Field Invasion: Svaneti
I was warned, but I failed to understand how quickly this one spreads. If I had (literally) nipped it in the bud, there would likely be no reason to write this article. Ah, good ol' 20-20 hindsight.
Instead, I find myself fighting a daily battle with a weed which, if you find it in, say, Canada, you are advised to leave alone and call for the specialists. Huh! Wish I had that luxury.
Weed? More like a monster. Its leaves can grow to a meter long, its stalks that long too, and thick as my big toe or more. The only redeeming thing about such thick stalks is that they're ridiculously easy to scythe or clip, quite succulent and soft, not tough or woody; the blade rips through them like the proverbial knife through soft butter. In the photo, the fence is about a meter high, for size comparison.
BUT! The juice therein will react with sunlight if you get it on your skin, and a day or two later you'll have nasty burn-like boils erupt. And if it gets in your eyes... you'll likely go blind. So you need good protection if you decide to make a stand, gloves and goggles a minimum. There's nothing edible here by humans, either, in case you're thinking of a relative of, say, rhubarb, which at least you can consume once you've boiled it. Cows, however, will eat it and not be harmed, fresh or dry, which is a small help.
If you cut it right down to the ground, more stems will quickly push themselves up from the root, and they'll realize that the battle is on and rush to flower as quickly as possible, much faster than you would have expected. You need to dig it out by the roots, and clip every flower. But even if you do succeed in eradicating it from your own yard, there are more happily flowering plants laughing at you from the neighbor's, and your fence is useless to stop them. Invasion indeed!
We plan to plow all our land this fall, to deal with the thing firmly, and them to plant a hay crop as we will have killed everything else in the same process. We haven't done this before. Reminds me of the temp job I had for a few months in a greenhouse "factory" in the southwest of England in 1991. They sterilized the chrysanthemum beds between plantings by covering them with a thick sheet of plastic weighted down on all edges, and then pumping superheated steam through this for half an hour or so. Stops all organic life dead in that soil, and then you're free to plant only and exactly what you want. In this case, 'mums for London.
Drastic times like these call for equally drastic measures, so we'll do what we must to annihilate the hated invader as thoroughly as possible; and then if it creeps back, I'll be ready to deal with individual plants as and if they crop up in future. What's the beloved phrase? With extreme prejudice, that sums up exactly how I feel, un-martial and pacifist though I usually am.
Its name, you were wondering? In Latin, it's called heracleum (from Hercules: nice) mantegazzianum, or "giant hogweed" in plain English. Let the cautious reader beware, you have been warned! If you're going to mess with it, armor up well; if you have the possibility to call in the big guns to do their thing, all the better, believe someone who is not looking forward to his task.
Tony Hanmer runs the “Svaneti Renaissance” Facebook group, now with over 1300 members, at
www.facebook.com/groups/SvanetiRenaissance/
He and his wife also run their own guest house in Etseri:
www.facebook.com/hanmer.house.svaneti
Tony Hanmer