loosestrife

In a message dated 7/16/00 4:40:51 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
deanslgr@juno.com writes:

<< Margaret is right, though.  If it is indeed purple loosestrife then your
 plants will set and disperse seeds which can not only make their way to
 local wetlands but also, if you live in town, get into storm sewers and
 invade the wide world.   >>

Of course, Margaret is right.  However, if every gardener in the USA swore 
off purple looestrife (lythrum salicaria) I doubt if it would make a small 
dent in the population.  Along the Hudson River in NYS there are miles of 
loosestrife blooming, it is a tourist attraction in the late summer.  Low 
lying fields all over the Northeast have great purple patches of loosestrife, 
it is one wildfower, though alien, that most can identify.

This is not a plea to encourage banned plants in gardens, just a note to say 
that one or two in the garden giving a gardener pleasure is not such a 
terrible thing. The cat is already out of the bag.

I have acres to deal with and and have a few plants in my pond.  The cattails 
(a really tough and nasty plant) prevent it from spreading.  When faced with 
pulling it out or watching it for a while, I left it, the loosestrife, and it 
is having a problem.  I also planted iris pseudocorus (alien) which is a very 
vigorous plant.  So far, the iris and the cattails are even.   Something will 
grow along my pond banks at all times unless we mechanically clear the banks 
twice yearly.

Without quoting true reseach on the problem which I do not have handy, it 
would seem to me that those swampy areas with cattails and other plants are 
not the home of loosestrife in my area.  The loosestrife takes hold in 
ditches which are man-made and begins there.  There is an auto-junkyard in my 
town covered with loosestrife every August and I always think it the best of 
the two, junk or loosestrfe. 

Very interesting is a web search re: alien plants on all continents.  We are 
somewhat informed on our own,  however the problem is worldwide with some 
American plants having a poor reputation on other continents.  Sum-up, I do 
not think the loosestrife battle is to be won.

Claire Peplowski
East Nassau, NY z4

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