Weed better talk about this

For most of my life I thought “weed” was either something you smoked or the name for a scrawny little runt (like me). If you’d said I would develop a malevolent dislike for the plural of “weed”, I would have thought you were off your trolley, nuts, absolutely stark raving, stonking mad. But then I went “troppo”, ended up living on the Northern Beaches, and discovered the harm these pernicious things actually do. 

To be fair, I was raised in England, where the weeds were wimpy and there was not much authentic nature left. I’ve since learned that around 80% of the UK’s flora is not endemic. Fast-forward to the burgeoning metropolis of Sydney, which is still blessed to have pockets of original, native vegetation interspersed with suburbia.

Here you’ll find plant species that have survived from the time of the Gondwanan super-continent and have evolved to cope with extreme weather, poor soils and fire. You’ll also find lots of weeds. These are not “weedy” weeds though…they’re super-sized marauders on a testosterone fuelled rampage. And, like a lot that’s amiss on this wonderful continent, the thoughtless, colonialists (and their progeny) are to blame.

It all started with the first British settlers wanting to plant reminders of “home” at every opportunity and it continues to this day, with the horticultural industry still bringing in new varieties from overseas. Every one is a potential environmental weed.

Weed management costs the Australian economy around $4 billion annually. They represent the second greatest threat to biodiversity – after land clearing – and almost half of Australia’s 220 declared noxious weeds were introduced deliberately (often as garden ornamentals). People still prefer to plant “exotics” rather than their own local native species and chances are these will encroach into bushland and overwhelm the original flora, especially when boosted by garden fertilizers and urban run-off.

The upshot is that Sydney bushland, far from being the richly diverse “larder” that sustained indigenous peoples for millennia, is fast disappearing before our very eyes. Few people seem inclined to grow endemic native plants or are bothered to remove weed species (apart from isolated “Bushcare” groups). Often the only interaction between residents and bushland is the practice of poisoning surviving Eucalyptus trees to enhance views. As a consequence, the birds, animals and insects that rely on native plants for their food source are vanishing too.

According to the Australian Conservation Foundation, people today recognise less than 10 plant species, but more than a thousand corporate logos. These are five of the most prominent rogue species on Sydney’s Northern Beaches. If they exist in your garden, please get rid!

Asparagus Fern: from South Africa and like many other weeds, its seeds are spread by birds that eat the red berries. Lantana: a native of Central and South America, it was brought to Australia in around 1840 as a garden ornamental and now invades around 4 million hectares.

Morning Glory: a native of China, this is another ostensibly “pretty” garden plant but once it gets into the bush it can be a nightmare to remove. Senna/Cassia: another nasty piece of work from South America, imported here as a garden plant. It is very invasive and thrives in all conditions. Privet: their black fruits are greedily consumed by birds which collaborate in spreading this pest deep into fragile bushland where it grows rampantly.