As plants begin to leaf out, the earliest to show green are usually invasive plants. Shrub honeysuckle and Japanese barberry are two of the earliest to bud out. Japanese knotweed begins to show reddish-green sprouts in late April and early May, and soon the garlic mustard will be blooming. Now is the time to begin work on controlling these invasive plants.
For small woody plants like barberry and honeysuckle, remove the entire plant and its roots while the soil is moist. All the recent rainy days have softened the soil around the roots, making it easier to get the entire root. Pieces of roots left in the ground will usually resprout later!
Japanese knotweed is easiest to snip when it is small. Those tender shoots with their red tint can be bagged and tossed in the trash. Please do not add knotweed to your compost! It will take root, creating more knotweed to be removed. Continue snipping the new growth throughout the growing season. Every time you cut back the growth, you deprive the plant of nourishment, depleting the energy stored in the root system. Eventually (after 2 or 3 years!) the plant will exhaust its nutrients and stop creating new shoots.
Garlic mustard is a biennial plant. The first year rosette becomes a taller plant in year two, when it bolts and small, 4-petalled white flowers appear at the top of the stem. Pull the entire plant, bag it, and dispose of in the trash. The garlic odor will confirm you’ve found the invasive plant!
