Blog & News

This week’s post is from Linda Thomas, Resource Management Officer at PEI National Park.

Summer seems to be flying by, we are concentrating on managing our five targeted invasive plant species here in PEI National Park. We have finished with garlic mustard and Japanese knotweed for this year, currently working on glossy buckthorn. Purple loosestrife is looming as it is starting to flower. We actually thought we had loosestrife under reasonable control, down to a few plants until we found a whole new area near our boundary; so the work continues.

Last year Rosemary Curley sent us an observation of white sweet clover (Melilotus alba) in an area of sand dune and salt marsh which we have just restored by removing a road bed. This is a small area and we decided to try and remove the plant from the restoration area, using the best management practises from Ontario.ca/invasivespecies. We are working on that; but now that it is in my mind I am overwhelmed by the vigour and abundance of this plant; it is everywhere! I am wondering if it has always been this common and I didn’t notice or is it having some sort of population explosion?

Attached images: