Today while the crew was working in a regional park, they were alerted to someone having dumped a load of yard waste illegally in the park. Upon inspection, it turned out to be approximately 150 pounds of Knotweed plant parts and roots. Yard waste dumping is a major source of ecological damage to sensitive areas as often plants that are dumped are invasive and quickly take a foot hold in prime habitat. Check out the crew's video blog and remember to dispose of green waste properly! Home composters, your municipality's greenwaste stream and in the case of knotweed, in the land fill.
Today the crew conducted follow up treatments on Giant Hogweed along Hwy 1 in Langley and in North Vancouver. These three sites were treated last year by our crew. These infestations had obviously been present at these sites for some time given their size. Because Giant Hogweed plants can produce up to 100,000 seeds per plant, we were expecting an extensive seed bank would be present at these sites. We were right. The sites looked very similar to last year in terms of numbers of plants (except this time we got to them early in the year when they were small instead of 15ft high). While this could seem discouraging after all of the work we did last year, this is just part of the process of "seed bed exhaustion". The management approach for this type of "seedy" plant is an annual plan to return once or twice during the growing season to treat new germinates until all of the seeds that had been previously deposited by the historic plants have germinated and been treated. Giant Hogweed seeds have been noted to germinate for up to 10 years once deposited in the seed bank though the greatest germination rate is in the first 2 years. This is a great example of how a one-time treatment is not enough. We cannot simply treat and walk away. Treatment of plants such as Giant Hogweed require a committed program for successful eradication. This also emphasizes the point that we should not let these plants become so established as treatment is much more costly at this stage
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Saturday May 5th 2012
‘Fingerling Festival’
The Port Moody Ecological Society had their annual Fingerling Festival this past weekend. There were over 50 environmental organizations represented at the festival. It was a very positive day and we were quite busy at our invasive plant table! We were lucky enough to run into our Senior Park Ranger (BC Parks), Rob at the event (pictured right with our booth). The Noon’s Creek Hatchery was very busy as people were lined up to release over 40,000 young chum salmon into Noon’s Creek for their 4 year journey in the Pacific Ocean.
Sunday April 29th 2012
‘Goodbye Chum’
Bell –Irving Hatchery, Maple Ridge BC
This weekend we were out at the Goodbye Chum Festival at Bell-Irving Hatchery located within beautiful Kanaka Creek Regional Park. This is an annual event put on by the Kanaka Education and Environmental Partnership Society (KEEPS). Almost 600 people came out to send off the Chum salmon fry– luckily it didn’t rain and we had a sunny day for the most part! We shared our tent with Jen - a volunteer at the hatchery - she brought in some great examples of native plants provided by Amsterdam Nurseries. We also had some samples of common invasive plants many people came up to our table and almost everyone was surprised to find out that English ivy, English holly, Himalayan blackberry etc ., were all invasive! And everyone had seen Japanese knotweed but assumed it was bamboo - a common mistake! So it was a real learning experience for many and everyone was very keen to get more info about these invasive invaders.
Next weekend we will be at the Fingerling Festival in Port Moody put on by the Port Moody Ecological Society from 11 am -3 pm at the Port Moody Recreation Centre and Noon’s Creek Fish Hatchery this is a free, fun family event!
Last week we began a control project on Scotch Broom for BC MoTI on Hwy 91A next to City of New Westminster lands. This is a great project as it highlights the importance of cross jurisdictional efforts on invasive plants. New West has been actively controling Broom in this area and to help their effort, MoT is doing the same. Scotch Broom can be very difficult to pull out and I know that I personally have spent many sweaty hours using a weed wrench on some monster Broom plants. In order to be most efficient, we used the cut and paint approach. This approach is very fast as all it involves is cutting the Broom plant at its base and painting the stump with herbicide. This is a great approach as there is no risk (or almost no risk) or non target damage and very little herbicide is used. We are excited to follow this site for efficacy as we have not engaged in a large-scale broom control project such as this yet. Last year, we rarely controled Broom plants as they are lower on our priority list. We did treat several when they were on the same site as a priority species. I could not believe how quickly it went to treat these infestations. Watch our video blog on this treatment method by clicking "continue reading" below...
Today Jen from IPCMV and Kristina from the SSISC completed control work of Himalayan Blackberry in Shannon Falls Provincial Park. The park had several small infestations of Blackerry that were approximately 10 square meters in size each. It is rare for us to treat blackberry at all as it is often a low priority species for us. It was a treat to be in a park that is so free of invasives that we can manage blackberry and that the infestations were so small and easy to treat. After these treatments we are fairly certain that this park is free if invasives. Also a rare thing to say! Special thanks to Kristina of the Sea to Sky Invasive Species Council for helping out today and for her awesome treatment maps! We put together a short video highlighting the work we did and talking briefly about proper manual control of blackberry. Remember always to get as much of the root crown out for maximum efficacy! Be careful, this invasive fights back! Ouch! Watch our video blog on this project by clicking "continue reading" below
I was lucky enough to give an Invasive Plant presentation on Mayne Island last week to the garden club there. It was a beautiful day on the island and I had the opportunity to tour around the island a little bit to look at their species of concern. While it is no surprise that Scotch Broom is a major concern on Vancouver Island and many of the Gulf Islands, I was surprised to learn (and see) that Daphne Laurel (Daphne laureloa) was a major emerging concern for them.
