'Chervilistas'
Called to Action

I have loved reading all the great letters about invasives in The Herald. Jon Binhammer is right about garlic mustard, except for one thing. It is not just in the Champlain Valley and portions of southern Vermont, it is here. Last spring I spotted a clump four doors east of the fire station in Randolph. I obtained permission and pulled it up. This spring I repeated the action.

In my rather limited local travels I have also seen garlic mustard in Royalton near the river south of South Royalton, on Rt. 14 .15 miles north of Eaton's Sugar House and on Morse Road; in Bethel near Ansel Pond and past the old schoolhouse on Sanders Road, and in Woodstock at the Marsh Billings Park. Undoubtedly there is more. 

Garlic mustard spreads as fast as wild chervil does, and in many of the same ways. First it appears in small patches along roads, then expands deeply into the areas beyond the roads, and those patches produce seed which gets picked up and starts new patches. 

If no one takes action, soon the landscape contains extensive areas of garlic mustard, leading to what Lynn McNamara was referring to where her letter got inadvertently cropped: totally homogenized landscapes. Places in Massachusetts and Connecticut which have just three species. Homogenized "forests" made up of one species of tree, one shrub and a continuous herbaceous layer of one species. 

Close your eyes for a moment and picture your favorite local spot in the woods. Picture the different trees, ferns and other plants. Think of all the wildlife that are supported by those woods, their annual cycles and the patterns of their lives. 

Now replace that image with one made up of an endless expanse of just a few species with many, many individuals of each. Where are the wildlife? 

There is absolutely nothing standing between what we have now and that inevitability,except us.

Let's use the lessons we have learned from wild chervil. We know that early preventative action is the only thing that really works with invasive plants. Many of us have become "Chervilistas" and are taking action to pull small patches of chervil before they become large patches and spread to create still more patches. Let's extend that willingness to take action, and apply it to the other plants that are gaining a foothold in our area. 

Come to future workshops of the Central Vermont Invasive Plant Coalition to learn to recognize invasive plants, and to learn what actions to take to prevent them from spreading. 

And next May, watch for nickel-sized clumps of bright-white flowers atop three-foot straight stems and stop and pull up those garlic mustard plants. Garlic mustard is satisfyingly easy to pull and the plants should be bagged and taken to the landfill for eventual incineration. 

We can use our experience with wild chervil to prevent an impoverished, homogenized landscape here.

Victoria Weber

Bethel