The northeast corner of the pond still has knotweed and bittersweet resprouts. It’s a tough area. The young river birch whip has been defoliated by sawflies. To its right is a baby bayberry, and further back on the right, a rosa rugosa. We planted rosa rugosa over areas that had the most robust knotweed rhizomes, and it seems to be holding down the fort.
10 Skyrocket Juniper (Juniperous scopulorum) – more evergreens!
10 Mugo Pine (Pinus mugo pumilio) – more evergreens!
10 Juniper andorra (Juniperus horizontals) – more evergreens!
10 Juniper broadmoor (Juniperus sabina) – more evergreens!
10 Juniper greenmound (Juniperus procumbens) – more evergreens!
10 Juniper saybrook gold (Juniperus chinensis) – more evergreens!
10 Sweet Crabapple (Malus coronaria) – another great native
10 Chinese Dogwood (Cornus kousa) – for the front
20 Northern Bayberry (Myrica pennsylvanica) – native, for slope
20 Viburnum Cranberrybush (Viburnum trilobum) – native
10 Viburnum Nannyberry (Viburnum lentago) – native
10 Dappled Willow (Salix integra) – too pretty to pass up
In early summer, the east end of the pond is still pretty wet, so you can’t drive the tractor too close. Still, it’s an excellent time to pull phragmites resprouts, because it’s easier when they’re in the water. I put on my waders and patrolled the east end of the pond with the canoe, gathering up all the phragmites stems that were floating on top of the water at that point.
I piled them all, mostly dead stems, but a few resprouts, into the canoe, pulled the canoe up away from the water with the tractor, then loaded up the front end loader, then dumped them on the burn pile to dry out. I did about 3 canoe loads. The pond looked a lot better when I was done!
Plus – I am now strong like bull!
At the extreme east end of our property, including some of our next-door neighbor’s property, was a huge infestation of glossy buckthorn (Frangula alnus). It had wound itself down an old stone wall, with roots 1-2 inches around. It was a monster. I had avoided it. Somebody had to deal with it. On a cool day, with little to no chance of rain, I cut and treat several stumps.
The prior year, I had taken several pods of milkweed seeds from the back acre, and spread them around the top part of the slope, above where all the knotweed was. It worked! A whole bunch of milkweed came up. It smells great. The butterflies love it. The groundhog likes to munch on it. It’s a great plant.
Slightly further up the slope, a young Osage Orange (maclura pomifera), on the left, and Eastern Redbud (Cercis canadensis), on the right, are enjoying the posh accommodations in the nursery area:
I would never have believed it! 2013 is the first year that the phragmites in the pond is not a ginormous problem. BUT, were we still removing stems? Yes. Were we still digging out rhizomes? Yes.
In May of 2013, Justin and I really went after the west end of the pond. I spent a couple of months in early spring, trying to tease old dead bittersweet vine fragments out of the trees.
Despite taking every precaution of placing every bittersweet fragment onto a tarp, then onto the burn pile, the bittersweet would continue to resprout. Still, we made a valiant attempt at completely weeding the west end of the pond.
Before (which is really a “during” photo, as we’d been working on this area for a year or two):
After:
It was just inconceivable that we were able to do this, when in past years, this area had been an impenetrable jungle of invasive plants, vines and shrubs.
For instance, in 2009, I couldn’t have even taken the above photo. It’s taken from the SW corner of the pond. See how the phragmites takes a turn, as you’re looking out at the SW corner, in the photo below? See the tree behind them? If I had been standing where I stood to take the photo above, I would have been in the middle of a huge patch of phragmites!
That’s right; we had interior restoration going on as well.
