessarily saying that, but again, we have this really valuable data from gardens saying it's spreading, and there's also some observational data from some CISMAs, or invasive species management areas in New York. They're seeing a lot of spread in river corridors, and they're actively managing that. So definitely that's one to, I think, keep an eye on. And then golden raintree, even lower level of concern from gardens, they mostly have said it's a watch list plant.

Michelle: 27:02

I think we have about six states that consider it invasive. But the interesting thing to me about that one is if you look at the regionality of where our reports have come from, it's we've had gardens in New York, in New Mexico, Washington State, like all different parts of The US where gardens have said this plant is spreading in unintended ways. So the fact that it can thrive in such diverse habitat conditions definitely gives me a little pause. And in the case of those latter two, the tree lilac and the golden rain tree, we really just are looking for more data. So we want more gardens to participate, we would like more information about what they're seeing in other parts of the country, so really trying to collect more information.

Michelle: 27:46

That being said, so our target audiences for these alerts are primarily for, like, growers, propagators, landscape architects, other public gardens. In many cases, all of those entities have, like, these pretty long term business plans, and they can't always pivot on a dime, so we want to get them this information as early as possible so they can make more informed decisions about plants they wanna continue to maybe propagate, sell, use in landscape designs, and give them the opportunity to maybe proactively adjust to their business models to use plants that aren't potentially problematic.

Abigail: 28:28

Well, and like you said, those lit like, the your list of invasive species on your website, it's, like, 400 species long. Right? So these warnings and alerts and kind of like light monitoring kind of alerts give people, you know, only have so much limited attention capacity, almost have limited time capacity. So it's like, okay. I can't focus on if every plant is going to escape.

Abigail: 28:52

But if a warning comes out about this one because this bigger space had the capacity to monitor more closely, I can just focus my efforts on, you know, oh, I have that one. I can look at that one. So it gives them kind of this little attention differential, I guess.

Michelle: 29:07

Yeah. We have a video, six minute video that we made to help promote PGSIP, and my one of my favorite parts of the video is we have a a grower, I believe, who's based in in Illinois, who was able to go to our we have a publicly accessible dashboard. So most of the data we have is behind a a controlled access database, so it's not the raw data is not publicly available. But we do have a dashboard so you can at least see which which states have participating gardens, what are some of the most commonly recorded taxa. And in this video, you'll see, like, a grower goes in and selects Illinois and says, okay.

Michelle: 29:46

What's what are gardens most commonly reporting as a problem in Illinois? And she said, oh, that looks like something we might be selling. And she went back to her, you know, her her her her papers and said, okay. No. We're not actually selling that.

Michelle: 30:02

Good. Mhmm. But she's like, but I'm gonna come back, and I'm gonna keep checking that. And if that changes, that's gonna give me pause about and make sure that we're not contributing inadvertently to an invasive plant problem. So So I think that's kind of what we hope how we hope a lot of this data is used.

Erin: 30:20

I think it's really interesting, and kind of going back to Abigail's point too, speaking of golden rain tree, because we had that in my yard at my old house, and we had lots of other invasive trees. So, like, the Callery Pear was the first one that went when Mhmm. I when we got there, and then we took out all the privets. Oh my gosh. There were so many privets, and we took all of those out because right and my my lawn was turning into privet, so like I could see it.

Erin: 30:49

It was like I didn't have grass anymore. I had little privet No. And like my entire flower garden was like thousands of privets. Like, it was insane. And I knew, like, Callery Pear.

Erin: 31:02

Right? You can see that. But the golden rain tree, I had looked it up. Right? And I'm like, okay.

Erin: 31:06

I know it's not native, but I don't I, so far, don't see, right, those impacts. But if I still live there now and I heard this, I would have been like, that's the next one on my list that's gonna go. But it's just interesting to, yeah, have that data, but then use it to, like, prioritize, right, like, among your management, even on the homeowner level. Right? You can kind of use that data to help.

Erin: 31:32

You might not see the physically see the problem in your yard, but that doesn't mean that it hasn't been reported in other areas and could contribute to a larger problem. So yeah.

Michelle: 31:43

Yeah. And that's that's one of the things I think those of us in invasive species management hear a lot. And when I did more on the ground work within my community in my previous job, It's like, well, it's not it's not spreading in my yard. You hear you do hear that a lot. It's like, yeah.

Michelle: 31:59

It doesn't always mean it's not a problem. Right? Mhmm. I think burning bush is a good example of that. Right?

Michelle: 32:05

Because the bird, you know, yeah, it might not be spreading where you are, but if those birds carry the seed to a natural area down the road, it could explode there. So, and I think sometimes that's why things can escape attention if you're in highly manicured areas, highly manicured lawns, or other places that have really active landscape management that you might just keep literally kind of mowing over the problem. It doesn't mean it isn't spreading, it isn't problematic. You know, we've talked a lot about, like, know, public gardens doing this work, and other professionals, but there's a lot of opportunities for any you know, anyone who wants to develop a little bit of plant knowledge can even if you just learn a few and report them, it can be incredibly helpful.

Erin: 32:49

Well, Michelle, thank you so much for chatting with us. It's been really great to learn a little bit more about MIPN and the PGS IP. It's been great to have you on. We're gonna finish today's episode with our everyday observations where we highlight the mundane and normal of our environment that's actually really interesting. So Abigail, I'm gonna have you go first.

