Weed Whack
The phrase “you’re not from around here” takes on a whole new meaning in the forest. There it’s foreign plants, not foreign people, that natives don’t take a liking to. It’s not their jobs these intruders want — it’s their space and sunlight.
At the Blue River Glades Natural Area in Swope Park, one weed — the garlic mustard plant from Europe, North Africa and India — is growing in such abundance that it may drive out native plants. The dogtooth violet, for example, starts growing early in the spring because it needs a lot of sunlight and has to beat the trees to it. But garlic mustard blooms early too and grows to be waist high, overshadowing the dogtooth violet. If the garlic mustard isn’t kept in check, dogtooth violets might be pushed out of the area. It’s not just the dogtooth violet that is at risk — the pushy garlic mustard threatens the biodiversity that characterizes the entire forest.
That’s why Larry Rizzo of the Department of Conservation and Kansas City Wildlands is rounding up Kansas City natives for a garlic mustard weed pull. On Saturday, April 21, anyone who wants to help restore the park and conserve the variety of plant life there is invited to put on his or her work gloves, carry along some bug spray, meet at the old Lakeside Nature Center and get to weeding. Volunteers will spend a few hours weeding and enjoying the scenery; the area is one of five around Kansas City that have been identified by Wildlands (a group of local organizations committed to maintaining original prairie lands) as the best natural communities on public land. Volunteers should expect the day to be labor intensive, but, Rizzo says, “we’re not gonna crack the whip on ’em too badly.”
Rizzo isn’t out to eliminate garlic mustard; he just wants to control it — strategically. “There’s no end to garlic mustard in sight,” he admits, “so we pick our fights.” While most people who help out on Saturday will be weeding near the glade (an area offset by slabs of limestone with savanna-like tree growth), a subgroup will go to a valley where garlic mustard is just beginning to appear — an especially significant fight to pick. There aren’t any traces of garlic mustard farther up the hill, in a spot the weed “would really love,” Rizzo says. By focusing efforts in the valley, he says, conservationists can “nip the problem in the bud.”
A few Darwinists might wonder, however, which is more natural: restoring prairie land to earlier conditions or letting the weeds have their way. Rizzo concedes that “biologists have to kind of begrudgingly admire them” since these plants are “survivors.”
But when Rizzo points to the glade, with its redbud trees and prairie flora, the idea that it could be wiped out by one measly weed — one that evokes images of smelly, unsociable garlic and mustard, no less — the mission seems a noble one. In the meantime, recreational chefs with a nose for spices should consider using garlic mustard; Rizzo says conservationists are trying to find a market for it.
