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permaculture - Re: [permaculture] Blueberry/willow guild design critique

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  • From: Paul Cereghino <paul.cereghino@comcast.net>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Blueberry/willow guild design critique
  • Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 00:38:15 -0700


This is all nonsense.

>From a metaphysical philosophy perspective I agree.

The plant is not invasive, no plant represented in the genus Iris, is.

You'll need to define invasive... all plants 'invade'. Some plants form monocultures in some environments due to their competative abilities. You could easily shape your definition of invasive to exclude the Genus Iris if you wanted to.



See bottom of this links page...http://www.heraldica.org/topics/fdl.htm. and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleur-de-lis.

The potential historical origin of the Fleur-de-lis is a side track to making a level headed decision about plant selection.

This plant has demonstrated its usefulness for many centuries and if it is
growing well then it is
providing a service to the environment.

yes it has a history of human use over its range... WE HUMANS like it... the plant also provides goods and services to some other creatures. If it replaces a variety of vegetation accross a landscape it may change the composition of those goods and services... some creatures may be served less well, others served better. For example, The bulk of our native frogs appear to depend on thin leaved plants in sunny shallow water (Juncus effusus serves well...) for their egg laying. Iris does not offer that service, and may replace plants that do provide that service. Thus reducing opportunities for frog egg laying. Might not be a big deal, might be a really big deal if frogs are stressed by other factors. Don't think we really can tell. The services of a plant is not provided to "the environment" but rather to other components of the environment through beneficial or detrimental relationship (its not the number of components but the relationship between them). I think your invocation of the environment is a smokescreen.

The above links demonstrate it's other values beyond it's
biology.

it has european cultural value... should we assist its spread?

Plants can survive each other better than they can survive our activities
placing
billions of tons of cides into the environment each year. What hubris to
legislate this, our
policies are truly the invasive.

This is likely true in many cases... and furthurmore many invasive/opportunistic plants follow in the footsteps of our wonton destruction, so turning about and then spraying the plant could be double the crime. Furthermore, in wetland environments our abuse of the land results in changing hydrology increasing the dynamism of the plant communities, forcing them to seek a new equilibrium.. we create the vacant niches. Kneejerk extermination of Iris is wrongheaded. I wasn't talking about Iris pseudoacorus extermination, but rather assisting in its dispersal.

The idea that either 1) iris is invasive or 2) human hubris is invasive; but not both is a false dichotomy and a distraction from a design analysis of Iris pseudoacorus. Iris pseudoacorus is:
1. not historically present in the Pacific Northwest.
2. disperses rapidly along stream corridors.
3. forms monocultures that occupy niches that may have been occupied by other species that were historically present and coevolved with other flora and fauna.

To spread Iris pseudoacorus out of contempt for legislation is perhaps as hubric as spraying poison in water to get rid of it. The ditch by my road runs to a pond that drains to a seasonal watercourse that empties into Woodland Creek. There is no Iris pseudoacorus in Woodland Creek that I have seen. I have no real ability to predict what would happen if I introduced this new species. I am humbled by this responsibility. I think it would be hubris for me to knowingly introduce Iris pseudoacorus to this system because I like Fleur-de-lis and have a contempt for legislation.

Thus I am hesitant to use Iris pseudoacorus in my design, and am still looking for suggestions of starch producing plants with a similar function.

I am curious why this position evokes such contempt. And to be fair, I have heard similar contempt on the native plant side of the fence.

Paul Cereghino




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