It looks innocent. Just a mid-size bushy shrub with arching branches 6-20 feet, with white flowers in early spring, red berries in the fall, and holding green leaves into near winter. I’m sure that’s why the Amur honeysuckle (honeysuckle) was brought from Asia and Europe in the 1800s as an ornamental plant and arrived in Southern Ohio in the 1950s. Growing quickly and easily nearly anywhere they find an opening was also seen as a positive. It’s not. It needs to be locked up in Ohio and organizations are calling on citizens to arrest the spread. And you don't need anymore authority than Gomer Pyle had in Mayberry.
Honeysuckle in Ohio creates a variety of issues for native plants, animals, and even people, making it a multiple offender. Their ability to proliferate through birds carrying fruit coupled with a fast growth rate means that they can take over an area in the blink of an eye. They’re the classic example of if you give an inch they’ll take the fence row. And that’s what’s happening.
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