Abigail: 33:11

Okay. So I am not a birder. I'm not even a lower case b birder, but I do still like to look at birds at every end. The birding bug is pinching me recently, so I look out my window and I saw like a really dark gray, almost black backed bird, very puffy looking because it's winter, and then the belly was white, and I was like, I think that's a dark eyed junco, and I remembered a lot about that species in the sense that like they're winter species, they usually like are kind of like the harbingers of winter. Right?

Abigail: 33:45

We usually think of like what what indicates spring, but this kind of indicates winter. And so I was really excited to see that, and it was just kinda cool to see that bird. It threw me off because in the winter, they get really fluffy, like, because they're trying to stay warm, even though they're like, they're used to like really, really cold environments in Canada and things like But they come here in the winter because it's it's warmer than than where they usually are for breeding. But they still have to keep warm, and so it's been like three degrees here. We're recording this in January, and so it just looked like a little puffball, and it was so cute.

Michelle: 34:20

Love it.

Erin: 34:21

I love it. I you started describing it because I'm also not a birder and in my head I was like, Junco, like, I know that one.

Abigail: 34:28

Yeah. Right? It's one that I was looking into it doing a little more research. It's kinda fun when you find something. This is what I love about these everyday observations is I get to do a little more research into why something's there or how.

Abigail: 34:37

And it's like one of the most common birds in North America. Like, everywhere. They're found everywhere. You look up the sightings on like Merlin and it's like or e bird and they're everywhere. Like, everybody sees the dark-eyed Junco.

Abigail: 34:48

Like, Birders with capital Bs are like, it's just a dark eyed Junco. And I'm just like, it's a dark eyed Junco. Like, so

Erin: 34:55

It's great. Wonderful. Well, Michelle, I'll have you go next.

Michelle: 35:00

I I will go. I have to say, I I am an aspiring birder, I'm trying, and I I think it was last year I was I posted a little list of cool birds that I'd seen, right? And maybe I was just texting a friend, and Junkos was one on the list, and my very smart, but not birder friend was like, Junkos, are you I can't tell if you're pulling my leg. She's like, is that really the name of a bird? I'm like, oh, it it is, and they're really cute.

Erin: 35:30

Bird names are wild. They are.

Michelle: 35:32

They are. So I'll share I know you said we're recording in January. This is actually even a little bit longer ago, but I had opportunity to go on a really cool walk. My our local our local conservation group hosted a sunrise solstice walk. So on the morning of the solstice, my daughter and I bundled up and we went out and we saw the sunrise over this restored prairie, and not even that huge of an area, but really, really lovely, and we saw all the little, you know, winter seed heads of, like, pale, cold flower and native goldenrods and and echinacea and some really beautiful things.

Michelle: 36:12

So and the sunrise just came over the prairie perfectly, so it was just a wonderful little eco moment.

Erin: 36:19

Mhmm. Sounds wonderful. I love the prairie in winter. It's like

Michelle: 36:24

Mhmm.

Erin: 36:24

I don't know. It's just something special. It's just all the the seed heads and the shadows and the lighting. Know. It's magnificent.

Abigail: 36:33

I love after a snow, this little snow caps on the seed heads. It's just like Well, Erin, what is your everyday observation?

Erin: 36:43

Okay. Well, I did come up with one as we were chatting ahead of time. We started recording today and I didn't have my observation yet. But for people who have listened to the podcast for a while, you know, we moved homes a couple years ago and we did a whole bunch of different native landscaping right when we moved in. And one of the first things that we did was cut down a crepe myrtle that was right outside our front door because it was completely covered in this scale that I now know is crepe myrtle bark scale, which is an invasive.

Erin: 37:18

Of course, it is. And kind of crazy when I was cutting down this crepe myrtle, the scale when you crush it, it looks like you just, like, crushed a beet in your hands. It was, bright pink. And it's like the whole bark was covered in it. So like crazy pests.

Erin: 37:38

Right? And I'm like, it'll be fine. I'll remove the crape myrtle. I'm gonna plant something else. It's not gonna have it's not gonna be the same host.

Erin: 37:45

Everything's gonna be great. So I planted some beauty berries there and they exploded. They're doing amazing. They're beautiful. And I noticed this past fall that they had the same scale on it.

Erin: 37:58

And I was like, that's unfortunate. I'm gonna research this. And I looked it up and that's like one of the only other hosts that it has. It's Great Myrtle and Daisy Berry. And I was like, what are the odds?

Erin: 38:11

What are the odds? No. The the plant that I put in is also a host. So I need to manage that, but scale is notoriously difficult for those that don't know to get rid of. So I'm not very optimistic that I'm gonna be able to control it, but keep your fingers crossed for me.

Erin: 38:31

I'll probably give an update in the next season of Everyday Environment and how this battle is going. But I what like I said, what are the odds that I would find the other singular host plant for this. Not a beauty berry too. I thought the like, oh, it's so pretty. Yeah.

Erin: 38:54

Quite unfortunate. So don't be like me. Do your research. If you have an invasive insect and you wanna replace it, make sure you don't plant another host plant for it.

Abigail: 39:06

also, I feel like I've like, I'm like, okay, if Erin can make that mistake, it's okay that I can make that mistake. Like, it's okay that it happened to me. Like, can sometimes you can do all the research in the world and you still miss it. Right? Like, you know all the right things.

Abigail: 39:20

You and so I do feel like it's thank you for sharing your mishaps with us. So

Michelle: 39:27

And sometimes those mishaps are, like, unfortunately, just the best teachers. You'll never forget that. I think we've all had those moments. We're like, okay, yep, that's locked in there forever now.

Erin: 39:41

Alright. Well, this has been another episode on the Everyday Environment podcast. Check us out next week where we talk with Rebecca Wallace all about EDMaps.