Today I explore the neighborhood to show off 3 ornamental plants that you should NOT eat. I talk about asparagus fern, Asparagus densiflorus; heavenly bamboo, Nandina domestica; and Japanese ivy or Boston ivy, Parthenocissus tricuspidata. I’ve seen these 3 plants (especially the first 2) landscaped all over Southern California. Don’t eat these plants!
#asparagusfern #heavenlybamboo #nandina #japaneseivy #nickmann
Music credit:
Terrier Waltz by Nat Keefe with The Bow Ties
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don’t eat these plants!
I love talking about edible ornamental plants, but today I want to point out three ornamentals that are not edible. And at the end, I have a question for landscape architects. First up, we have asparagus fern or foxtail fern. Asparagus densafllores. It’s in the asparagus genus. Yes, related to the food, but it is not a fern. Asparagus fern is native to South Africa. Easy to grow and most people find it generally innocuous. It’s the kind of plant you can buy at Home Depot. It grows these cute little red berries. Don’t eat those. They’re toxic. It will not be a good time. Next up is a larger ornamental called heavenly bamboo. Nandina domestica. The descriptor heavenly may be subjective, but it’s definitely not a bamboo. This is bamboo. Heavenly bamboo is native to China and it grows these red berry clusters. It’s been planted so much that it’s escaped cultivation and has become invasive in parts of the US. The whole plant is toxic, or so I thought. I did find a couple sources that note edible uses for cooked heavenly bamboo, but I’m not going to promote that, and you definitely don’t want to eat it raw. Finally, we have Japanese ivy or Boston ivy, parthnosis tricuspidata. It’s native to Eastern Asia, including Japan. And I have to say, this one is striking, especially as all the leaves change colors and start falling. Japanese ivy is in the grape family, and the fruit does kind of look like grapes, but it’s toxic. Leaves and berries both. I just wish that it were wild California grape instead. So, landscape architects, why plant this instead of native California grape? Why nandina and asparagus instead of say coffee berry and California sage brush? Don’t the native plants just kind of take care of themselves? Am I asking the right questions? Am I asking the right people? Let me know your thoughts in the comments. My name is Nick. Thank you so much for watching.
21 Comments
Boston Ivy does have edible sap though
My guess is it's because rich people. They would buy a 700k Pen just so they can flex how much money they have. The non-natuve plants are probably more expensive so they want it purely because of that so they can flex their money
❤❤❤❤ Nick you're so right indigenous plants are much better and edible options as well
why not? economies of scale
omg the grape one… so easy to confuse with safe grapes…
I found a similar bush and ate the grapes… I lived obviously but dang…
Today I learned we have wild native grapes. Great to know for ornamental and feeding birds. ❤
I'm not an architect and their world is totally different from mine, but I do landscape designs on a micro scale.
My anecdotal experiance gives me three answers: stigma and lack of demand caused by that stigma, and it's not our property so we have to do what the customer asks.
Part of the problem is that customers genuinely think that natives are ugly. They want big showy blooms or foliage and the moment you mention native alternatives many people are unwilling to risk ugliness. They've seen home depot plants all their life and they're so pretty, why take the risk on an unknown?
To give an example boxwood blight is rampent in Oregon, but boxwoods can be entirely replaced by the native huckleberry for literally the same price. I've only ever been able to convince a handfull of people to switch over. Even when I mention huckleberry leaves smell pleasant and boxwoods are famous for smellng like cat urine in the baking sun.
The situation is also about the stigma of what it would mean politically to plant natives. Only hippies care about natives right?
If there was a way to re-brand natives to make them more friendly to the forests and therefore to hunters and fisherman as well, I think we would see A LOT more natives sold.
Ultimately it is customers who make decisions about what gets planted. Designers have very little say about what gets put on an owner's property. When I was a truck driver for a landscaping company I delivered thousands of different forest ferns to a location in FULL SUN, surrounded by hot pavement because the customer had to have ferns. Of course they all died, but the customer had to have it their way. I'm not sure if anyone was able to convince them otherwise even after they died.
I wonder if architects have more complex problems? Or if we in the landscape industry are correct in suspecting that theyre out of state, don't know about local alternatives, and don't care.
California Sage is stinky though!
So, maybe first customers actually wanted a variety of poisonous plants at hand secretly? Best if at least one toxic plant was there producing usable plant parts at any time of the year. and choosing prettier ones had an unforseen but kind of benefitting to the original customers side effect, causing everyone else to get seeds of them and grow their own new fashionable pretty gardens. Which might have worked as a cover for the og customers 😅.
Time to go snacking
That last one is also called "virginia creeper," at least where im from. We had it growing on our fence
Nandina is awful. It's so invasive!
When I was child I remember me and at least 3 other children ate the berries off of a strange bush because we thought they were wild grapes (they were not) and somehow we were all fine. Glad I got lucky
You can't sell native plants for as much money and profit since anyone can join the market and undercut you, so you convince everyone that your imported goods are better and sell those instead. Capitalism.
There is a LOT of nandina here in the south but I’ve never heard it called heavenly bamboo. The birds like it but birds can eat a lot of things that are toxic to humans.
Btw that asparagus fern is an invasive weed here in Australia too
😂😂😂 ummm because that means people can get free food and who in America wants that 😂😂😂 look at what they voted for 😂😂😂
I’m so allergic to most of the landscaping in my yard. That fern made me itchy.
Native California plants did not evolve with modern urban communities and our poor stewardship practices. Many native plant species will not thrive in heavily altered urban soils and intensively used spaces. Some Clients may also have no money to install a trellis system to support Vitis californica, or have planting space needed to successfully cultivate Frangula (aka Rhamnus) californica or its cultivars. Landscape Architects design outdoor spaces for human needs. It' not always possible to reconcile the requirements of a given project with the horticultural needs of California native plants. I'm not a big fan of designing with the three species featured in your video. In my experience they are specified out of necessity, due to untenable project constraints imposed on current urban landscapes. I could go on….😂. Please keep up the good work. Love your channel!
When my aunt was young she ate Boston ivy at an ornamental garden, and had to get her stomach pumped. So I'm all for not putting poisonous plants in family areas!
There's a balance.
Too much of either is no good.
God gave Adam dominion.
We should bring plants to new grounds, and then do what you're doing: carefully watch and decide what is good for where – and tell others.