Maggie has been Himalayan balsam bashing – not here though. Thankfully there’s none on the farm. But it’s in the nearby Halsdon Nature reserve, run by the Devon Wildlife Trust…
Today they had a volunteers’ day pulling the stuff up by the roots and loading it onto a tractor.
The trust have helped us a lot with advice about our culm grassland sssi, so we like to turn up and help them out sometimes too.
Himalayan Balsam is a pretty flower, also sometimes called ‘policeman’s helmet’ because of it’s shape. But it’s invasive and grows in vast stands over 6ft high that shade out everything else. It’s not native to Britain – it was introduced in 1839. It has explosive seeds that can shoot themselves up to 7m away, and it loves damp soil so it spreads along the banks of rivers.
Perhaps it’s saving grace is that it’s easy to pull up – it seems odd that such a giant plant can have such a feeble root system – but then if it falls over it just roots again from the leaf nodes.
So controlling it is an ongoing battle that has to be fought pretty much every year once the plant has got a foothold. Still, it was a beautiful day to be out there….
here are a few Himalayan Balsam links:
And an advice sheet on Himalayan Balsam from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology