Screen shot from Rebecca McMackin’s Instagram feed.

Rebecca McMackin, (horticulturist/writer/eco-influencer) is getting a lot of attention – a much-watched Ted Talk, interviews on podcasts, etc. And her recent opinion piece in American Gardener magazine tackles a surprisingly controversial topic. It’s appropriately named “Rethinking Invasives: How can we protect biodiversity without feeding fear.”

McMackin has two objections to the word “invasive.” One, “It’s simply inaccurate…Garden mustard didn’t sneak in under cover of darkness; it was brought here, like most plants we call invasive.” And two, “The term ‘invasive’ deflects accountability for the plant doing what plants do while concealing the role of human choices.” She points out that nurseries still sell plants known to cause damage.

Xenophobia and other problems

Good points! She goes on. “We have to be careful not to fuel xenophobia…In a moment of rising nationalism, language about ‘invasion’ and ‘foreign threats’ can terrify and exclude people, positioning the gardening movement as aligned with authoritarianism.”

“I’m grateful for the guidance of researchers and BIPOC advocates who have called for these shifts for years. Also, we should avoid phrases like ‘destroying Japanese knotweed;’ some will respond to that with understandable aversion.” She suggests instead using its Japanese name. And “Oriental bittersweet” could instead be called “round-leaf bittersweet” to distinguish it from the native one. (BIPOC refers to Black, Indigenous and People of Color.)

In Defense of Plants

There’s no need to characterize these plants as evil. Many weeds are among the best medicines in the world.  We can pull garlic mustard to make pesto, bandage wounds with broad-leaved plantain, and collect dandelion green for salad, while removing them. This shifts the conversation away from evil invaders and towards keeping ecological communities intact – which is the goal…

Ecological gardening is about fostering the diversity within biodiversity. Sometimes that means removing introduced plants.  But let us do it without turning back the clock or shutting people out. Let our gardening cultivate a verdant, biodiverse and inclusive future.”

I love “biodiverse and inclusive future”!

Reader comments

When she posted about the article on her Instagram account and AHS posted it to theirs, almost everyone expressed gratitude, some saying they’d been bothered by the language for a long time.  One reported bringing this problem to a native plant group and getting trolled for it.

“For balance, we need to talk more about the introduced species that are beneficial – like everything on our plates! And in our gardens. We do all plants a disservice by using their passports and not their characters to judge them.”

One agrees that “Throwing all nonnatives – a word that represents a specific time in earth history – into the category of bad plants is not helpful or ecologically sound in every case. Most plants are better than no plants at all.”  Hear, hear! 

Naturally I love this comment: “Words matter. The evangelical missionary-like tendencies of some folks in the native plant community are truly harmful and ugly. Thanks for addressing this issue.”

The conversation became instantly more interesting when Canadian designer and writer Tony Spencer commented:

Great discussion. In terms of fueling xenophobia, why not also question the language of “native” vs. “exotic” or “alien” along with “invasive”?
All these terms carry heavy colonial baggage and yet, they are commonly accepted within the horticultural and ecological vernacular. They are nebulous ill-defined terms used to otherize one state from the other. I now use the term “indigenous” or “local” rather than “native,” and it’s respectful to First Nations as well (who tend to now use “aboriginal” or indigenous vs. native). The opposite term to indigenous might be “exogenous”, as in originating from outside and it does not carry the DHS connotations of “alien”. If anyone has a better suggestion, I’m all ears but I do wonder why such dated language gets a free pass, especially now.

Rebecca responded that she “couldn’t agree more about ‘alien.’ It’s made me cringe for decades. And while I’ve never heard it used in horticulture, it should absolutely be retired from ecology.”

The Search for Better Terms

McMackin writes that she’s started using these terms: “disruptive introduced plants” or “plants that cause ecological damage.” They focus the problem on their impact rather than their origin.

Terms suggested by commenters on social media include “ecologically harmful,” “ecologically disruptive” and “eco-disruptors.”

Instead of “native,” I’ve seen suggestions that we use “regional” and also “of the land.” (I’d be very surprised to see that last one take hold.)

“Endemic” is suggested but McMackin responds that in ecology that term refers to “species that ONLY exist in certain places. They’re restricted to mountain ranges or deserts or islands. And it’s an important word for that!” 

In Defense of Talking about Invasives

On Reddit I found commenters defending the potentially offensive terms: “We are just finally getting a foothold with educating the general public about the harm of invasive plants and I think the terminology needs to sound bold and aggressive, and be consistent, to get the job done. This mindset will confuse people further about an already complex problem.”

“We can’t allow racists to design our vocabulary. We need to be firm in definitions and meanings so that their twisting of them is not legitimized.”

In Defense of Talking Less about Invasives

This week the Virginia governor’s response to the recent State of the Union Address reminded me of a problem I see with focusing so much on the dangers of gardening, including the threat of “invasion”. When the governor says “Every minute spent sowing fear is a minute not spent [solving crimes],” I think “…is a minute not inspiring people to grow plants, including exciting them with visions of beautiful gardens they can create, and of course teaching them how. 

I’ve heard far too many new or aspiring gardeners express anxiety about “doing the wrong things,” which is a shame.  Creating fear isn’t helping beginners get started toward making a garden they’ll love. I noticed in my years of garden-coaching that the best way to create eco-gardeners is to just create gardeners, period. The real ones, of course, not mowers-and-blowers. The type of gardening that’s taught today IS eco-gardening.    

Then there’s the issue of Colonialism. Or have I lost you yet?

Kitchen garden in Colonial Williamsburg, VA.

A few commenters took readers down a whole other rabbit hole, one, starting with this one: “Why can’t we call them colonialist plants decimating native plants?”

Just one more note about plants in American history, from someone you’re probably familiar with. Benjamin Vogt writes:

Those with privilege are threatened by decolonizing traditional horticulture, a horticulture which is grounded on new plant introductions, whether discoveries from around the world or new selections and crosses. Privilege is placing a plant in an ecoregion it did not evolve in, with fauna it did not evolve with, primarily because a human wants it there.

And I thought the debate couldn’t get any more contentious, or deep in the weeds! This is my cue to tune it all out, just like I do when my professors at the University of Maryland go on about arcane theories written by other academics in their nearly incomprehensible style. 

Albrecht Dürer Painted these Plants Before they were Brought to N. America

Speaking of my college professors, I’ve been attending UMD as a non-tuition-paying retiree for about 10 years and the best lecturer I’ve ever experienced is this brilliant woman seen this week telling the class about Dürer’s “Great Piece of Turf.” Odd title for a very odd subject choice in an era of floral paintings.

The Great Piece of Turf is a watercolor painting by Albrecht Dürer created at his Nuremberg workshop in 1503. It is a study of a seemingly unordered group of wild plants, including dandelion and greater plantain. The work is considered one of the masterpieces of Dürer’s realistic nature studies….The various plants can be identified as cock’s-foot, creeping bent, smooth meadow-grass, daisy, dandelion, germander speedwell, greater plantain, hound’s-tongue and yarrow.” Source – wiki.

Wiki goes on to describe what we might call these days a wild-type garden using wild plants:

The composition shows little order and arrangement, the various roots, stems and flowers seem to be in opposition to each other. The apparent chaos, combined with the attentive detail of each individual plant, lends the painting greater realism. Though the composition of vegetation in itself is continuous and seemingly disorganised, the blank background provides a contrast to the chaos, and imposes a sense of order.