Queen Anne's Lace

Is queen anne's lace an invasive species in Oregon? Should I plant it in the ground or in pots?

If it's invasive, it's probably mostly because of seeds spreading so pot vs ground probably wouldn't make much of a difference.

Portland1, I wouldn't worry about it. If it is an invasive in your area you'll get it if you want it or not and if it isn't it probably won't take root elsewhere anyways.

It's not listed as a noxious weed in Oregon, but it is in Washington. I wouldn't be surprised if it is invasive in Oregon. It's certainly a miserable weed around here.

Portland1, please reconsider planting Queen Anne's Lace. It is classified as an invasive plant and/or noxious weed in several states. A native alternative is Hairy Angelica Angelica venenosa. There is an introduced plant that looks nearly identical but is not invasive, Ammi majus.

QAL is a biennial that spreads mainly through seed dispersal. So if you want to help suppress it's spread the flower heads must be cut off before the seeds ripen. That probably defeats the purpose of growing it since the flowers and seeds are usually the attractive part.

Knowingly planting an invasive species because it's already loose in the environment is equal to throwing your trash out the car window because the road side is already littered. In addition, several states require noxious weeds to be removed from your property. Yes, it is a law and Portland1, you're absolutely correct in your concern.

"Invasive" has a very specific definition in the plant world. It's not a descriptive characteristic attributed to a plant by an individual. It is a classification made by either the federal or a state government about a non-native plant that has escaped cultivation and is causing harm.

From the Fed GAO, "More specifically, invasive species are plant, animal, or microbial species that are not native to the United States or to the affected area (i.e., an ecosystem—a community of organisms and their environment) and whose introduction causes harm to the economy, the environment, or human health."

The harm comes because invasive species destroy, replace, or crowd out the native and beneficial species.

Learning the "bad guys" for your region is an important part of any gardener's education. The USDA maintains a searchable database that makes it relatively easy to look up the federal lists, state lists and individual plants. It can be found here: http://plants.usda.gov If a species is invasive in a neighboring state and not yours, it's probably just as much of a problem - governmental bureaucracy sometimes slows down the process of having a plant added to the list.

Portland1, I hope this helps you. And if you're interested in planting Ammi majus instead of the Queen Anne's Lace, I'd be happy to send you some seeds. Just dmail me.

Thank you all for the information. It is not on the invasive list for Oregon but it is for Washington and since I live so close to Washington I have decided not to plant it. I have seen it growing wild around the farmers' fields on Sauvie Island but I never realized it could be a problem. There are so many wonderful things to have in a garden so why choose something that could be a problem! I wish I had done my research before sending away for the seeds - live and learn. Now if I could get my neighbor to realize that her english ivy is invasive and she needs to control it. It is trying to knock down my fence.
It is so nice to have this access to information!

I am surprised that QAL is not on the Oregon list. The problems with it here are: it grows all along the roads including along the grass seed fields of the Willamette Valley. When the seeds invade the field, the grass seed crop is devalued (as is the case with other weeds getting into the grass seed crop). I have also read that it can hybridize with domesticate carrots, thus ruining those crops that are grown for their seeds.

Here is an article out of Oregon State University:

http://www.invasiveplants.ab.ca/Downloads/WildCarrot.pdf

I have grown the ornamental version of this plant (comes in colors like pink and orange) and I was at least 5 years getting rid of seedlings that popped up all around the initial plant. I really loved the plant because of the foliage texture and colored umbels (mine was a pink version). But when I saw how it was acting it had to go. I don't have time for all that weeding! Notice the bristles on the photo of the seed in this article. It can easily travel by sticking to clothing, etc.

I can see that I am so new to gardening that I will need to check everything I want to plant so I don't become a hazard! Meanwhile - QA seeds for free, from American Meadows, 1/4 lb. Please inquire ONLY if it is not a problem in your area!

The USDA Plants Database is a great place to start checking on just about anything anyone might want to plant. Here's the Fed's entry for the Daucus carota (Queen Anne's Lace)-
http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=DACA6

If one scrolls down and look at the map, one will see QA has naturalized over all of the continental US and most of Canada. It is unfortunate this particular European plant has only been formally identified as an invasive species by several states as this is a major weed all too frequently used as a cheap filler seed in lots of those meadow and prairie in a can/bag type wildflower mixes. The darn plant has been around so long many gardeners think it's a native plant that actually belongs in a North American prairie or a meadow which is very sad.

