[MAIPC] Lesser celandine trimming + note about violets

[Richard Gardner]

Great work John!. Blue Marsh is experiencing a similar issue. The Schuylkill River n Exeter Township, Berks County is swamped with lesser celandine.

Mulch forks may be also be good for the work you do. With a spading fork I use in the garden and to remove invasives, I changed the short handle on it for a long shovel handle to give more leverage and less bending over. Shovels we use to remove plants and sod are always sharpened to help cut through roots when necessary and to move easier through the soil.

                                                                                                                                      Richard Gardner
--------------------------------------------
On Tue, 4/5/16, John Ambler <john.ambler at verizon.net> wrote:

 Subject: [MAIPC] Lesser celandine trimming + note about violets
 To: maipc at lists.maipc.org
 Date: Tuesday, April 5, 2016, 11:07 PM
 
 Here is information on my lesser
 celandine control efforts.
  At Tucquan Glen Nature Preserve, the
 main place people hike and where I have concentrated my
 invasive plant control efforts is west of River Rd.  I
 have been checking floodplains annually for garlic
 mustard.  A few years back I noticed lesser celandine
 coming in a number of places on the floodplains.  Then
 in the last two or three years I saw increasing
 amounts.  So in 2015 I decided I had better check
 upstream east of River Rd.  I saw that large areas were
 covered by it.
  Earlier I had found that digging out
 whole plants is not practical.  A large amount of soil
 remains on the roots and so carrying out bags of it would be
 difficult.  Also I saw that bulbs often got broken off
 in the process and were hard to retrieve from the
 soil.  So I tried just cutting under the
 bulbs.  In
 2014 and 2015 I removed lesser celandine in a few places by cutting under the
 bulbs with a sharpened paring knife and lifting out the
 plants and bagging them.  I am delighted to see that
 where this was done thoroughly for two years, there is
 almost no lesser celandine now.  
  But I can’t cut out large numbers
 of plants!  So this year I decided to try preventing
 seed and bulbil formation by string trimming as a first step
 in preventing spread.
  I noticed that it started growing in
 the fall and that small leaves survived through the
 winter.  I don’t know whether this occurs in
 colder winters.  (I noticed the leaves Dec. 26.) 
 Meghan Fellows wrote:
  We get
 full senescence in June with re-emergence beginning by
 mid-December.  But following it last year, I was pretty
 sure more individuals emerged as the season progressed (vs
 just more leaves from the same bulbils).  Have you seen
 Some biological aspects of the weed Lesser celandine
 (Ranunculus ficaria) Planta Daninha vol 31 no 3
 July/Sept 2013?  Bulbil size also matters.
  On March 3, I tested a Stihl FSA85
 cordless electric string trimmer on lesser celandine east of
 River Rd. on the floodplain.  This works well, but I
 need to clear sticks and protect ferns before
 trimming.  A pitchfork works well for both – it
 can be stuck in the ground to protect ferns or other plants
 from the trimmer.  
  I have a 6-tine pitchfork which I
 really enjoy using and think it is better than the 5-tine
 forks.  I noticed that our Ace Hardware sells one and
 calls it a manure fork.  Here’s a link to their
 website.  http://www.acehardware.com/product/index.jsp?productId=1341327&cp=2568443.2568444.2598674.2601431.2602642
  Around March 24 I checked the spot I
 trimmed on March 3.  The lesser celandine had formed
 new leaves which were much smaller than uncut plants. 
 I recut these and a larger area, but only a small fraction
 of the whole infestation.  I should concentrate on
 cutting it close to the stream to minimize spread by seed
 and bulbils.
  I found that you can tilt the trimmer
 90 degrees and trim down on the bulbs to destroy them. 
 It is easy to see what you are doing  because
 the bulbs appear as white dots as you trim down
 into them.  I
 have been checking for bulbil formation on the stems. 
 So far (April 5) I have not found any, but I did find them
 last year so we do have the subspecies which forms
 them.  I don’t know when seeds mature, but plants
 should be trimmed before then!  Right now (early April)
 may be the best time to trim because a lot of energy has
 gone out of the bulbs to form leaves, but hopefully seeds
 and bulbils have not formed yet.
  Anyone trimming lesser celandine needs
 to be careful not to trim violets.  Lesser celandine
 leaves are dark green and very glossy.  They have
 smooth edges (no teeth) and long petioles.  Right now
 some violets have leaves that look a lot like lesser
 celandine leaves.  Violet leaves don’t have the
 shiny glossiness and the green color is not the same. 
 Violet leaves may have fine teeth which may not be noticed
 from a distance. 
  I have a Stihl FSA 85 trimmer. 
 This is a top-quality light-weight trimmer that has the
 battery at the end of the shaft opposite the trimming
 head.  This makes it very easy to use.  With the
 AP180 battery I can trim intermittently for about 2
 hours.  I chose the AL500 charger, for fairly rapid
 recharging.  The EasyCut trimmer head is refilled using
 two 8-ft. pieces of 2 mm Stihl twine.  You should have
 the dealer show you how to refill it because the Stihl
 directions are poor!
  Variable speed control is
 important.  You can run the trimmer at low speed to
 lengthen the time the battery charge lasts.  And at low
 speed you have better control and no vibration.  The
 Stihl FSA 65 does not have variable speed control –
 don’t get that model!
  March 23 observations:  In
 Lancaster County Central Park on the trail along Mill Creek
 below the meadows (W & N side of the creek).  The
 coverage of many areas with lesser celandine is solid, even
 going up hillside all the way in places on the other side on
 private property.  Many but not all plants are in
 bloom.  In
 a number of places it is getting moved from the floodplain
 onto the slopes and then spreading straight down the slope
 from the initial plants.  In one place where there is a
 lawn infested with it, there are widely scattered plants in
 relatively flat woods.  Seed must be getting spread by
 animals.  I think
 that this pattern of
 spread could not be from bulbils.  Bulbils easily break
 off and float downstream but would only be deposited on the
 floodplains.
  John
 Ambler
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