Where Trees Convene

I’ve been thinking a lot about plants that are labeled invasive, especially as I spend a few hours each month removing such plants, by hand, from a nearby park.  For the last several months it’s been ivy. As it spreads its way over fern, salal and Oregon grape, it also wraps itself around trees, eventually engulfing them.  Unmitigated, it appears the ivy is well on track to colonize the entire park—although it’s difficult to know what might happen. In the short term, we have relatively few natural areas and the desire is to bring those ecosystems back into balance by removing plants like ivy that are crowding out other life.

Not all newcomers to the Pacific Northwest where I live are as aggressively tenacious as ivy – though there are others (non-native blackberry, knotweed, broom). This behavior is typically explained as the species not having a natural competitor to keep it in check. I do wonder though if this is simply the natural trauma response of some plant life when taken from its home ground? To reach out voraciously, fueled by a perceived lack and a scarcity of recognizable homeland. Whether intended or not, ivy appears to be an illustration of what happens when one identity dominates others and uses them to fuel their growth and progress.  

Even as I see ivy is not contributing healthily to this area, I also love the plant—its graceful winding ways, its bright evergreen leaves. It has a subtle, fresh scent of dewy green morning. I admire the tenacity of the plant as I pull long strands of it from the tangle. It weaves a blanket along the forest floor, tendrils heading out in all directions, forming both weft and warp, quilting itself to the ground by rooting itself at intervals. As an example which once perhaps may have taught us fiber arts, it also has plenty to teach about organizing, building networks, and establishing new systems.

It makes me wonder what else ivy knows that I don’t. What else is it gifting us that I’m not yet seeing? 

I’ve noticed that non-native blackberry seems to take the greatest hold in previously disturbed land. It feels like it’s moving in to blockade the land, keeping us away so that wildlife has sustenance and a place to live—even while it chokes out other plant life. 

People, wind, and other animals have been spreading seeds around the world as long as we’ve existed. Many indigenous cultures see invasive plants differently and use very different language—not militarized—to describe new species to an area.  In her book Fresh Banana Leaves, Indigenous scientist Jessica Hernandezwrites, “the Western sciences teach us that invasive plants are pests, unwanted, or do not belong in this landscape, however to us, invasive plants are displaced like many of us. They were forced from their native lands, and like many of us, had to adapt to their new environment…While not forgetting the negative impact they do have on some environments, some of our Indigenous communities have learned how to live with them.” Non-native plants may or may not be welcome guests but the determination is relational and not defined merely by whether the plant in question is from elsewhere originally.

Isn’t it interesting that it’s generally the invaders, not those who have been invaded, that call  the plants invasive?  

I think these complex feelings are what sparked me to write about them in a nursery rhyme format. 

Nursery rhymes, in the English-speaking tradition, are whimsical, seemingly simple twists of language. The silly descriptions are fun to say and in the “nursery” setting they help children learn sounds and words.  Many have been used in play for generations – said while dancing in a circle, or while clapping hands in pairs.  Despite their playfulness (or perhaps because of it) some have grim histories associated with them—not all proven. Some have claimed that “Ring Around the Rosie” is about a plague but contemporary folklorists do not agree and no real proof has been found. It could be some of the original meanings were highly specific to time, place, and circumstance and persisted due to the charm of the language even after the original meaning was lost to time.  Whatever the case, there’s no denying that nursery rhymes hold a number of nasty moments – the tails of the three blind mice are cut off; a man is thrown down the stairs in “Goosey, Goosey, Gander;” Jack falls down and breaks his crown and Jill comes tumbling after.  Humpty Dumpty, the London Bridge, and the cradle from “Rock-a-bye Baby” also come falling down. (I think partly children happen to love falling down on purpose).

This is a complex world where something can be both bad and good, both damaging and full of gifts. So what better way to explore these ambiguous ideas than though the most contrary form of them all—the nursery rhyme. I find something subversively powerful about a sing-song rhyme especially when describing morbid events. There’s also something captivating and spell-like about a metered rhyme. 

In both of these rhymes, I’m calling both ivy and blackberry to take over the land. Read them as charm or curse as you will…

Ivy