Category: April 2013

At the pond’s W end, we are still removing bittersweet, multiflora rose, and old pieces of dead vines from around trees.

Here’s something new. Perhaps it wasn’t new, we just couldn’t see it before, because it was covered up by so many invasives. I found it growing in a damp area, where phragmites had been, where I had spread seed heads of cattails, and some had actually grown. This is beneath where the willow was, on the E side of the slope.

I think it’s Equisetum arvense. It’s native; some people consider it a weed. It’s supposedly hard to get rid of. Go Botany says it’s an “important component of the spring and early summer diet of black bears.” I guess I should be proud that our ecosystem appears capable of supporting a black bear…but I think I’ll pull most of this. Anything that comes up in a great number, I’m a bit suspicious of, but I’m hesitant to get rid of all of it, just in case it’s important for something.