HIMALAYAN BALSAM

You may hear words such as “native” and “alien” or “introduced” being used to describe the plants that we see around us. Native plants are those which arrived here unassisted by man and usually a very long time ago. Good examples would be the oak, the dandelion or the bluebell. Alien or introduced plants have been brought here by man, often as garden plants because they look interesting or colourful.

Native plants are kept in check by a broad range of pests, diseases and other factors as they evolved closely with all the other organisms that make up the variety of life around us. Alien plants bypass this process and may sometimes not have any natural enemies when they arrive in our countryside, which in some cases allows them to spread very rapidly, often at the expense of our native plants. Plants that do this are said to be “invasive”.

Whole habitats can be destroyed by invasive alien species, as they are usually fast growing, domineering and have no natural enemies. They shade out native plants and alter the character of large areas, sometimes even leaving soil unstable which can cause erosion and landslides. For this reason landowners all over the country put a lot of effort into removing plants such as Himalayan balsam, Japanese knotweed and giant hogweed. In this area you might see a lot of Himalayan balsam and you may also see people working hard to remove it. It is important that it is pulled up before it is able to set seed in order to prevent further spread.