I had to resist piling on more complaints to that 1st question. This is very-much related to the other, but I think it deserves a new thread of its own:
Soon after the sidewalks were installed on our heavily tree-lined street 5 years ago, the verge (or whatever it's called) & the slope next to it were planted with periwinkle. The next spring I began what turned out to be a protracted battle with some new, unknown (to me) weeds, whose seeds had obviously hitchhiked along with the new plants. At 1st there weren't all that many & they were easily eradicated by pulling. There was one, however, some kind of grass with shallow roots, easily pulled, that seemed to keep popping up. Last year, spring 2017 (about 3 1/2 yrs after 1st appearing) I noticed it had not just shown up along the sidewalk, but was here & there in places like our little herb garden and especially under the trees that cover more than half our little lot. So it was then, finally, that I went googling to see if I could identify it. I thought it would be difficult, but in little time I came across the wide-spread topic of "non-native, invasive plants" and met the name of our seemingly "innocuous", shallow-rooted little weed: stiltgrass. Or also known by other names, like Japanese stiltgrass. I told the neighbors to watch out for it & be sure to pull it if they found it, which they did.
This year we had stiltgrass everywhere, despite all my previous weeding attempts. It was spread throughout the lawn areas and in every part of our tiny but cherished understory. I went looking further, over a nearby bank leading down to a small stream, and then up & down the street. It was on almost everybody else's property, too, and all along the street, plus had already been on other streets or had spread from ours to theirs or vice versa. After reading up more on it, I realized we had the 1st real infestation of stiltgrass in our county, and naturally wanted to notify others to be vigilant in weeding it out, including the city and county. It still seemed possible that it could be eradicated by pulling, & then making sure it didn't return & have a chance to go to seed in the fall.
Surprise! - not. The county has yet to respond and the city arborist says that grass is not within her area of expertise. I tried to tell the transportation engineer to tell her (Cryminy!) that she needed to care about the stiltgrass, because if she bothered to read up on it, she would see how it negatively (catastrophically) affects forest understories, and those understories are critical to the health of the trees themselves. But I think I'm gonna have to go try to hunt her down personally to stop the pointless communication (or lack thereof) through others. Or better, just write a letter.
So... after all that, to the point: If your area had an infestation of the completely useless, horribly invasive & terribly damaging weed known as stiltgrass and it was spreading to the understories of the residential lots' many trees, as arborists would you consider it a potential problem to the future health of the trees?
Just wanted the opinion of some people whose opinions I actually respect. Thanks again!
Soon after the sidewalks were installed on our heavily tree-lined street 5 years ago, the verge (or whatever it's called) & the slope next to it were planted with periwinkle. The next spring I began what turned out to be a protracted battle with some new, unknown (to me) weeds, whose seeds had obviously hitchhiked along with the new plants. At 1st there weren't all that many & they were easily eradicated by pulling. There was one, however, some kind of grass with shallow roots, easily pulled, that seemed to keep popping up. Last year, spring 2017 (about 3 1/2 yrs after 1st appearing) I noticed it had not just shown up along the sidewalk, but was here & there in places like our little herb garden and especially under the trees that cover more than half our little lot. So it was then, finally, that I went googling to see if I could identify it. I thought it would be difficult, but in little time I came across the wide-spread topic of "non-native, invasive plants" and met the name of our seemingly "innocuous", shallow-rooted little weed: stiltgrass. Or also known by other names, like Japanese stiltgrass. I told the neighbors to watch out for it & be sure to pull it if they found it, which they did.
This year we had stiltgrass everywhere, despite all my previous weeding attempts. It was spread throughout the lawn areas and in every part of our tiny but cherished understory. I went looking further, over a nearby bank leading down to a small stream, and then up & down the street. It was on almost everybody else's property, too, and all along the street, plus had already been on other streets or had spread from ours to theirs or vice versa. After reading up more on it, I realized we had the 1st real infestation of stiltgrass in our county, and naturally wanted to notify others to be vigilant in weeding it out, including the city and county. It still seemed possible that it could be eradicated by pulling, & then making sure it didn't return & have a chance to go to seed in the fall.
Surprise! - not. The county has yet to respond and the city arborist says that grass is not within her area of expertise. I tried to tell the transportation engineer to tell her (Cryminy!) that she needed to care about the stiltgrass, because if she bothered to read up on it, she would see how it negatively (catastrophically) affects forest understories, and those understories are critical to the health of the trees themselves. But I think I'm gonna have to go try to hunt her down personally to stop the pointless communication (or lack thereof) through others. Or better, just write a letter.
So... after all that, to the point: If your area had an infestation of the completely useless, horribly invasive & terribly damaging weed known as stiltgrass and it was spreading to the understories of the residential lots' many trees, as arborists would you consider it a potential problem to the future health of the trees?
Just wanted the opinion of some people whose opinions I actually respect. Thanks again!
