Once any of us becomes aware of the threat to our community’s trees from invasive vines, walking through our own neighborhoods can be a little frustrating. What if you could help those trees in a friendly, neighborly way?

Celebrate the end of winter by helping Fairfax Tree Rescuers clip invasive vines and dig up invasive plants to save trees!

We selected applications with the most effective and reasonable plans to address threats from invasives and involving property containing habitat of value where invasive removal efforts would provide a visible demonstration of educational value to congregants, residents, and passersby. 

The Northern Virginia Bird Alliance (NVBA, formerly Audubon Society of Northern Virginia) has been associated with Occoquan Bay for over 30 years, conducting regular bird, insect, and plant surveys on the Refuge grounds and providing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) staff with valuable data for making decisions about Refuge management. 

Our organization, Northern Virginia Bird Alliance (NVBA), has entered into a partnership with the recently-formed Fairfax Invasive Removal Alliance (FIRA).

Running bamboo may not be able to leap tall buildings, but it can run underground as much as 15 feet a year, including going under a road and emerging on the other side. Running bamboo can even be found as far away as 100 feet from its parent plant.

Today (March 1) is the last day of National Invasive Species Awareness Week! Appropriately, this is the perfect time of year to remove certain invasive vines from your own yard.

Unfortunately, many people think English Ivy is a benign plant that grows in the shade where nothing else grows. 

This year, the Fairfax County Tree Preservation and Planting Fund (TPPF) gave Audubon at Home and Plant NOVA Natives a grant to fund mini-grants for invasive plant removal on community association or faith community common open space.

Ailanthus (Tree of Heaven) was imported from China and widely distributed in the United States as an ornamental in the late 1700s and 1800s. Its behavior, though, is far from heavenly.

Many of us have spent time in our yards and area parks battling invasive plants, but we need to add a few other measures in our continuing efforts to build and sustain healthy habitat for native wildlife. STOP HITCHHIKERS!

One hundred and thirty-five landscape professionals attended a conference on sustainable landscaping on February 15 on the Annandale campus of Northern Virginia Community College.

One extremely popular plant that has recently been showing its invasive qualities and is on invasive lists in various northern Virginia jurisdictions is Liriope, commonly called Monkey Grass or Lilyturf.

One of the most satisfying moments of invasive plant management comes when you pull the last vine off a struggling native sapling, freeing it to claim its full share of sunlight and grow without restraint.

English ivy is one of America’s foremost invasives, taking over natural areas especially along both coasts.

For years I thought Burning Bush (Euonymus alatus) wasn’t a big problem, at least not around Northern Virginia. I wasn’t spotting it in wild areas like I was seeing other plants on Arlington’s invasive list. Then I learned.

This new series, “Plant This, Not That” by Alyssa Ford Morel offers suggestions on replacing invasive non-native plants with northern Virginia Natives.

The big signs that welcome visitors to neighborhoods are usually framed by conventional ornamental shrubs, grasses, and annual flowers. Last year, Northern Virginia communities were invited to apply for matching mini-grants to spruce up their entranceways using only Virginia native plants.

Ivy is an invasive exotic species that destroys trees and natural habitat. Please, do not allow English ivy to grow up trees on your property, and if it has done so, take steps to remove it.