Invasion! East Lansing’s Fight Against Invasive Plants

East Lansing is under attack. The parks, the roadsides and even backyards are all overrun by invasive plant species squashing native competition.

Many will look familiar. Buckthorn, garlic mustard and knapweed are well-known culprits. Lesser known as invasive are ornamental species like Amur honeysuckle and popular ground covers like winter creeper and ground elder. 

Joshua Ramirez-Roberts, a member of the city’s Parks and Recreation Advisory Commission, has made it his personal crusade to root out invasive plants in East Lansing. At least as best he can. 

His interest in invasive plants started while he was foraging for pawpaws, a fruit tree native to Michigan.

“I fell down this rabbit hole of trying to identify all the plants around that I was seeing,” he said. “I got an app and I started reading through sources and I came to realize that whenever I was walking through the park, pretty much all I was looking at was invasive species.”

Ramirez-Roberts started to just remove them himself.

“It spiraled from there,” he said.

Ramirez-Roberts became involved with the Parks and Recreation Advisory Commission and began the seemingly endless process of restoring native ecological communities.

Invasive species can be thought of as a “wicked problem.” As defined by theorists Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber in 1973, a “wicked problem” is difficult to address because of the complexity of the issue and the many stakeholders involved. The wickedness of the problem in East Lansing is tied up in limited funding, resources and public awareness. 

Buckthorn, garlic mustard and other plants have been a literal thorn in the side of the East Lansing Environmental Stewardship program since its inception in 2010.

According to Heather Majano, the program’s volunteer coordinator, the city has identified buckthorn and garlic mustard in all of East Lansing’s parks with the exception of Harrison Meadows, where there is no garlic mustard, and Patriarche park where there are neither. 

“For some reason they’re just not there,” Majano said. “Hopefully we can keep it that way.”

Managing invasive species isn’t just about removal. 

“It’s not very attractive to turn the corner at a park and see just bare soil,” she said.

Besides being an eyesore, removal creates the opportunity for the invasive plants to grow right back. So a successful management strategy must also include repopulating with native plants. 

“But native plants are expensive and this is a small program,” Majano said. “So we’ve started several native seed banks.”

There have been some success stories. During the first few years of the program, the city focused on garlic mustard removal in Albert A. White Memorial Park. 

“The garlic mustard was actually changing the composition of the soil,” Majano said. “But once we removed it, the soil was able to go back to normal and native plants naturally returned.”

“That’s one of my favorite stories,” she said. 

That was in 2012 and due to limited time and resources, they’ve been unable to recreate the success. 

The program is run by Majano and is one of her several responsibilities within the city. It heavily relies on volunteers. 

“We have community workdays, but we also have special workdays,” she said. The special workdays, which host various volunteer groups such as church and school organizations, are when most of the work gets done. 

But all the volunteers in the world aren’t enough. It takes someone to coordinate workdays and Majano can only manage the program on the side. 

“It’s been around for 15 something years,” Ramirez-Roberts said. “And the state of invasive species hasn’t gotten any better, if anything it’s gotten worse.”

Other communities, Meridian Township for one, have invested more resources and seen success in managing invasive species.

Meridian Township Land Stewardship Coordinator Emma Campbell said that one of her primary roles is managing invasive species within the roughly 1,700 acres of land she oversees.

Campbell works full time addressing ecological topics, especially invasive species. She also manages three other part-time staff members. 

“Unfortunately, the work is so incredibly critical to preserving our habitats and ecosystem, and there’s just not funding out there,” Campbell said. “With the township, we are very unique and very lucky to have a preservation millage.”

This millage, which is a tax approved by voters, allows a full time employee to address invasive species. 

“My management of invasive species has evolved over time and with more experience,” Campbell said. “What we do is identify areas that have native species present. So there are species that are persisting, but need some help, then we work in a bubble outwards. That’s been very efficient and effective since there is resilience already established.

“I personally feel like we’ve made a lot of headway,” she said. “You have to keep coming back. But we’ve been managing the same patches of garlic mustard for three years, and now it’s like a scavenger hunt to find it, which is very exciting.”

There are plenty of management strategies, Ramirez-Roberts is an advocate for controlled burns, but at the end of the day, choices are limited by funding.

Raising awareness of the topic is also essential.

“The most important thing that anyone can do is to make sure they have as many native plants as possible in their yards,” Ramirez-Roberts said. “They could essentially turn their lawn into a meadow. Which is, in my opinion, much more attractive than a grass lawn.

“That is something that people have direct control over,” he said. “Especially in a community like East Lansing, where a lot of people do have the monetary ability to change their lawn.”

Michigan’s Department of Natural Resources has good information about native and invasive plants species. Ramirez-Roberts recommends Wildtype Native Plant Nursery in Mason, MI, and Prairie Moon Nursery to find native species. University extensions are also an excellent resource.

But most importantly, reach out directly to local environmental stewardship programs to become involved or simply ask questions.

“People are welcome to reach out, that’s my role” Campbell said. Her contact information can be found here. 

Majano also extended an open invitation to community members who want to know more. Her contact information and more information about the stewardship program can be found here.