An informative site re the above is Gov. UK – Environmental Management – Wildlife and Habitat Conservation (this jointly published by Natural England, Environment Agency and Department of the Environment). Although persons can be fined or imprisoned for allowing pernicious weeds to spread from their land to that of a neighbour or into ‘the wild’ it is hard to see how this could be proven.
Legally defined pernicious plants include; common ragwort (see above, single plant), spear thistle, creeping or field thistle, broad-leaved dock and curled dock. Ragwort is poisonous to farm animals (however, in Norfolk, back in the day, it was normal to see ragwort in pasture-land having been grazed around but not touched by cattle). To get rid of today it can be sprayed, removed, cut back (so no seed dispersal) or spot burnt. Spraying or disposal have to follow a legal framework.
Examples of ‘harmful, invasive species’ are; Japanese knotweed, giant hogweed, Himalayan balsam, rhododendron ponticum and New Zealand pigmyweed. There are, apparently over a thousand species of rhododendron, originally native to the Himalayan foothills, but the nectar of ponticum is poisonous, as with honey made from it, and it causes the death of bees alighting on the flower. Apparently rhododendron ponticum was a pre-glacial native shrub but didn’t naturally re-colonise after the last Ice Age, an interesting example of ecological archaeology. Harmful invasive species should be sprayed or burnt (although for giant hogweed the spraying has to be repeated for 15 years to eradicate seeds that may lie dormant). North Lincolnshire Council sprays Japanese knotweed when notified. Burning, spraying or disposal have to be done with the guidance and legal requirements of the Environment Agency.
A tv. programme on customs officers in Australia highlights their determined efforts to keep-out possible invasive plant species.
Yesterday = blog and research am + dental check-up and hygienist. Pm Hull – St. Andrew’s Quay, Queen’s Gardens and Queen Victoria Square with R. and M. Fine, high pressure weather, v. hot if sheltered from n.e. breeze.