NEWS RELEASE
CHIPPEWA LUCE MACKINAC CONSERVATION DISTRICT
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If you have ever wandered around a gardening center or greenhouse looking for some kind of ornamental shrub to put in your yard, you probably have come across Japanese Barberry.
Highly acclaimed as a landscaping shrub, this is a shrub you should think twice about adding to your yard.
First brought to Michigan roughly around the late 1800s, Japanese Barberry was introduced as an ornamental landscaping shrub. It became quite popular as a deer resistant shrub since deer will avoid it due to thorns that grow on the stems.
It quickly became notorious to land management groups and conservation groups alike as invasive after it escaped cultivation, or in other words, spread outside of people’s intended growing area and started taking over natural areas as well as landscaped areas alike.
It has small oval shaped leaves that grow alternate along the stem. It will have light green leaves during the summer that turn to a deep red to burgundy color in the fall. The stems will also have thorns growing in between the leaves.
While it is a lovely shrub to look at, there is a lot more than thorns that are bad about it.
As it is invasive, it can quickly take over your yard and areas where it has escaped cultivation. Japanese Barberry can very easily escape cultivation as well since it has berries which have seeds that birds will eat and spread throughout an area. The berries happen to be the only edible part of the plant as deer will avoid the rest of the shrub due to its thorns.
Japanese Barberry can also spread through a process called layering which happens when a branch is severed from the parent plant and has contact with the ground. This allows it to form roots, creating a genetically identical plant that is separate. Not only will spread very easily, it can also alter the pH levels in the soil, potentially resulting in death for neighboring plants and poor soil quality.
Japanese Barberry can alter the soil through its leaf litter. The leaf litter will fall every year as the cold starts to set in and rather than making the soil more acidic like a lot of native species such as Cedar trees or Blueberries, it will make the soil more basic. This in turn makes it harder for the soil to break down nutrients for other plants, as acidic soils are more readily able to break down nutrients than basic soils are.
Additionally, and quite possibly worst of all, Japanese Barberry can create a microclimate in the area that it is growing that is especially well suited towards ticks and tick breeding. This happens because of how it grows. Since it is a low growing shrub that can get quite bushy, the plant will actually create extra humidity around the shrub, making it highly suitable for ticks. This creates a special concern, especially in areas where Black Legged Ticks are found as it can increase the chances of getting bit by a tick carrying Lyme’s disease or other dangerous tick-borne illnesses.
If you have Japanese Barberry or are aware of a public area growing Japanese Barberry, consider planting a native shrub where the Barberry was or educating your neighbors on the risks associated with this shrub. Agreeing to avoid this plant at the greenhouse is the best way to stop Japanese Barberry from becoming a very serious issue in the upper peninsula.
You can report public sightings to MISIN, EddMaps, or iNaturalist. Also consider reaching out to Three Shores CISMA for any specific questions or reports on Japanese Barberry within Mackinac, Luce, or Chippewa counties. Our phone number is (906)630-7189 and our email is [email protected].
We hope to count on you for help fighting this nasty invasive.
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