Hi All,
I just joined because our neighborhood has an iris "problem"
I'm
hoping you all can help we with.
Last year a local stream
underwent a large restoration project to
reduce the effects of erosion.
The entire stream bed and banks were
regraded and various natural barrier
(boulders, etc.,) were put in to
direct the stream and manage storm water.
(Our City's storm water
system drains directly to the stream.)
As
part of this they created a "wetlands" area to spread out storm
overflow
and planted it with a number of native species. The
original plan included
both Iris versicolor and pseudacorus. When I
alerted them to the fact that
pseudacorus is not native and is in
fact an invasive, they removed it from
the plans. This happened only
at the last minute and this spring it is
evident that pseudacorus DID
get planted along with the versicolor - as
their lovely yellow
flowers are in bloom right now. (They were planting
700 each of the
plants and I'm guessing some trays got mixed up.)
A
local watershed group is offering help in removing the
pseudacorus. At
this point they are only one year old and we want to
get them out before
they become any more firmly established.
My question:
Is there a
definitive way to distinguish pseudacorus from
versicolor? If not, we will
have to remove ALL the iris and wait a
few years while we check for stray
pseudacorus before we plant more
versicolor. This wetland overflows to a
stream that up until this
date has had no pseudacorus in it. We have
enough other invasive
plants - we don't need a new one!
Thank you
for any help you can give me.
-Helen
