Garlic mustard is one of them... a plant that comes from another continent that did not evolve with our current ecosystem... when a plant comes from another continent and it did not coevolve with what is here it can all of a sudden grow uncontrolled because nothing eats it no insects eat it no animals eat it it can take over and displace our native plants very rapidly

The teeth on the margin of the leaf around it at the top of the tooth are rounded at the bottom of the tooth they're like waves on the ocean rounded at the top and rounded at the bottom

Once the plant seeds ripen the plant has a hormonal message to die if the seed tops are cut off that hormonal message does not get through and the plant does not die so you can extend a plant's life by cutting off and preventing seed production

When pulling or digging the tap root it has to be removed if you don't feel that tap root coming out as you're pulling you can you're gonna have to get the trowel out and dig it out... when you are pulling in general when the plants roots are this size a single tap with maybe a branch on the bottom you can usually pull them out you can gently grab the bottom of the stem and pull upward slowly and you'll feel the route coming out

If you pull at this time which has already passed in Minnetonka for 2020 you can leave the plants in the woods if and only if no seed pods have been formed yet the roots are soil free and no soil contact the plants need to be left high and dry on top of a log or a rock or something that gets them high high and dry and they can dry out a little

If the top breaks off next year you've just turned a plant from a biennial into a perennial next year it's going to come up it might have multiple multiple stems and be even harder to pull the following year so the trowel is always a good good idea

Glyphosate is the active ingredient in roundup rodeo and the aquatic version which is aqua neat three to five percent produces pretty good control in the rosette stage it does not control garlic mustard when it's in the bolting stage in the bolting stage plants can grow out of a spray they'll get will tea for a while they'll be twisted for a while and then later on in the season they'll just continue growing you must follow up with hand pulling

You really have to be careful not to spray native plants if you are doing it during the dormant stage early spring and late fall after the natives of gone dormant that is the best time to avoid the native wildflowers sedges stay green they can be lost those are good places to hand pull around anything that's native or native sedges

There is research that has shown that weed whacking cutting the garlic mustard stalks all the way to the ground during the flowering stage can kill over 90% of the plants that's not very realistic because when you're in most woodland situations there are logs and stones and debris and you can't quite get all the way to the ground but what it does is it buys you time to come back later

Do not weed whack or spray at this stage... if you weed whack you're simply going to be distributing these stocks which are gonna quickly open up the seeds and the whole life cycle starts over all of that effort is wasted

You can't just walk away after weed whacking you have to come back three weeks later and see what has reflowed and work on it some more

Seeds travel in shoelaces in on the fur of dogs on the fur of deer their hooves raccoons any mammals that are in the woods that are bumping into these plants when they're dispersing seeds the seeds can attach to fur very easily in the morning dew when there's some moisture they get stuck they if you're walking through the woods they will easily get stuck in your shoelaces on the bottom of your shoe of your boots seeds live in the soil up to twelve years that's called the seed bank

It's not legal in fact to transport the propagating parts of this noxious weed without a permit so you shouldn't be taking them to the brush drop absolutely not when they've got seed pods on them you're going to be dispersing seeds around the very best thing to do is to compound compost them on site find a place in your yard or in your woodland but doesn't have any valuable plants growing on it shouldn't be on a slope it shouldn't be next to a stream

Piles should really be covered held down the fabric should be held down in place with logs or stones to keep the edges from coming up why cover it because if deer or raccoons are walking through when the seeds are being dispersed they can still be carried to other locations there will always be seedlings around the pile so you can look for those each year and the cycle continues

I like to tell people to get your garlic mustard out by the fourth of July very easy date to remember and typically very close to the fourth of July the seed pods start to split open

There have been 18 years of research... there are three species of garlic mustard eating weevils that have been found in Europe they brought them to the United States they've been in quarantine for two decades more than two decades the insects have been researched and researched and researched they've the DNR has applied with federal government to release the weevils at twelve test sites statewide ours is one of them in Minnetonka

Application for the trial insect release in 2008 was rejected and again into 2013 it was rejected I was ready to quit my job in 2013 when that happened there's only a few plants that they are worried about some native garlic mustards that are very rare in some remote location they're worried about them eating while garlic mustard is sweeping across the whole country

The Minnetonka says test site could be a release site for Biological control insects they are in the approval process right now the very first stage has been approved but it's very long and slow so no news yet but it keeps me hopeful for the future

We have a fantastic volunteer who has done the garlic mustard pulling for many many years and we've allowed the native Woodbine plant the foresters call it would bind the nursery people call it Virginia Creeper it's a vine that climbs trees it is not a strangler like our native grapevine could be it climb cages here's a planted tree if it climbs up a cage a plant cage or a valuable tree you simply gently pull it off and get it running back on the ground

Find the wildflowers and clear around them first... I liked by white wire flags from AM Leonard it's hard to find the white flags in the big-box stores but I will put a white wire flag wherever I find a wild flower sometimes in high intensity restoration areas works well for your yard put the white wire flag there and that's the place to hand pull good hand pull and once your wildflowers have been cleared around you could use the spring and the other methods if that was necessary

Once that's done you can work on the rest of the bulk of the plants the most effective control of garlic mustard is the prevention of its initial establishment... the likelihood of coming across that exact same patch in the park is not too likely on your property just review walk through your property take plant walks all throughout the spring because what you miss the first two pass you'll find some in the second pass and the third pass

A plant that comes from another continent that did not evolve with our current ecosystem our native plants and birds and animals and pollinators all co-evolved together with checks and balances where they can tolerate one another's browsing eating and advancing and mutating and changing altogether when a plant comes from another continent and it did not cobol with what is here it can all of a sudden grow uncontrolled because nothing eats it no insects eat it no animals eat it

If the garlic mustard patch stays in the woodland for up to 6 years or more the native plants are not allowed to photosynthesize and they eventually just disappear... when we have a diversity of native plants there are different bloom times there are different pollinator insects that specialize with those different blooms and the different pollen the different heights all kinds of different different aspects of interactions with different species MPB ins reptiles and birds in the food web are all affected by a monoculture of one plant rather than a diversity of plants

An invasive plant is usually coming from a different continent and it's not native to the United States then we have an aggressive plant this is the term I always use with a native I'd a non-native plant I'm not I'm going to call it invasive if it's non-native and it's invading the woods if it's native and it's rapidly multiplying I'm going to call it aggressive we have native aggressive plants in Minnesota that are wonderful to occupy space in the woodland that you don't want to do a lot of maintenance on