Grand Junction – It seems to happen every year about
this time. The Master Gardeners and I
always begin the season full of spring energy and hope – THIS year, we will get
ahead of it! And STAY ahead of it!
Oops! |
I should perhaps mention that we have four acres of
gardens on the Mesa County fairgrounds, that we are tasked with maintaining.
For years it was nothing but weeds, so the seed bank is appalling. At the
Master Gardener class a year ago, we were between county weed managers so I
took on the weeds class myself. I
decided to show them what we were up against here, and identified 56 different
species. Welcome to my world!
Shouldn't this be our state grass? |
Don’t get me started on the trees. The street behind the grounds here is lined
with Siberian elm, which apparently was considered a desirable tree here at one
time – no Dutch elm disease! The City of
Grand Junction, back in the day when monocultures were considered elegant,
planted my entire street in these nuisances.
I have five 80 year olds on the west side of my house, so I do believe
it is in my best interests to maintain them, but that doesn’t keep me from
swearing at the seedlings. Here in our
Arboretum, we often don’t see them until they peek up out of a rose bush –
impossible to pull, but still too small to stump-treat effectively.
They aren’t alone – we also have two types of
mulberries and all the volunteer cottonwoods anyone could ever want. Russian-olive and tamarisk keep showing up as
well.
I confess to occasionally contributing to the
problem. A couple of years ago, a
spectacular mullein showed up which grew to 15 feet with a beautifully
fasciated crown. I’ve been regretting
ever since that I couldn’t resist the show.
We also have Tragopogon
porrifolius, the pinky-purple version of western salsify – hey, it’s a
pretty flower! Hey, it’s everywhere! I love interesting plants so
I’ll probably continue to cause problems.
Grrrr! |
What's up with white top this year? |
How do we set our priorities? Going after the things
that are going to seed is number one, and after that, the noxious weeds
especially if they’re being really invasive. Canada thistle, hoary cress
(having a banner year here) and absinth wormwood top that list. (I think we planted the wormwood; see
previous paragraph.) Anything that is
strangling everything else – you can all guess what that is! I have my personal priorities, too –
Russian-olive gets zero tolerance, while another volunteer cottonwood might
slide for a while.
After that, it’s all about looks. The views from the parking lot and the paths
get more attention than the back forty.
Weeds lower than a foot tall get less attention than the three and four
foot ones. And those pretty flowers may
get a pass.
Maybe, after all, we can stay ahead of it this year…
What an excellent post! Timely and universally understood, unfortunately.
ReplyDeleteGosh, I hear ya, Susan! I went out to my CSU research plots where my trees are planted and it was a sea of yellow--from thousands of dandelions...they weren't there last week?! Pretty? Yes. Discouraging? Absolutely. Great post...good pics too!
ReplyDeleteThanks to you both - it was fun to do, and it really did help to determine the priorities!
ReplyDeleteThat grass....that you suggest should be our state grass...what grass is that???? Thanks :)
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