Not long ago I made a post with this photo of what I thought was Purple Loosestrife. Planted near a town center, on a wetland edge, along a road, near a parking lot in a town with many gardeners and less than a quarter mile up river, near the Stony Brook Grist, a preserve dedicated to native plants and habitats.
I grew up on Long Island. I didn't see nor hear of purple loosestrife until I went to college in the Hudson Valley, where I was in awe of its August beauty in the wetlands and roadside ditches. I didn't know what I was looking at. That was 20 years ago.
Without any doubt, it is purple loostestrife -key identifier, the lanceolate leaves whorl at 90 degrees to the previous set. Someone recently planted these -by the looks of it, in the last couple of years along with some catnip.
Long Island has been relatively clear of purple loosestrife, a plant that has been around since the mid-19th century. Why? Some say its because another invasive wetland species, Phragmites australis, outcompetes it in brackish wetlands.
To me, this is not a story about a plant. It's a story about people still uneducated, still planting these plants. That means that information is not getting out. That also means those gardeners who are sick of hearing about invasive plants have not heard the end of it. While we are enlightened and free individuals able to make our own choices, solving big problems requires individual and collective action. To people it's just a plant choice, but to some ecological systems, it's a disaster.
In 2007, Suffolk County government passed a "do-not-sell" list. While many of those invasive plants have a phase-out period, such as japanese barberry -2014, most weedy plants (i.e. plants we don't plant much anyway) have been banned in 2009. Maybe its a poorly updated site, but a quick google search pulled up at least one wholesale LI Nursery still selling purple loosestrife.
I drove out to Bridgehampton to see my brother's place of work. On the way, I passed two, what do you call them -wedding halls, with extravagant plantings and a white fences. Both had masses of purple loosestrife blooming away. It's August, they look gorgeous at a time when much doesn't here on Long Island. So do the happy brides.