Willow Springs Woods Saturday June 8
Garlic mustard season is over, all but the memories (ha!) but there's an entire smorgasbord of summer weeds still to come. Saturday at Willow Springs volunteers worked on one of those, reed canary grass, a perennial which is a persistent and formidable foe. It likes moisture, bare ground and disturbances.
Reed canary reproduces by seed, stem fragments, and rhizomes. It is both drought and flood tolerant and starts growing early in the season, shading out native plants with a later start date. Control is done by removing the flowering heads of the plant to limit seed dispersal, as well as chemical application to kill the plant below ground. Some sites will mow the plants, others, as we often do, will clip and bag the seeds once flowering occurs. Clipping and herbiciding were used last Saturday at Willow.
Carefully timed fire also might be employed. More information available here. Bottom line: it's a process that requires repeated visits, usually over several years. Tough stuff.
Garlic mustard season is over, all but the memories (ha!) but there's an entire smorgasbord of summer weeds still to come. Saturday at Willow Springs volunteers worked on one of those, reed canary grass, a perennial which is a persistent and formidable foe. It likes moisture, bare ground and disturbances.
Reed canary reproduces by seed, stem fragments, and rhizomes. It is both drought and flood tolerant and starts growing early in the season, shading out native plants with a later start date. Control is done by removing the flowering heads of the plant to limit seed dispersal, as well as chemical application to kill the plant below ground. Some sites will mow the plants, others, as we often do, will clip and bag the seeds once flowering occurs. Clipping and herbiciding were used last Saturday at Willow.
Carefully timed fire also might be employed. More information available here. Bottom line: it's a process that requires repeated visits, usually over several years. Tough stuff.
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