Greensleeves

Saturday was the day I had been waiting for – the day to be part of an organized garlic mustard pull.

Garlic mustard, as you’ll recall, is the invasive plant that is choking our native wood-lands, turning forest floors into deserts of nothing but garlic mustard. It’s awful, and it’s everywhere.

I was excited to be part of the effort organized by Partners in Horticulture because there is strength in numbers and because of the possibility of actually making a dent in the problem.

My husband and I decided to help out at Schuetzen Park in Davenport.

I’ll say one thing : There’s nary a level spot in the whole place. That made the work hard on my feet and knees.

And there was no end of garlic mustard to be had. At first it wasn’t too bad – just a good amount that I could pull and stuff into my bag.

But toward noon, I happened upon a hillside that was a virtual carpet of garlic mustard. Pulling it was like pulling the blades of grass from a lawn.

As Beth Carvey Stewart of the Black Hawk State Historic Site in Rock Island says, “You don’t want to look up when you’re pulling garlic mustard. Just look in front of you.”

Her point is that if you look at the big picture, you can get pretty discouraged. (Which is true of many things having to do with the environment, I’ve found.)

I felt good about each plant I pulled. Each plant in my bag would be one less burst of seeds for the future.

I enjoyed my surroundings, listening to the birds singing and the chorus of frogs trilling in the newly installed deer pond. I also took joy in the occasional wildflower, mostly May apples, growing amidst the garlic mustard.

I wish there had been a bigger turnout. All told, there were about 10 people at Schuetzen.

If you’re interested, there still are several weeks to pull before the plants go to seed. I plan to return next weekend. (I have to give my joints a little time to recover.)

If you’d like to help, call Brian Ritter at (563) 323-5196. He can set you up with collection bags and direct you where you’re needed most.

Henbit has produced a riot of purple color this year along Davenport's East River Drive.

If you travel along Davenport’s East River Drive, you may have noticed the south-facing hillside of Lindsay Park, all covered with beautiful purple flowers.

What are they?

I stopped yesterday for a closer look, and at first blush, the plants looked a bit like creeping Char-lie. But other characteristics definitely indicated something different.

I took a few stalks to Duane Gissel, Iowa State University/Scott County Extension horticulturist, and he instantly identified them as henbit — a weed if you will.

So no, this is not something the park department planted. This is a plant that spreads through seeds.

Google “henbit” and you’ll find a wealth of information and all kinds of pictures.

Henbit is described as a winter annual with square stems and pink-purple flowers, reaching 16 inches in height. It is primarily a weed of turfgrass, landscapes and small grains and is found throughout the United States but most common in the eastern states.

Its leaves are opposite (definitely different than creeping Charlie), reaching 5 inches in length, circular to heart-shaped, with hairs on the upper leaf surfaces and along the veins of the lower surface. Leaf margins have rounded teeth.

But why all of a sudden?

I’ve been commuting past Lindsay Park for more than 20 years, and I’ve never noticed this be-fore.

Gissel says the sudden profusion may be because conditions were just right for seed germination and survival last fall, and so now this spring – voila – flowers!

If you’ve got this plant in your yard and want to get rid of it, there’s an ISU article that gives ad-vice. You’ll find it at this site.

 On the other hand, you could just enjoy the flowers.

I read so much about what’s going wrong with our planet that sometimes I lose sight of celebrat-ing that which is good and wonderful.

I shouldn’t have to be reminded that the annual miracle of spring is happening RIGHT OUTSIDE THE WINDOW and that I should pause to observe and appreciate.

Grass is turning green. Trees are bursting into bloom. All kinds of perennial plants are poking their hopeful spears up through the soil having somehow survived sub-zero temperatures during the winter. How do they DO that?

Today let’s just rejoice and give thanks for the beauty that is all around us.

… But first this message.

Don’t forget that next week – Saturday, April 25 – is the Q-C’s Garlic Mustard Challenge.

This is your chance to do something about a big problem in Quad-City native woodlands, natural areas and wildlife habitats.

From 9 a.m. to noon you’re invited to pull garlic mustard – an invasive plant – from four parks.

If you can help, please call (or just show up):

* Black Hawk State Historic Site, Rock Island. Call Marilyn, (309) 764-1486, Ext. 3.

* Duck Creek Bike Path, Bettendorf. Call Amy, (563) 391-1403, Ext. 3.

