h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I love reading your stuff, Hyp, and this week's is tops...but English Ivy as an invader?
The stuff in New England (Ivy League, even) certainly looks like the familiar and well-loved plant we know in England. Is there a subtly different native species?
I'm bound to be wrong here, I know, but it looks to this layman like an introduced species as old and as deeply-insinuated in North America as the Caucasian strain of Homo Sapiens itself.
Pin (whose favourite garden is a mass of ivy and wisteria)

Hi Pin. The ivy in question is Hedera helix - if I'm allowed to say that without being moderated. It is a beautiful plant, no arguments there. The problem with it arises when it escapes a cultivated area and invades a woodland. It is so successful that it smothers ground plants and becomes parasitic on bushes and small trees. So, whereas we all appreciate the sight of ivy covered university walls, the plant is a problem in natural settings. Many plants native to the British Isles were brought to the US by immigrants wanting to create a familiar environment for themselves. English ivy has been here for generations, but is not native.

I like wisteria, too. It is absolutely gorgeous. But Wisteria sinensis also has escaped cultivation into American woodlands where it has killed off dozens of species of plants. Each time a plant species is removed from a natural habitat, then the animal life that depends upon it is stressed and threatened. In natural habitats plant and animal life evolve together and depend upon each other for survival.

The value of any plant species depends upon the context. The focus of my article was wildlife habitats. In a different context I'm sure English ivy and wisteria would fare better.

Do you really read the Cranky Gardener? I'm flattered.

Hyp

Of course I read it. I read all the Post, and yours are among the favourite bits...



...OK...I have to confess. I do tend to skip the recipe...

I know Frenchbean reads it. So that makes you the other one. Thanks.

I try to make the recipes simple enough for lizzards, buzzards, whales,and phocoids.

(thinks self must be chopped liver)

I don't solely post to bug you about California gardens.

Definitely not chopped liver. Something trendy as befits Southern California. Chopped figs in honey, perhaps.

'Twas just being silly. Some days my silly quotient is higher than others.