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Knotweed

Audio Tour: Silk Farm Wildlife Sanctuary

Welcome to the newest enhancement of the Silk Farm Sanctuary All Persons Trail. This audio tour provides historical information about the site, ecological information about the surrounding habitats and features, and seasonal information about the wildlife that visits or calls the sanctuary home. We are committed to continue our efforts to protect nature for all people, working to make our programs, lands, and nature centers welcoming, accessible, and equitable to all participants and visitors. This audio tour is a component to that commitment, so that all community members have the opportunity to engage in the experiences that appeal to them.

Stop 4: Knotweed Patch

Adjacent to the pollinator meadow, a shrub with reddish stems and large heart-shaped leaves grows pervasively over a sandy knoll. This formidable plant is Japanese Knotweed, a non-native invasive species with the ability to easily out-compete the native plants that are vital to a healthy meadow ecosystem. In an effort to suppress knotweed growth and allow native plants to reclaim this space, huge black tarps have been placed over the ground near the trail. Stretching out 50 ft and more from the path, these tarps smother all plants that might try to sprout here. We hope to deprive knotweed of sunlight and kill both the above-ground growth and the underground root system. We hope this creates an opportunity to reseed the soil with native meadow grasses and flowers. Other ways to manage knotweed’s spread include prescribed burning—which we did here in 2023 – removal of the plants by hand, and by intensive machine mowing.

You can identify if a Japanese Knotweed patch occurs on your land by looking for its hollow reddish stems and the smooth-edged alternately branching heart-shaped leaves. In late summer, look for the delicate branching white flowers that also identify it. Knotweed grows very densely and sometimes up to 10 feet high, and given an opportunity, it can quickly shade out other plants and take over a patch of land.

Reader: Chris Martin

Photos, from top: View across the pollinator meadow, by Dyanna Smith; Knotweed patch with plastic growth prevention covering, by Dyanna Smith.