permaculture

[Toby Hemenway <toby@patternliteracy.com>]

Keith Johnson wrote:
> Vital,
> If you lived near me (S.Indiana) you could dig up seedlings by the 
> hundreds as they have naturalized locally and in much of the eastern US. 
> They are tolerant of wet or dry, acid or alkaline soils.
Keith (et al): Are you sure that's Elaeagnus x ebbingei? I know that 
Autumn olive (E. umbellata) was planted by the hundreds of thousands all 
over the eastern US by highway departments, has naturalized, and is on 
invasive species lists. But ebbingei is pretty recently on the market, 
and is a hybrid, so won't grow true from seed. I did a little web 
surfing, and pretty much everything I see about ebbingei being invasive 
shows signs of confusing it with umbellata. Plants for a Future says 
it's not considered invasive in the US, and that seeds don't germinate 
easily, and web-posters who seem to be literate in botanical Latin 
concur. I grew ebbingei in southern Oregon, and it's a lovely shrub, 
drought tolerant, with tasty small berries and and N-fixer. Hard to beat 
that. Never saw any seedlings near it in ten years.

I highly recommend Lawyer Nursery, if they carry it. Big quantities, cheap.

Toby
http://patternliteracy.com