As I went on a mission to rid our woods of invasive Japanese barberry, the plants organized their own offensive to rid the woods of me. They poked and prodded and pricked, all the while displaying taunting evidence of a new generation destined to pick up the fight next year: a red berry fallen into the stream, dozens of new seedlings sprouting under logs. For every barberry I cut down, at least three more lay in wait.

Removing invasive plants, barbs or no barbs, doesn’t feel particularly life-affirming. In the long term it makes way for many more wildlife-friendly species to thrive on my property, but in the moment such broad-scale butchery makes me feel like the grim reaper. It’s not the barberry’s fault it ended up here in the woods of suburban Maryland, far from its real home in the mountains of Japan. Imported as a garden ornamental in the 1800s, the once prized species is now considered a noxious invader in a number of states because of its impact on wildlife habitat, yet, paradoxically, is still widely sold and planted.

In my woods, the bushes certainly seemed to have no rivals but me. Around the time these thorns in my side lodged a thorn right through my glove and into in my thumb, I fantasized about possible antidotes to all this unpleasantry on an otherwise mild November day. If only a new native plant would make itself known, I mused as I carried out the last bunch of spiny branches my sore arms could tolerate cutting, it might make up for this prickly afternoon. The idea wasn’t entirely preposterous. Just a few weeks before, my husband and I had found nine Eastern red cedar volunteers peeking through the invasive ground ivy in our front yard. Other species I never planted, from the blue-eyed grass and heath asters to the sassafras and the mockernut hickories, have made a good life here, asking for nothing of us except freedom from being mowed down.

Still, during that reluctant battle with barberries, my attempts to correct the sins of our country’s horticultural past and present in whatever small way I could were getting the best of my spirits. The plants had established such a roothold, and there were so many of them, that controlling their spread started to feel futile. It was nice to think about just happening upon a pioneering native species popping up elsewhere, but as I passed a leftover mat of Japanese stilt grass we’d tried for years to control at the woods’ edge, the possibility of an equally significant surprise native planting seemed ever more remote.

Just as I was coming upon a broad expanse of once barren field, though, I saw in a new, golden light a plant I’d passed by many times before. Standing tall in the warm autumn glow were masses of burnt orange grasses, their delicate fluffy seedheads sparkling up and down the blades. It was a species I’d admired in previous years, in small patches, when we’d tried to let the grass around our slowly growing tree plantings go wild, only to be repeatedly thwarted by multiflora rose and other invasive opportunists. This time it appeared our mid-summer decision to let nature take its course had finally been rewarded. Stretched out before me, in three large colonies intersected by mowed paths to the compost pile, were hundreds of clumps of this grass so vibrant it reminded me of sunshine and of the sun itself.

It also reminded me of a $15 plant I’d almost bought at a native nursery a few months before but left behind after overspending my gift card. And good thing I’d abandoned the unnecessary purchase, as a little research revealed that the grass clumping its way through our field was indeed the same species: Andropogon virginicus, or broomsedge, a species that is often the first to pioneer abandoned pastures. Thriving in soil considered infertile by conventional definition, it can hold its own once established, emitting alleopathic chemicals that inhibit the growth of other plants. Best of all, broomsedge provides important cover and nesting habitat. Birds and rodents feed on its seeds, deer and caterpillars feed on its leaves, and bees use the plant for nesting material.

Of course, as is the case so often with underappreciated native plants, all the merits of broomsedge add up to a whole lot of nothing for traditional agricultural interests. Still viewing the species as a weed because it often goes untouched by their grazing animals, many farmers follow the conventional advice to replace broomsedge with densely growing European fescue. In the process they are also replacing vital habitat used by quail, meadowlarks and other grassland birds, who need the escape pathways formed between clumping warm-season native bunch grasses.

As I lamented my barberry and celebrated my broomsedge, I began to wonder if gardeners in Japan are doing the same thing in reverse. The broomsedge that enriches wildlife habitat here has been introduced there and in other places, including Hawaii, where it has no natural competitors. And the barberry that has become such a scourge on our corner of the planet is surely an important source of sustenance or spot for nesting for the wild animals with whom it co-evolved in Japan. Every plant is native to somewhere and has a place in the local ecology of its homeland. And every plant introduced beyond its range has the potential to wipe out other species unable to adapt quickly enough to its presence.

It’s easy to become discouraged by human manipulation of a natural world that can’t keep up with such rapid alterations, but the power of nature’s helping hand in healing itself provides an infinite source of hope even on my small plot of land. Despite a seemingly overwhelming number of habitat-destroying plants, I’ve seen so many examples of natives holding their own and sometimes thriving among them. Some are even outcompeting their nonnative neighbors. The trick for us gardeners is to be patient enough to identify these gems before we carelessly destroy them, and to let natives beget even more natives.

In the case of my recent discovery, it came with a special bonus. An email to an ecologist confirmed not only the colonization of broomsedge in our field but the origin of a gorgeous grass with deep purple seedheads mixed among it. It was so pretty and so unknown to me that I’d made the mistake, once again, of assuming it was a too-good-to-be-true new invader I’d soon need to pull. But purpletop grass, or Tridens flavus, belongs here in this field, along with the caterpillars it hosts and the birds and other animals who find cover and sustenance in its blades and seeds.

Somewhere in Japan, I hope, another wildlife gardener has made a similar discovery. I only wish we could meet up to exchange our plants, together reversing the damage done by those who may not have known better. A simple handoff is impossible, of course, as is a return to the way things were. But improvement of habitat is definitely doable, because we do know better now, and we don’t have to know everything to get started in restoring ecological function to our landscapes. We just need to be humble and curious enough to watch and learn, letting the most overlooked teachers of all—the plants themselves—be our guide.