Fwd: Invasive plant

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DStehlik

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Nov 15, 2011, 3:19:32 PM11/15/11

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Hello fellow gardeners- being on the lookout is probably the best defense against swallow wort and other invasives! Hope the pictures help in case you see it around the garden or possibly the neighborhood

Danielle

Subject: invasive plant

As members of associations concerned with the environment and the health of green spaces in the Boston areas, your help is extremely precious and appreciated in building awareness about Black Swallow Wort.

Public lands such as Fresh Pond Reservoir suddenly are infested with it, causing real concern. And the place where the plant has established itself spectacularly in the last few years is in our very gardens in semi-urban areas. It now has an extensive seed bank that will keep germinating for years to come, even if we were to stop new seeds from being generated. This is abetted by the difficulty of identifying it when it is very small. I am enclosing pictures of the plant at many different stages, so that it can be detected as soon as it flies in on the wind, lands, and germinates.

Once there, because the plant's stem is extremely brittle, it must be dug out carefully as the roots have nodes that will generate new plants. The bigger the plant, the more thorough the digging out of the root system must be. If the plant reaches maturity, the seed pods must be removed before they ripen. All materials must be disposed of in the regular trash so they will be buried in landfill. If we include them in the yard waste bins, they will infect the local compost centers. The use of chemicals such as Round-Up Concentrate is somewhat effective at undiluted strength.

Spreading awareness works one person at a time.

Thanks for your great work as wardens of our environment!

Thanks for keeping your membership on the lookout for Black Swallow Wort!

Marie Brown

You have been sent 17 pictures. See below.

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