purple loosestrife pond plant thug

Most of us have heard of purple loosestrife
and the controversy that surrounds it -
beautiful plant, but a real thug in wetlands

Picture and article here
http://www.iisgcp.org/EXOTICSP/purple_loosestrife.htm

I first noticed it here in a pond by where I drive in the mornings.
Then I noticed it spreading down the river which is right across the
freeway from the pond.

The pond was just partly filled in with millions of dollars of freeway
widening (take that plant!) along with a beautiful stand of yellow
water iris (they are replacing the pond with a manufactured wetland
that should be interesting to watch happen).

I uprooted a tiny seedling of purple loosestrife from the river to
experiment with. I put it in one of my deck ponds,
the cattail pond, and played with it. I'd cut off the flower heads and
the thing would produce new flower spikes. I'd cut it down to nubbins
and it would come back. I never let it go to seed. Then I decided to
'kill' it. I let the tub dry out and cut back the cattails, rush and
snipped off purple loosestrife to nubbins again and dumped it all into
a dry compost area.

That was last fall. I replanted the tub with herbs and pansies.

Today I walked by the dried out husk of the old cattail tub and, BACK
FROM THE DEAD, is the purple loosestrife plant!!!! Nothing else has
come back from the debris but there is the purple loosestrife plant
thriving and ready to try and take over the world...

My daughter took a picture of it and we posted it
on this week's blog.
www.blogfromthebog.com


kathy :-)
www.blogfromthebog.com