By CHRISTINE HEINRICHS
Nasty invasives may be colorful and pretty, but they ruin local plant and wildlife ecosystems. Do not let their bright purple and yellow flowers lead you to planting them in your garden. California’s Invasive Plant Council has a website with suggestions for alternatives at:
cal-ipc.org/solutions/prevention/landscaping/dpp/?region=centcoast
Every Cambrian can remove invasive weeds. Make sure your property is not harboring these invaders. French Broom (Genista monspessulana) and its cousins, Scotch, Spanish, and Common Broom, are all exotics that were sold as ornamental landscaping plants. One medium-sized shrub can produce over 8,000 seeds, which are soon growing in the neighbor’s yard.
French Broom grows as tall as 15 feet, although most are six to ten feet tall. See it blooming bright yellow along Highway 1. Its height makes it a ladder fuel for fire, which can climb right up. The toxic alkaloids in its leaves and seeds make it worthless as wildlife or livestock forage.
Its pretty yellow flowers look like pea flowers. The leaves are in clumps of three. Its shiny black seeds are in pods. Empty seed pods curl up.
To get rid of it: If possible, pull the plants. If they are too big to pull, cut them down. Girdling the trunk on large plants will kill them, but they remain flammable. Put them in the green waste bin. Reduce spread by controlling seeds. Remove the flowers and dispose of them in the green waste bin.
Bull Thistle (Cirsium vulgare) has pretty pink to purple flowers that bees like, but it also has thorny stems. Ouch! If it gets into hay, horses and cattle will not eat it. In its first year, it is a rosette of leaves flat on the ground. In its second year, a stem bolts up to flower. It may grow six feet tall, with many stems and flowers. The seed head produces tens of thousands of downy seeds that cover the ground around the plant and, as in Clement Clarke Moore’s traditional poem, A Visit from St. Nicholas, “…and away they all flew like the down of a thistle”.
Protect your hands. Mow it, cut it, or pull it. Cutting it close to the ground usually kills it, but seeds can live ten years. They keep sprouting. Keep pulling.
Cambria’s Invasive Weed Guide is available from Crosby Swartz at: crosbyswartz99@gmail.com, and Christine Heinrichs at: Christine.heinrichs@gmail.com, for a $15 donation to the Cambria Forest Committee.
