[MAIPC] invasive plant removal

[Pia van de Venne]

Hello,

During the 16 years that I have assisted in the removal of invasive plants,
I learned that garlic mustard should be certainly taken out of the woods
because of the amount of toxins in the plants. So we bag garlic mustard and
most of the stiltgrass.

I do believe that none of the non native plant residue is beneficial to the
native woods; we have masses of oak leaves and other native debris, so I
just hope that piles of multiflora roses, burning bush, barberry, and honey
suckle bush will decompose together with the native plant debris without
causing too much harm or slowing down the growth. Our piles are 5ft tall
and I lean on them to condense them.Since we have few volunteers we have
left behind a lot of pulled out invasive material in the woods in
piles.(They make very good bird and animal shelters.) I pay attention to
not allow privet to touch the forest floor. We also compact the ground,
disturbed by the digging and pulling, with our feet. I know that some
people prefer to cut the stem and paint, but that is not the issue right now

My aim is to leave as much natural area between the piles to give native
vegetation the right environment, since we still have tons of small
saplings and herbaceous plants growing and exploding when we remove the
invasive plants.
*Question: does it make a difference whether we make these concentrated
piles or whether we just spread all the removed branches and roots of
invasive bushes over the entire area.*

*Question: will planting new saplings between cut multiflora roses without
removing or killing the roots make sense? Will the competition of the cut
roots not prevent growing of the newly planted saplings?*

Thank you very much for responding.
Pia van de Venne, Volunteer coordinator Murrysville Parks 724 733 2770
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