August 29, 2022

Hello Betty Sutherland Stewards,

Yesterday, Angie, Mario and I went deep into the woods again to do a final cutting of the Japanese Knotweed (JPK) for this season. It was inspiring to see Angie's passion come through, as she was so persistent and cleared the JPK even in the harder to reach places! Mario managed to find two stocks with flowers that were really well hidden within grapevines and branches, preventing this plant from spreading further. Marlene found us working away and lended us a hand in bagging the JPK as we finished up. While we cleared out the area - perhaps even more so than July - we still had about 1.5 bags filled with the plants, which is less than the usual haul of 2 bags of plant matter. I am hopeful that this means the plant cannot keep up with our cuttings. The mosquitos were quite bad but we really made a difference yesterday, and we're not letting this plant have a chance to spread!

Japanese knotweed with flowers (see stems)

Another thing I noticed is that something is eating the leaves of this plant (see picture below). This was not the case in July, June or May when we cut the plant. What do you think might be eating them?

We have noticed lots of red ants around the stocks of these plants, so that would be my guess!

I noticed that since we last met at the beginning of August, there has been some mysterious activity at our monitoring plot. Someone has removed the river grape bank grape vines and smaller branches that were scattered in the middle of our plot. As you may have noticed when working with us, we always ensure that plant matter is scattered away from public view, so I do not believe it was any of our stewards that worked here. However, if you know who may have been involved or have any information, please let us know. I will also be reaching out to the city as well to check whether they were working in this area.