* Schuetzen Park, Davenport. Call Brian, (563) 323-5196.

* Sunderbruch Park, Davenport. Call Greg, (563) 320-0384.

The event is sponsored by Partners in Horticulture.

Participants will get a T-shirt – what self-respecting event does not have a T-shirt? – and be treated to a hot dog and s’mores roast after the event at Black Hawk.

Electric mowers, anyone?

We have an article in our upcoming Home & Garden section (April 19) about electric mowers, both battery-powered and those requiring a cord.

My husband and I have looked into the cordless models because they are more environmentally friendly than gas. We haven’t bought yet, though, because they are a little more expensive, and we’ve heard some “cons.”

One friend said he had one and gave it a gallant effort but finally had to admit defeat because the mower didn’t hold the charge long enough to finish his not-too-big lawn.

Anyone out there have experience with a cordless electric mower? Pro? Con?

 
Greenwashing

We’re all concerned about “greenwashing” – products that claim to be environmentally friendly but aren’t.

A recent article in the Toronto Star says that of more than 2,000 self-described environmentally friendly products in North America examined by the environmental marketing firm TerraChoice, only 25 were found to be indisputably “sin free.”
 
For more on this story, go to this Web site.

I’ve written a lot the plast couple of years about rain barrels, big containers that hook up to your home’s downspout, capturing stormwater runoff from your roof that can be used later for watering your plants.

Barrels are encouraged as a positive conservation practice.

Well, I heard recently that people in water-poor parts of the country — Colorado? — don’t WANT people to use rain barrels because they consider rain water THEIR water.

That is, if water runs off people’s property and into streams, then it will be available for irrigation or other purposes downstream.

If it stays in a rain barrel or soaks into the ground near where it falls, then it won’t be in the stream.

Well, THAT’S’a different way of looking at it!

 
Free movie
Speaking of water, if you missed seeing “FLOW: For the Love of Water” during the Environmental Film Festival in March, you have another opportunity at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 22.

The award-winning documentary will be shown in the Student Life Center, Scott Community College, 500 Belmont Road, Bettendorf.

“FLOW” investigates what experts label the most important political and environmental issue of the 21st century — the world water crisis.

The film also highlights why we must protect water from further pollution and exploitation. According to the news release, “Direction Irene Salina balances the problems contributing to the world water crisis by providing expertise and solutions that will change our attitudes and dependence concerning water quality and accessibility.”

The showing is sponsored by Phi Theta Kappa’s Beta Zeta Epsilon Chapter, the Eagle View Group of the Sierra Club and the Eastern Iowa Community College Chancellor’s Sustainability Initiative.

To view a trailer, go to this site.

There’s still no definitive answer on what has caused/is causing the big die-off in honeybees, a problem first identified in 2007.
 That was the year millions of beehives worldwide emptied out as honeybees mysteriously disappeared, putting at risk nearly 100 crops that require pollination, such as apples, blueberries, broccoli and almonds.
In those two years, beekeepers have more or less been holding their own, but honeybees – and our food supply – are still very much at risk.
An article (long article!) in the April issue of Scientific American reports on research at Pennsylvania State University.
Although some people lay the blame at the feet of synthetic pesticides/poisons, particularly a family called neonicotinoids, researchers say the answer is more complex than that, and likely the result of a combination of factors.
 “No single culprit has been identified,” the article by Diana Cox-Foster states.
Researchers also looked at bee nutrition, an aspect I found particularly interesting.
I figured that since bees are let loose to pollinate whole fields of, say, almond orchards, they get all the food they need.
But – duh! – bees, like people, need a variety of nutrients.
Because we humans have tried to “neaten up” our environments, we have eliminated variety.
“We have, for example, planted huge expanses of crops without weedy, flower-filled borders or fencerows,” the article states.
“We maintain large green lawns free of any ‘weeds’ such as clover or dandelions. Even our roadsides and parks reflect our desire to keep things neat and weed-free. But to bees and other pollinators, green lawns look like deserts.”
Beekeepers have attempted to manage these concerns by developing protein supplements, but this hasn’t been the total answer, either.
Researchers also have looked for a previously unidentified disease as the cause for colony collapse disorder.
Bottom line: The research continues.
And beekeepers have had some success at preventing colony loss by redoubling their efforts to improve their colonies’ diets, keeping infections and parasites in check and practicing good hygiene.
Online readers who commented on the Scientific American article raised the issue of bee in-breeding as another possible cause of colony collapse disorder.
And several said they believe the Environmental Protection Agency is impotent and that as long as chemical companies support university research, chemicals aren’t likely to be fingered as the cause.

WHAT YOU CAN DO
Home gardeners can help support bees.
1. Limit pesticide use. At the very least, follow label directions to the letter. Apply only in the early morning and the evening, when bees are not foraging.
2. Plant good nectar sources for food.
These include bee balm, butterfly bush, milkweed, fruit trees and red clover. Diversity is the key. Be forgiving of dandelions.
3. Buy local honey to support producers.
4. Collect data about bees that can help researchers. The University of Illinois has a Web site.
5. Join the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign; for information, go to this Web site.
6. Leave some bare ground on your property. Many native bees nest in fine, bare soil.
7. Start your own hives.

Just about every morning when I brush my teeth, I think how neat it would be to have one of those foot-operated faucet controls. That way I could easily turn the water on and off rather than let it run — or cumbersomely turn it on and off by hand.

Brushing my teeth is one of the ways I waste water.

I recently received a news release from a franchise company called American Leak Detection with tips about how to conserve:

1. Wait to use your dishwasher and laundry washer until you have a full load; this will save many gallons.

(The news release also repeats the admonition I’ve heard time and again — but don’t really believe — that using a dishwasher conserves more water than washing dishes by hand.
(Some day, I’m going to test this. I’m going to measure the amount of water I use, and I’ll let you know. Either way.)

2. Refrigerate your drinking water so that you don’t run the faucet waiting for cool water.
3. Conserve water when washing produce. Use a bowl of water to clean fruits and vegetables instead of running water over them.

4. Stop that annoying drip … drip … drip. A leaky faucet can waste hundreds of gallons of water in a year.

…. Which brings me to another point.

Some leaks are obvious — you can see (or hear) if a faucet is dripping, for example.
Others are more sneaky. Iowa American Water, Davenport, says toilets, water softeners and water heaters are the biggest culprits when it comes to home water leaks.

American Leak Detection is a franchise business whose employees will
 come to your home with trained technicians and equipment “to detect leaks before they require major home repairs.”

Iowa American, serving the Iowa Quad-Cities, offers a free leak detection kit.

The kit consists of a booklet on how to spot and repair leaks, a tag to mark the main water turn-off valve in a home — this is important to know in the event of an emergency — and a packet of dye tablets to put in toilet tanks to find leaks.

To request a kit, call (866) 641-2108 or go to this Web site.

n addition, if your water bill becomes suddenly very high, call the water company. An employee will be sent out to double-check the meter and make a quick assessment of what might be leaking, Scott Rands, operations superintendent, says.

Here’s another tip: If you’re leaving for the weekend (or any substantial amount of time in which no one will be home using water), check your water meter before you leave and again when you come home, Rands suggests.

If it’s changed, you know there’s a leak.

If you’re a good recycler – faithfully dropping your plastics, tin, glass and paper into bins – you may occasionally wince at the stuff that still doesn’t make it.

Stuff like cookie and drink box wrappers, chip bags, bottle corks or yogurt cups.

Now there’s a company, TerraCycle, that will collect those, too.

I learned about this by reading the newsletter for Habitat ReStore, the nonprofit Davenport busi-ness that sells new and gently used building materials at a discount.

ReStore is encouraging its customers to drop off Nabisco brand cookie wrappers, such as those for Oreos, at its store at 3629 Mississippi Ave.

The wrappers will be sent to TerraCycle, which will “upcycle” them into totes, plus donate two cents to ReStore for every bag collected.

TerraCycle does this for several kinds of wrappers – drink boxes, chip bags, bottle corks, yogurt cups, energy bar wrappers and cell phones. These programs are a partnership between TerraCycle and the manufacturers.

TerraCycle tries to re-use or make new products out of these wrappers or products, keeping them from landfills.

While ReStore offers a local collection point, you – or your organization — can create your own collection point by signing up on the company’s Web site.

You’ll get pre-paid collection envelopes and will be able to designate which nonprofit or charity organization you’d like the pennies to go to.

All this seems like a lot of running in circles, but that IS what recycling’s about.

The company’s goal with cookie wrappers is to divert 5 million of them from landfills this year.

