Quest For World Domination

Day 154: Yesterday's foray was all about Skunk Cabbage, but it was a short-term mission and I needed some way to fill the rest of the day. Since I'd decided to invest in a Discover Pass which allows me access to state parks, I thought I'd do a land survey of Ike Kinswa. My previous surveys of the area have all been done by kayak. That said, before I left the Swofford Pond area, I decided to check on a nasty infestation of Yellow Archangel at the boat launch. The land managers have been trying to eradicate it since I first alerted them to its presence a few years ago. Unfortunately, the stuff is amazingly hard to wipe out and spreads like wildfire unless it is hit hard and on a regular basis. Sure enough, the 3000-square foot patch is taking off again, bad news which gave me cause to file another report with the Invasive Plant Council.

At Ike Kinswa, I found some digitalis (foxglove) along the roadside. This wasn't unexpected, and it's much easier to control. The first shocker came when I got to the highway and saw Vinca minor which had been deliberately planted beneath the park's entrance sign. It had escaped from the landscaping and was moving into the forest. A grounds-maintenance person was on staff, so I mentioned it to her before continuing along the Mayfield Lake Trail. Oh, but what a nightmare I found there! However the plant may have crossed the highway (subsurface runners, seed, fragments caught in someone's boot or tires), the invasion force was hard at work. I mapped approximately 30,000 square feet of Vinca minor, so aggressive that it is even overwhelming the Himalayan blackberries.

The real mind-boggler is this: nurseries in Washington are still allowed to sell both of these virulent invasive groundcovers, and they do so, touting the plants' ability to "suppress weeds." Those words alone should be a warning to anyone with half a brain. Both of these plants are extremely difficult to remove once they become established, so if you have them in your yard and don't intend to live forever to maintain them in a confined space, get rid of them NOW!