Hello B[L]OG Friends …..

At the end of the month I was on a high believing that we’d got on top of the Himalayan Balsam problem. Only to discover a whole new big patch of it in a Scotlandwell field. A local resident told us he’d seen it on the west side of the Well Green. When we went to investigate we saw it was coming from the adjacent field and was rampant.

It is a reportable non-native invasive species. It is an offence to allow it to spread from your land on to someone else’s property.

Nature Scot’s website has really good information on how to identify and how to manage Himalayan balsam. https://www.invasivespecies.scot/himalayan-balsam

Our Group’s efforts this year have been in monitoring Portmoak Moss and its surrounding ditches as far afield as Grahamstone. Scottish Water very helpfully gave us access to the water treatment plant compound to clear that area of the balsam plants. A working party donned waders and weeded various ditches and their margins last Tuesday. That’s us with part of our haul in the photo above.

Yours despondently,

Blogged by Lesley B.