This weekend, the Marshians gathered to take on a formidable foe.
She is tall, beautiful, and tenacious.
She makes her home in hard-to-reach places, and surrounds herself with nettles for protection.
She is cunning – tempting plant collectors with her looks, luring Marshians to the steep banks of rivers, and recruiting children to increase her numbers, by hiding her quiverful in irresistible spring-loaded seedcases.
One of her names is “touch-me-not”. You may know her as Himalayan Balsam.
She is not really evil – just a plant doing what comes naturally. But this natural habit outcompetes the native plants for space, light, moisture and nutrients. Often found on the banks of rivers and ditches, this annual sprints upwards rather than downwards, shading out other plants with deeper roots that would otherwise help to stabilise the riverbanks.
This has led to Himalayan balsam being listed as a Species of Special Concern, and it is illegal to spread it.
Once you know what you’re looking for, you can spot the (admittedly rather lovely) pink and purple flowers everywhere. It needs to be cleared, before the flowers turn into exploding seedcases, that launch the seeds many metres away, and even further if they land in our watercourses.
So who you gonna call? The Marshians.
Individual Marshians have been tackling patches as they discover them, but it’s a daunting task. This weekend we mustered a bigger group to tackle larger patches together.
Fortunately, individual Himalayan balsam plants are easy to remove. First we snapped or snipped off the flower heads and stuffed them into rubbish bags, then pulled up the plants by hand. The shallow roots yield easily, and the long hollow stems make a satisfying noise when they snap. We pile the stems and stomp – Marshians are, of course, seasoned stompers.
Nevertheless it felt like an impossible task – for every patch we tackled, we spotted more. And for every mature plant we pulled up, the keen-eyed could find two or three young plants lurking in the undergrowth. But there is a kind of magic conjured when the Marshians work together, and the impossible becomes achieveable. It was deeply satisfying to see the progress we made, even while recognising that there is always more to do. In a world full of big, intractable problems, it is heartwarming to do something that has an immediate positive impact, all the while chatting and laughing, learning from each other, making friends and having fun. Marshians revel in this work.
The marsh rewarded us for our efforts with its own kind of treasure – a roe buck skull, uncovered while hunting smaller plants lurking in the undergrowth, and, later, while the Marshians rested with cups of tea, a visitation from a live doe – another moment of marsh magic.
Later, on my walk home from the marsh, I could feel my fingers tingling. Is it a sign that the enemy is close by? Or is it just all the nettle stings?
A guest post by Raven Wilderness.
Rural Reading 