Hey there Community Reps!
If you are like me, you have been busy taking advantage of the cooler and wet weather to get at those pesky invasives. This can be a time when we get overwhelmed because so much has popped up, but it doesn’t have to be!
Our suggestion is to choose the worst of the weeds in a targeted area and focus on getting rid of that, then move onto the next until the area is free of invasives. When you are finished each day, take a minute to celebrate what you have done. Every little bit makes a difference.
My inspiration came from an article I had read about two sisters in Australia that systematically cleared an entire National Park. I couldn’t find the exact article that inspired me so many years ago, but you can read about the Bradley sisters and the technique they developed called Bush Regeneration and find some inspiration of your own. Go down the rabbit hole!
Grant opportunity for invasive plant control
Fairfax Tree Rescuers PRISM is offering mini-grants of up to $5000 to kickstart invasive plant control work in common areas of community associations (homeowners, condo, recreation or civic association), and faith communities. Communities in Fairfax County – including the independent jurisdictions and the City of Falls Church – who have not previously received a grant from Fairfax PRISM or Plant NOVA Natives to control invasive plants are eligible.
Applications will be accepted beginning on June 1 and reviewed in batches in June, August and September until all funds have been allotted. Check the Fairfax PRISM website for updated information on grant availability..
To start the process organizations must do the following:
- Obtain permission to apply from the president of your organization’s Board
- Complete a pre-application form to request a site visit from an experienced PRISM volunteer to help identify a project site and discuss priorities for treatment (you can start that now)
- Obtain an estimate of cost for work from a contractor
- Complete a formal on-line application.
Click here for further details and access to application forms.
New plan for our newsletters
We are switching up the Community Reps Newsletter to once a month and will be including a list of invasives that are emerging and or best timing for treatment this month. Links to identification and best management can be found on our website resource page.
We will also be including an example letter that you are welcome to copy and personalize to send out to your community. Please see below for one person’s recent letter to her neighbors.
Highlighted Invasive Species
Vines
Five-leaf Akebia - A priority plant because it is so destructive to trees but relatively uncommon, so there is hope that we could prevent its spread.
Trees
Princess Tree (Paulownia tomentosa) with its purple flowers in bloom now.
As always, we would love to hear from you! Drop us a line and send us your photos. We want to celebrate every step of the way with you. Reach out if you have any questions.
Seed ya next time,
Katy Johnson, Fairfax Tree Rescuers PRISM
Example letter:
Hi, neighbors,
I thought I’d send out alerts every once in a while about invasive plants that I spot along our road. I’m the official “Community Representative” for Fairfax Tree Rescuers PRISM, which has the goal of saving our trees from invasive vines and controlling at least the worst of the other invasive plant infestations.
One of those bad guys is Oriental False Hawksbeard, which only started appearing in our neighborhood maybe three years ago. The leaves look like dandelions. It spreads like wildfire – just now I saw it (and plucked it) along the road in front of Barbara Miller’s old house and the Ahns, Shafers, and Jones. We have it next to our driveway. Luckily, it’s often really easy to pull out. On my walk yesterday, I pulled up maybe 50 of them next to the road, which only added maybe five minutes to my walk. Today I pulled up another 100 – I didn’t go all the way up the road yesterday, so that was some of them, but others made themselves visible overnight when their flower stalks sprang up. These should be disposed in the trash. The last thing you want to do is toss them in the woods, since they can still go to seed after you uproot them. So when you are talking a walk, take a look, and if you can tell what you are seeing, pull it up. It’s still an early enough invader that we might even be able to eradicate it.
What we don’t want to pull up is the lovely native Lyre-leaf Sage. The Shafers have a wonderful patch of that. (It’s mixed with the bad guy, though, just to make it confusing.) It’s easy to tell when they are blooming, because the native has blue flowers as opposed to the yellow ones of the invasive. The flower buds also look different, so that’s a good stage for doing the pulling without making a mistake. See attached photos.
I got inspired to start a little blog series on invasive look-alikes of native plants – you can see the first edition here, with Oriental False Hawksbeard vs Lyre Leaf Sage as the topic, and more photos. https://www.fairfaxprism.org/communications/plants/new-garden-headache-oriental-false-hawksbeard
There are of course plenty of other flowers where the leaves are mostly near the ground and the flower stalk towers above. The Miller-Burtons have a patch of the lovely native Fleabane, with the white daisy-like flowers. And on the Ahns property I see a Golden Ragwort, with big fat leaves and a cluster of yellow flowers at the top of the stalk.