Sometime in 2021, I offered my weeding addiction to SPVCA Membership chair, Chris Rich. Chris can’t seem to leave a landscape in disarray. At my offer, she assigned me to eliminate all the Wedelia from the SPVCA flower beds. I couldn’t believe she was calling that delightful green party a weed.
Chris said she and the landscape team had been duped by Wedelia. They had used up their landscape budget on fancy plants, but still had some empty spots to fill. Wedelia was growing brightly in the gravel parking lot. Great! A free plant! They transplanted some of it to the flower bed with the fancy plants. Next thing you know, Wedelia covered the fancy plants.
Chris finally convinced me, so off I went, pulling what felt like a leafy green salad out of an otherwise organized landscape job. Unfortunately, I got in trouble for pulling Dune Sunflowers by accident. I mean, can you tell the difference?
| Dune Sunflower | Wedelia |
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Okay, fine. It’s not that hard when you look close. But by golly, I definitely got all the Wedelia out of the landscape beds AND the Presidents grove.
In 2022, the GTM lead ranger said they were removing all Wedelia from the Reserve. SPVCA was the last stronghold. Wedelia was all up in the perimeter plant wall around our lot. He joined Chris’s crew to remove a bunch, then worked on it some more with a volunteer from GTM. Is it really that big a deal? The University of Florida lists Wedelia as a Category II Invasive, with Beneficial Uses: NONE. But still…
In 2023, an oceanfront homeowner saw GTM rangers pulling Wedelia out of the Reserve scrub across the street from his house. Wedelia covered much of his yard, as well as his neighbors’ yards on either side of him. He asked the rangers why they were removing it.
“It’s invasive,” said the rangers. “It crowds out the native plants.”
“Does that affect me?” asked the homeowner. He wasn’t really into the scrub look.
“Well, you’re losing the native plants that anchor the dune with their long roots. Wedelia barely reaches an inch into the ground.”
The homeowner confirmed this with a phone call to GTM, then hired a landscape firm to remove all the Wedelia from all three yards, with the neighbors’ permission.
The internet is full of people spewing their Wedelia woes. Someone in Texas got a great idea. He asked the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center if he could use Wedelia as free food for his pet tortoises. The LBJ Wildflower guru balked that Wedelia is toxic to many animals. “Do not, I repeat, do not under any circumstances feed it to your tortoises!!!” This guru might have seen the report on PubMed that claimed 147 beef calves died within four days of eating Wedelia. I don’t know if this is true for our area, but I certainly hope Emory our gopher tortoise isn’t eating it.
In May of 2024, I asked a native landscaper for design ideas for SPVCA’s Guana Garden. She said first and foremost, “The Wedelia must go.” What? How many times must we evict that invader? I conducted my own survey during one of our Tuesday meetings.
| Confirmed wedelia sightings in Florida. | Confirmed wedelia sightings at SPVCA |
I’m guessing some of those red flags came from us weeders thinking our discards would be welcome in the brush. But why oh why is it back in the Presidents grove?
Please join us on Tuesday, September 10, at 4:00pm to cleanse the SPVCA grounds of this greedy green monster. This time, our discards will be quarantined in plastic bags, hopefully to decompose in the county landfill.
If you can’t make it, maybe pledge to pull any wedelia you see in Florida for the rest of your natural born life. Our native Turkey tangle frogfruit will thank you.