How to Eradicate Invasive Plants
Chace posits an intriguing concept: “Whether or not you subscribe to . . . the sense that an unwanted plant needs to be respected, first, it is easy to see that . . . numerous ‘bad’ plants have uses. If nothing else, all these rapidly growing invasives sequester carbon.” Starting with preventing weeds for gardeners and combating the enemy with less-toxic methods involving manual labor—mowing, chopping, deadheading—Chace moves on to the controlled use and disposal of chemical weed killers; the challenges weeds present, including their means of reproduction; and the origins of and best approaches to dealing with invasives. The plants are organized by category: water and bog plants (including fish grass); annuals, biennials, and tropical perennials (dead nettle); herbaceous perennials (fireweed); grasses and bamboos (Johnsongrass); vines (Virginia creeper and kudzu); shrubs (barberry and sumac); and trees (box elder). The book’s generous back matter includes listings of  “problem areas for problem plants” organized by categories containing the alphabetized Latin names of the plants and the states they impact, metric conversions, online resources, suggested readings, and a detailed index. --Whitney Scott