QA is a botanical bully that can successfully outcompete true native meadow and prairie plants. It's banned in quite a few states which means for those residents, it's illegal to sell, swap, or plant it. Wish it was banned for all of continental North America.

If anyone is interested, here's a really great nursery that sells real prairie and meadow plants for Oregon-
http://www.tribalnativeplants.com/
No cheap "make a quick buck" fillers in their seed mixes.

editing to add- just saw someone had a 1/4 pound. Oh my word. Why not send it back to them and ask for a refund and ask them to consider selling plants that are more environmentally responsible. I can't imagine getting stuck with a 1/4 pound of that species. Poor you.

This message was edited Sep 7, 2008 9:23 PM

I am the one with the 1/4 pound of QA seeds - of course I will not give them to anyone else to plant. Thank you for the information you posted. Now what do I do with the seeds? If they escape will they germinate like little vampires? So I can't put them in the trash, or in the yard bin, or the compost pile. If I burn them they may fly in the smoke and become airborne. What to do? I doubt that returning them to American Meadows will make a difference to them and they will continue to sell them to unsuspecting people like me. I am so glad I inquired about QA!

Hi Portland1,

Oh lucky you but I wouldn't get hung up on this. For me it was Dame's Rocket seed. Don't know that I bought a quarter pound but I did buy 20 packets of the seed... it was the enticing seed packet design that sucked me in. We've all been duped before. It's part of the learning curve.

Too late, they've already escaped cultivation and are growing and producing seed from sea to shining sea but that certainly doesn't mean we need to add insult to injury by dumping any more into the environment. I've succesfully removed them from my property and get nothing more than a few blow ins these days and those pull out easily enough by hand.

Definitely do not compost those seeds. I doubt seriously if the temps in your composter will be high enough to kill them. I normally burn OR bag up weed seed and just toss it out with my regular garbage . Maybe you could try the microwave on the whole bag? I wonder what sound it will make when it is getting nuked?

I'd at least call them on the phone and let them know that you feel totally duped and that you excpected a company like "American Meadows" to be selling plants that were 100% native to American meadows or at least to North America. If you think the QA they sell is bad, you should check out some of the other cheap filler seed they add to many of their mixes. Look at the weed seed they've got in their Pacific Northwest mix-
http://www.americanmeadows.com/WildflowerSeeds/WildflowerSeedsforPacificNorthwest/WildflowerIndividualSpeciesSeedsforthePacificNorth.aspx
About all I can say is OMG> Pretty scummy in my humble opinion given all we have learned about noxious weeds and invasive species and you're right, I'm convinced they are marketing to people who are unsuspecting or who simply don't care. Just reading their little blurbs for some of the plants in their mixes makes me want to gag. Seriously, I'd at least call them and ask them what's so "American" about this QA? I'd like to know why they didn't name themselves European Meadows or Asian Meadows or African Meadows for that matter. Then why don't you plug in some of the scientific names of some of the "American" meadow type plants they are selling in that mix for your area then add the word invasive in a search engine and see what you come up with. If you weren't hopping mad before, you will be after you google some of the seed they're selling. They do provide a means by which to view botanical names so I'd click on that first, it will make your search considerably easier cutting and pasting a botanical name then adding the word invasive. Please do make that call to them and listen to what they have to say about their American meadow mixes. Now, consider adding a remark here-
http://davesgarden.com/products/gwd/c/68/

What happened to you happens to quite a few people. I would have long ago left a comment at the above link but didn't believe it fair to do so as I never did place an order with them after I saw the seeds they were tossing in their mixes.

Hi chatnoir... check this out-
http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=AMMA
That's your Ammi majus and scroll down and see how it is documented as having naturalized in 12 states so far. This is a problem child in the making for states where it has not naturalized particularly if it continues to rise in popularity by being marketed as a responsible alternative to QA. This little "pretty" is native to Europe, Africa, and Asia... oh lucky us. It will grow in all zones of the US and like QA, it is an annual that can set seed which can come back to haunt us. I am convinced this species is capable of being an even bigger thug than Daucus carota however it hasn't been nearly as popular.

I live in a conservation community north of Chicago and QAL was apparently included in the seed mixes that were placed all over the community. Now volunteers and homeowners spend dozens of hours a year trying to get rid of it. It outcompetes just about every other type of wildflower to the point that meadow lawns became pure seas of QAL.