TerraCycle, by the way, was founded in 2001 by two Princeton University students who wanted to take waste and turn it into a useful product – eco-capitalism!

Through worm composting, Tom Szaky and Jon Beyer turned it into TerraCycle Plant Food, an all-natural, all-organic liquid plant food (worm poop) that is packaged in re-used soda bottles and is sold through various outlets.

It’s even sold through The Home Depot’s Web site, which was a breakthrough for TerraCycle.
TerraCycle also sells rain barrels, plant pots, deer repellant, cleaners and fire starters.

Until the ReStore bulletin I was only vaguely aware of TerraCycle and had never heard of its re-cycling program.

(Now, what about the plastic INSIDE the cookie wrapper?)

As Home & Garden editor for the Times, I get a lot of pitches nowadays from companies selling “green” products. A recent example:

“Who knew that saving the earth could be as simple as switching brands of paper towels, napkins, facial or bath tissue?”

On one hand, buying the company’s products – made from 100 percent recycled paper – probably would be a good thing. And if every single person does his or her part, it will make a difference.

But on the other hand, I hate to see companies misleading the public, or downplaying the huge challenges we face. It’s going to take Herculean efforts to keep our natural environment healthy for future generations, and the paths are far from simple. So let’s not say otherwise.

I’ve also read some news stories about how people aren’t buying green in today’s tough economy because green products – hybrid cars or organic produce, for example – often cost more than their nongreen counterparts.

“The multibillion-dollar green products market, which has seen rapid growth over the past few years, is expected to lose momentum,” according to a recent Associated Press story.

Being environmentally responsible is less about buying things than it is about REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE.
I understand that this mantra doesn’t help companies sell product, but it does help the environment — and the pocketbook.

Instead of switching to a different brand of paper towel, how about foregoing them entirely and using cloth – what we used to call “rags”?

Personally, I love the convenience of paper towels, but there never was a paper towel in the house in which I grew up and we somehow survived.

What are your ideas for reduce, reuse, recycle?

My husband has always been a “weed and feed” kind of guy.

He doesn’t really hover over the lawn, but every spring he gets out the walk-behind spreader and fills it with a chemical product that makes the grass green and squashes dandelions.
In recent years I’ve sort of winced about this, but I recognize that our lawn needs help.

It’s pretty weak.

But now we’re both thinking that we’ll give the organic approach a try. We’ll rent an aerator to make holes in our yard – this breaks up compact soils – and we’ll cover everything with a half-inch layer of compost.
 
The compost will make its way into the soil, building its organic content.

We’ll also overseed bare spots, and we’ll keep the new sprouts watered.

And we also – gasp – will settle for less than lush.
 
Because really, at what price is “lush” achieved? Is it worth it to put chemicals into the environ-ment just for a green lawn?

All this comes after hearing Paul Tukey – founder of Safelawns.org – over the weekend at the Flower & Garden Show in Rock Island.

I wrote about Tukey in the Home & Garden section of the Times, and we decided to see him in person as well. He is a fierce critic of synthetic chemicals, a fierce advocate of organic approaches.

His major point is the need to build strong, healthy soil that is alive.  “You don’t need fertilizer, you need soil that is living,” he says.

Compost and fish emulsion fertilizer are great boosts, he says.

“A lot of people think going organic means going ugly,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be that way.”

After his talk, he screened a movie titled “Hudson: A Chemical Reaction” which tells the story of the anti-pesticide movement that has swept across Canada in the past 20 years.

The movement started in Hudson with a somewhat-cranky dermatologist named June Irwin who went to the city council year after year, expounding against chemicals.

Finally the town council banned lawn chemicals and the ban ultimately was upheld in 2001 by the Supreme Court of Canada. The judges were following something called “the precautionary princi-ple.” That is, Hudson “didn’t have to prove that pesticides were harmful … but why take the chance?” Tukey said.

He also explained how The Home Depot no longer sells lawn chemicals in Canada, a fact I con-tinue to find amazing.

But the chemical companies haven’t conceded the field.

Just this week I read a story about how the DowAgro Sciences unit of Dow Chemical Co. is taking action. It has filed a notice of action against the province of Ottawa claiming legislation poised to take effect this month that would ban the sale and use of conventional pesticides for cosmetic pur-poses on lawns etc. violates NAFTA.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens.