Tuesday, April 05, 2005
Garlic Mustard
If you don't have garlic mustard growing on your land, give thanks; though it still gets minimal publicity, this imported weed will prove to be the worst thing to ever befall our woodlands and native wildflowers. It is a biennial, which seeds voraciously, spreading through the woods as thick blankets, which completely shade out and kill native flowers. Unfortunately for native plants, compounding their dilemma is the fact that the hordes of deer will not touch garlic mustard, so as the mustard spreads, the deer increasingly browse what remains of native plants, furher hastening their demise. I resolved to at least rid the one acre garden area in our woods of garlic mustard, and last year I probably pulled ten thousand plants, and know that none went to seed in the fenced in woods. To my discouragement, walking through the wooded areas of the garden, I see thousands upon thousands of new little garlic mustard seedlings coming up, from seed that had laid dormant. I figure it will take five years. The surrounding woods are hopeless; one would have an easier time trying to hold back the ocean. Below is a picture of a typical spot in the surrounding woods, with perhaps a hundred seedlings per square foot. The mature plant is about three foot tall.
// posted by IBOY @ 7:13 AM 