Donna

Thanks Equil - I still struggle with that USDA info. I pretty much understand when it's positively identified as noxious or invasive, but that distribution part still throws me.

So, am I correct in understanding that for native species the distribution map is more or less informational. And for non-natives, if there is a distribution, it means that the species has begun naturalizing?

I'll get this sooner or later!

As far as Ammi majus, it will not be making a reappearance in my garden next spring. I'll stick with the Hairy Angelica. I never noticed much butterfly activity on the Ammi anyway. And since I'm hoping to start my prairie/meadow project next year I certainly don't want to chance letting any more thugs in than are already here!

The maps only show documented occurences of a species. If you take a look up toward the top, you'll note an I for introduced or N for native. That I or N helps users interpret the distribution maps.

Works great until you try to check out a species such as Robinia pseudoacacia which is native to only a few areas of North America most notably in the southeast.

Wanna see an entry that's really confusing? Check this one out-
http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=SAMBU
Now check this out by scrolling down to the three subspecies-
http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=SANI4
Yowzer! When we buy a plant labeled as Sambucus nigra, which one did we just buy?

Always remember, a species can be positively identified as an invasive species but may not necessarily be formally identified as an invasive species. (sigh) The politics of plants.

DonnaMack, if I am not mistaken... the QA was used as a nurse crop back when your subdivision was the poster child for "greenscaping" so it was by design that the seed mixes included it. What you are dealing with right now is exactly why I am not a proponent of non-professionals using nurse crops. I can certainly appreciate the reasoning behind the use of same as cover while native plantings are being established and putting down their roots but people simply weren't keeping up with timing the mowing of them properly to avoid consequences such as what you described and now the whole kit and kaboodle has long since been turned over to the HO Assoc to deal with and the developer and his landscapers are long out of the picture. Besides which, I've seen cut QA flower and set seed on 3" stems before so what's the point to the exercise unless someone is on top of it monitoring when to cut it. I love all those houses in your subdivision even if you're inundated with QA and even if many of the new homeowners aren't planting 100% natives. I still like to drive through there when going to the Lake Co Fair Grounds just to get ideas.

You nailed it, Equilibrium. That's where I live. The developers are still around handling numerous other problems they created, and the landscaping firm is now being paid to chemically zap the weeds they laid out (go figure). When we were building ten years ago the presentation was, hey, just throw that native seed out there and give it a little water and in a couple of years you have a picture postcard. Frankly, we didn't believe it, and we are in what is regarded as a formal area (around the big gazebo, where prairie is not allowed to dominate your yard, and if you can believe it, they wanted to sod our yard but we insisted in seed) and we paid $200 for their offered landscape consultation - which turned out to be provided by the firm of Peter Lindsay Schaut when they were smaller (Millenium Park). So we got great bones, and put in lots of lilacs and crabapples and fothergillas and bayberries and used a lot of ornamental grasses like miscanthus, pennesetum, feather reed grass, and northern seed oats. And tons of compost. I thought the wildflowers looked great in a mass, but how was I going to compete with that?

Every couple of weeks representative of the HOA ask us to go out and spend a few hours whacking the various cover crops that threaten to inundate everything else. I monitor my yard, where those things are very easy to spot, and tear them out. Some of the homeowners have just thrown up their hands and let the weeds take over.

Cool that you drive through!

Donna

I actually know the name of your subdivision but wasn't going to type it in a post for privacy reasons so I'm glad you picked up that I do know where you are based on my little detour trips through your development. I'm quite familiar with much "good stuff" that goes on in the Midwest. Don't give up hope over there. Never underestimate the ability of a few dedicated souls over time.

Just a suggestion, consider ditching the landscaper that is currently double dipping by charging all of you to fix his boo boos and hire Pizzo (Mayor Daley's environmental contractor) to come in and evaluate what you've all got festering over there. You'll like Jack. Such an incredibly intelligent man yet still respectful of one's time and budgetary restraints. He provided me with some invaluable direction.

You're welcome to stop in by my house to take a peek. You're prairie and I'm transitional oak/hickory savanna and wetland. Three extremely different ecosystems.

editing to add- I've got my share of invasives over here too for you to see but I plug along day after day hand pulling them and using any other appropriate control method so don't be feeling as if you're the only one who is inundated with ickies.

This message was edited Sep 9, 2008 8:13 AM

Equilibrium,

I immediately realized that you knew the name of the subdivision, and greatly appreciated that you did not use the name. Sending you a d-mail.

Donna