I have been doing battle with Scot’s/Scotch Broom in my Forest Steward assignment park the past few weeks, with this plant, as with almost all noxious weeds, it is a long, and possibly endless, war with strategies and plans of attack. This first effort is simply to stop the blooming shrubs from providing additional mature seeds to the already existing seed bank in the soil, the seed of this plant can stay viable in the soil for 5-60 years (one source said 80 years!). I have been able to devote a few hours a couple times a week and I think I made progress in my first engagement with the enemy. I read through the King County document on-line for Scotch-Broom-Control and modified my plan so that rather than cutting it close to the ground, I left enough to use a Weed Wrench in the future on the remaining trunk to remove the roots if possible. Some of the Scot’s/Scotch Broom shrubs are old with trunks 3 and 4 inches in diameter so I am not sure how these will respond to being cut down and they are too big for wrenching the roots out, but there are lots of trunks that are the right size for the Weed Wrench so I will have plenty on which to practice my technique. The next plants scheduled for my first attempt at removal are European Bittersweet, Holly, non-native thistles, Ivy, Laurel, Spurge Laurel, Yellow Flag Iris and so many others. The Knot Weed is too wide spread in the Meadowbrook area for volunteers to do the work and will need professionals with special equipment to do the work required to control it; very costly, I guess that is why the “NOX WEED” charge is on our Real Estate Tax bill.

The bird song that I hear during my hours in the park is very pleasant sound to hear while working and I have seen small muted colored female hummingbirds darting about after being alerted to their presence by the buzz-y snapping of their tail. I couldn’t tell what they were doing while I was busy with weed cutting, but I also saw the same type of hummer in the SPU retention pond area. Since our little Meadowbrook Pond was scheduled to be fenced off this week (and now is) I made a point to take a few extra walks through the paths around the pond to identify which native plants were blooming, getting ready to bloom and setting seed. I was excited to see the native Orange Honeysuckle Vine (Lonicera ciliosa) was threading its way through several plants in different areas and had healthy sturdy orange blooms pushed up above the support plant to wave in light breezes for the hummingbirds to find them. I was also excited to see another native honeysuckle plant blooming and setting seed in its little fruit and this was the Twinberry (Lonicera involucrata). This shrub has lovely small yellow bell shaped flowers in pairs along the underside of its branches. These turn into pairs of black round berries and then the bracts behind the berries turn dark red and are a very striking contrast to the surrounding greenery. The hummingbirds I saw were getting nectar from the flowers of both plants which provides both water and quick calories for these hot little birds; body temperature about 107 degrees F. They will eat the little soft bodied insects that are also attracted to the vegetation of these native plants and feed the insect slurry to their tiny chicks that need lots and lots of this insect soup to grow so fast that they fledge in about 19/20 days after hatching. The plants continue to pull up water and refill the flowers so the female hummingbird can return again and again for a drink of stock to make insect soup for their babies. That’s why.

Cool Site – The Cornell Lab of Ornithology.