Today the crew started work on Cypress Mountain Provincial Park, at the works yard where the snowploughs and equipment are stored over the summer. An infestation of Japanese knotweed at the far end of the yard had been covered with multiple layers of white tarpaulin, and it was our job to cut through that to the plants beneath, and treat them.
Today the crew (now minus Jeremy who has other commitments to make) gained the services of Amy – a crew lead from last year – to work alongside three hard-working people for Ducks Unlimited. Our job, and oh how we wish it were like Mission Impossible with the tag line “should you decide to accept it” – was to remove English cordgrass from the delta mudflats at Ladner. This nasty grass is able to survive on the intertidal mudflats where nothing else but a thin bio-film should grow, altering the hydrology and deposition characteristics and turning mudflats into marsh. While some people might think that sounds like a good land-making technique, unfortunately it means destroying an internationally-significant stopping point for migratory birds, causing their populations to decline. So we donned our rubber boots or waders, got our sleds ready with shovels and black garbage bags, and set off into the muddy delta where each English cordgrass colony was clearly marked by a flagged survey pin. About ten metres off shore at least one crew member was stuck fast and had to dig herself out using her shovel; twice. Half an hour later and still only about 50m from shore she gave up and turned back. Another crew member battled on and squelched out far enough to make it to the slightly raised muddy hillocks about 100m out in the intertidal zone where there was at least some resistance to sinking, and set to with beheading the grass to remove seed into black garbage sacks for disposal to landfill, and to dig out and bag for disposal any small clones (clusters)less than about 30cm in diameter. Meanwhile the remaining crew member on had made good progress across the marshy vegetation nearer shore and was busy collecting a few clones and a lot of seed heads. By lunch time we had amassed a few sacks of plants and seedheads on our sleds and were feeling pretty overwhelmed as we gazed over the mudflats and the ever increasing army of marker flags now visible as the tide retreated. There must be thousands out there. Still, we battled on and with the tide fully out the going seemed slightly easier, so the whole crew made it out onto the mud to continue removing seed heads until the tide returned. (post by Sara)
On Friday, August 12 we went from managing weeds in the mountains, to those by the sea. Lucky us! We met Park Ranger Mark Grist at Cates Park to launch the Ranger boat and headed up beautiful Indian Arm for a day of invasive plant control. One cannot overstate the beauty of the Arm. Wonderful scenery, interesting architecture and the sea air! The first site we stopped at was most interesting. An infestation of Knotweed that appeared on a beach. Just this one infestation between the forest edge and the beach about 12m wide by maybe 18m long. It seems that the privacy provided by the knotweed had made a perfect hide out for who knows what on the beach as someone had clearly made a "doorway" into the infestation.
The crew treated the knotweed and I (Jen) hiked around in the surrounding forest with Mark looking for anymore knotweed that may have been hiding in the forest. It was a great relief to us that the infestation had not spread and we are hopeful that one more follow up treatment after this should take care of it! The question is, how the heck did it get there? The closest infestation of knotweed is 25km away. We'd love to hear your theories on this! The best we could come up with is that it floated on the water. It seems unlikely to us that it would've come with someone who stopped at this site by boat. There are no roads around. That's weeds for you, they always seems to leave you scratching your head.
After that, we headed further up the Arm to treat a species we don't often treat or manage for anymore.... Himalayan Blackberry! A popular recreation area was beginning to see an infestation that could've quickly taken over the entire area. What a treat for us to get a crack at Himalayan Blackberry! So often we find ourselves having to walk past it and leave it as it just doesn't make the priority list in many of the more urban areas we treat.
Our second blackberry site of the day (yes, second) was on the Twin Islands. Once again the crew thoroughly enjoyed being able to do this! This has really made me realize how important invasive plant management is in our BC Parks. These are some of the last remaining "pristine" areas we have in our region and we need to keep them that way! What an opportunity for us to have a learning ground to see an intact ecosystem. Very interesting on this site was an infestation of English Ivy and another ornamental variety of ivy. Again, how did it get there?? What do you think? Would someone have brought it with them? Do birds spread it? More head scratching.... We are happy to report that we freed several trees and treated all of it. I look forward to going back in a few weeks to see how things are looking.
After a loooong, hot day, we were still sad that our amazing day battling weeds by boat was over. The places we have been this summer are truly amazing and I find myself thinking what an awesome place we live in, and this only motivates me to keep up the good fight.
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