Support wildlife by removing invasive plants, MCSWCD says

April is Native Plant Month in Ohio. In spring, most Medina County native plants blooming in early to mid-April are spring ephemerals like spring beauties, trillium and trout lily. Trees like cherry, maple and willow are blooming up in the canopy. In early April, you may have also seen leaves returning on some shrubs and trees along roads and forest edges. While we do have a handful of native plants that leaf out in March and early April, most of the earlier shrubs leafing out are non-native and/or invasive plants.

These non-native plants may include multiflora rose, honeysuckle, autumn olive or others. You may have seen the Callery pear blooming around Medina County, including in planted and escaped landscapes.

Why do invasive plants have a bad reputation? Many ecologists or other nature enthusiasts encourage removing invasive plants, though some responses include, “Well, the birds and butterflies love my honeysuckle bush.” While these plants may appear beneficial, they do not provide the balanced nutrition wildlife needs to thrive.

Wildlife like birds, butterflies, caterpillars and bees aren’t much different from us. They require proper nutrients to survive, especially the young, which need all they can get to reach adulthood. Invasive and non-native plants do not supply an adequate amount of nutrients for wildlife.

Many pollinators require specific host plants in order to become adults. Bees that are pollen specialists, like the cranesbill miner bee, cannot use Callery pear flowers as a complete source for pollen. The caterpillars of the spicebush swallowtail cannot eat autumn olive leaves, and honeysuckle berries do not supply adult cardinals with adequate nutrients, resulting in poor fitness of baby birds.

When we allow invasive plants to take over woodlands, prairies and landscapes, we take important food sources away from wildlife, creating monocultures and “food deserts,” doing a disservice to the wildlife we admire and share this land with.

However, the good news is that supporting wildlife is simple.

Are you a Medina County resident who has an invasive tree or shrub like Callery pear, honeysuckle, burning bush or others on your property? For now, put some flagging tape on them to plan for removal this summer. Marking them when they are in bloom makes them easier to find later when it is best to remove them.

If you remove an invasive tree or shrub from your property and would like a beneficial native species to replace it, the Medina County Soil & Water Conservation District and the Medina County Park District are teaming up for the fourth year of the Medina County Invasive Species Buy-Back Program, helping to exchange those invasive trees and shrubs for native alternatives.

The program is held from June 1 through Aug. 22, and participants are encouraged to remove their invasive trees or shrubs during that time. Proper submission instructions will be available June 1, so it is recommended to wait until then to remove them to ensure a photo can be taken with the “2026 Buy-Back Program Card” so submissions will be accepted.

Visit MedinaSWCD.org/callery-pear to learn more about the program, sign up for notifications and see the dates of upcoming workshops for identifying and removing invasives.

It’s never too late to play a part in changing local landscapes to improve the environment for wildlife, plants and humans. Removing invasive species like honeysuckle and replacing them with native plants such as serviceberry can provide beautiful blooms and nutritionally dense berries for both humans and birds. Replacing autumn olive with native trees like oak can support hundreds of caterpillar species, which in turn feed birds or develop into butterflies.

The benefits of planting native plants and removing invasive species are significant, and removing even one invasive tree or shrub can help make a difference in Medina County’s local landscapes.