If you have spent much time digging around in your backyard, you have thought about those annoying plants crowding out your labor of love. Even if you do just a seasonal cleanup you will know the things that take over, their annoying consistency. You may have even wondered to yourself, "what is this thing? I have pulled it over and over, but it still comes back!" I have one of those right now. It is a vine that shoots up out of the ground and climbs everything. It pulls down plants, takes over fence rows. After pulling these out repeatedly I got the bright idea of digging up the whole root system to see what it was doing underground. I traced the shoot and found a tuberous bulb and a string connected to another tuber… then another, and another, all strung together like a set of pearls. Great, aliens, that explains it. Well, that's weird, in the trash they go.
I have been on a kick thinking about plants that offer multifunctional roles. This is important when dealing with limited resources and space. I need a hedge row for privacy; can I find something that will also benefit local ecology? Does it look decent for a good part of the year? And if necessary, can I find something with medicinal or nutritional value? With this framework in mind, I give you these recommendations that check all those boxes. You can get them from Missouri Department of Conservation cheap, and once they are established, take no effort to care for them.
- Hazelnut shrub — Sun/part shade. Produces rich, versatile nuts used in everything from baking to spreads, while also supporting wildlife with food and shelter, improving soil health, and offering heart-healthy fats and vitamin E for people who eat them. Great for a privacy hedge.
- Wild ninebark — Sun/part shade. A tough, adaptable native shrub whose clusters of white to pinkish flowers attract bees and butterflies, while its dense form provides excellent cover and nesting habitat for birds.
- Serviceberry — Sun/part shade. Produces edible, nutrient-rich berries high in fiber, antioxidants, and vitamins that can be eaten raw or cooked into jams and baked goods, while also serving as an essential early-season nectar source for pollinators and a larval host for several butterfly species.
- Blackberry — Sun. A fruit-producing shrub whose berries, leaves, and roots offer both culinary and medicinal value.
Anyways, clearing out space for these kinds of plants takes me back to that dang vine I had been fighting and hating. I got fed up with it enough that I researched it and to my surprise found it had a name and a history. Hopniss, or as it's better known, the American groundnut. It is a plant I had heard about and sought out... while ignorantly fighting it in the backyard. What else is right in front of me, offering benefit, that I flat out deny? Different indigenous groups used it in Three Sisters planting, along with maize and squash. The corn offers scaffolding for the apios, the apios refeed the soil because it is a nitrogen fixer. The squash shades the soil to keep it moist. The groundnut gives food from nuts that form on the vine and tubers underground. The tubers are described as being nutty and more flavorful than a potato. Almost sweet. And if left to grow on a chain link fence it will offer some privacy without becoming woody and damaging. Hopniss has yet to be cultivated in North America, however several strains have been bred for higher yields and better consistency. Japan has adopted the American groundnut for research and widespread growing for culinary dishes today. Hopniss tubers have three times the protein and ten times the amount of calcium as a potato.
Will I be growing this as a crop? Probably not. Do I feel better knowing it's there? I do. Wonder what else I shouldn't worry about?