Spot the Buckthorn

Our yard came with many varieties of plants. Some are low maintenance and very pretty:

A pretty little lungwort

Others need constant tending so they don't take over everything:

I'm looking at you, bottle brush thingys!

One of our neighbors, who owns a gardening business, took me around the yard identifying everything, including dozens of small trees that she said were a fast growing invasive species. She recommended cutting them down.

"What did you call those trees?" I asked the neighbor, "Bowtruckles?"

"What a funny word," she laughed, "No, they're buckthorns."

Embarrassed, I suddenly remembered where I had heard the word "Bowtruckle" before. (See "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" by Newt Scamander)

I felt indignant that she had suggested removing all the privacy and coziness that I liked about our yard, but I soon learned the necessity of subduing these invaders - for the sake of the many beautiful plants that were being choked out, and for the sake of my neighbors' yards!

And so began the War of Yard Reclamation. I could tell you many stories of great battles from this conflict, with victories going to both sides, but we must save that for another time. For today, I just want to teach you about the main enemy: Rhamnus cathartica.

The common buckthorn is native to Europe but brought to the US as a decorative shrub. It is sometimes used as a laxative. This explains the "cathartica" part of the name, as "catharsis" means purging, of either emotion or the bowels.

Fig.1 - A buckthorn seedling being eradicated

Buckthorn trees can be male or female, with the female trees producing small, purple berries. Even though we have removed the largest specimens, sprouts continue to come up around where the trees once stood because the seeds in the berries can take several years to sprout. Fortunately, I have learned to spot buckthorns in all stages of growth. (Fig.1)

Fig.2 - A young buckthorn that has re-sprouted

Buckthorns are very hardy and can re-sprout if you don't get the whole root. If the root remains, alternate limbs can grow. (Fig.2)  It is not worth attempting to remove them unless you have proper weeding tools on hand. I had to leave this one after I photographed it because I was only armed with an iPhone, and there's not an app for that.

Did I mention that in addition to being prolific, hardy, and invasive, the mature ones also have thorns, as their name suggests? Well, they do. Last year I thought I had just a scratch on my leg after a battle to wrangle some trimmed branches into the compost bin, but a week later a 1/4" thorn worked its way out of the wound.

Fig. 3 - Before we moved in [main picture] and the same view 2 years later [inset].

Several years, LOTS of sweat, a professional tree trimmer, and many scrapes later, we managed to take out the motherships and the standing army. (Fig.3) All that remain are the scattered rebels, popping up here and there, trying to stage a coup. But I've built up my own army of weeders, spades, and shovels, and I'm not afraid to use them.

Really, though, I wrote this whole post just so we could play a little game I like to call Spot The Buckthorn! How many suspicious looking leaves do you see in this picture?

Show me the buckthorns!

I can't be 100% certain I'm right based on this photo alone, but these are the suspicious leaves I see:

How'd you do? Want to come over next weekend and see how you do in real life?