The wife brought me a tree knife from you know where the other week. It was less than 6 Euro and it folds in half. The blades got jagged saw like teeth and looked just the ticket for one of pernicious weeds projects.
I spent a morning and more cutting rogue Furze,Gorse or Whin vegetation down in a field. No-one else volunteered to help but the ponies and donkeys do browse graze the flowers sometimes.
I wore work gloves and still suffered some prickly spikes stuck in my gloves and a few bloody scratches on my hands.
Some people would get some kind of paste or weedkiller to spray or paint on the stumps. But I will come back another year and cut them back. The Gorse wood can be made into cutlery handles.
Gorse or Furze was grown for firewood and sold in bundles in Galway. It's also got medicinal uses and it's called the "Pioneer" plant in New Zealand.
It's also taken over vast areas in parts of North America. Pioneer Europeans took Gorse seeds there and they thought they were spreading a little bit of "ould Ireland 🇮🇪.
I like the flowers and like the Dandelions they provide much needed nectar for the bees and other beneficial insects early in the year.
There's an old country saying:
" When Gorse is out of blossom, kissing out of fashion".
It begins flowering in February to May. It's flowers smell like coconut or sun tan cream.
It's beautiful but can be a nuisance! The wife said I made a fantastic job. I did something right for once. Must ✍️ it the diary.
What pernicious weeds trouble you?
That's a handy looking knife. P would love one of those to add to his collection of toys.
ReplyDeleteWe have a couple of small gorse bushes on our boundary. I love them. The flowers smell delicious and add a splash of bright colour to the garden.
Ivy is the one thing that seems to be trying to take over our garden, although P has done a sterling job of hacking it down.
Is there a Lidl or B and Q on the island JayCee? You can also buy tree saws online from the likes of Amazon. I'm really pleased with my tree saw and although the casing is plastic it stood up well to four or five hours of rough sawing and the metal blade is really sharp and strong. Yes the Gorse flowers smell is amazing. The mostly heavenly blossom I have ever smelled was the orange tree blossom one April in the Algarve. I have known Ivy pull buildings down. P is right to hack it down.
DeleteHe ordered a new reciprocating saw this week from Screwfix. It arrived the next day. Amazing.
DeleteI think their courier service is better than the shops. They seem to operate Click and Collect and carry very little stock. They opened two new shops in Bandon and Tralee recently. I have been in the one in Limerick and they didn't have what I wanted. Argos is leaving Ireland in June. Something else not to thank Brexit for!
DeleteWarn JayCee that closing the knife/saw makes the backs of your fingers sort of clench themselves in anticipation of getting caught in a sudden closing of a guillotine
DeleteYou soon get use to it Tigger. I left the blade open whilst I spent the time using it. Like my penknife it's very useful to have with your gardening tools.
DeleteOne person’s weed is another’s desirable plant.
ReplyDeleteMy mother was visiting and admired a clump of tall yellow flowers in my garden. I had missed it. It was Golden Rod - a pernicious weed where we lived and extremely invasive.
To return the favour I took her to a large garden centre and showed her a leafy green plant they were selling. Yup ground elder!
Hi Traveller. You're so right. A weed can also be a wild plant in the wrong plant. Apparently the Roman's brought Ground Elder to Britannia. They ate it in salads. Japanese Knotweed was introduced in the nineteen sixties for game ground cover in country estates. The Olympics village in East Stratford London spent 70 million Pounds removing it.
ReplyDeleteI've heard gorse called a lot of things in NZ but never that. The problem we have with it in NZ is that in the Old World it flowers and sets seed once a year. In NZ climate it does it twice: Spring and Autumn. When the sun warms the seed pods, they open explosively and spread the seed quite widely.... Do you have goats? They are about the only animal I know that eats the stuff, and can provide reasonably effective control of gorse; if you can control the goats. Wild goats are also regarded as noxious in NZ - responsible for a lot of accelerated erosion in the mountains where they have stripped native vegetation (which naturally they prefer to gorse). I mean - if you do have goats, test them: offer some gorse, offer some of your Griselinia hedge. Even goats aren't stupid.
ReplyDeleteI had to try and write a comment here. I so agree with Tivger. Gorse was, the curse of the farmers. It was a constant battle to keep it under control. Probably still is. We've got a plant around here that looks like gorse but it doesn't gallop across the countryside. Too hot I suppose
ReplyDeleteGorse likes the wet Irish climate Tigger. It's a member of the pea family so I would imagine it is a legume and emits nitrogen through the roots nodes and therefore makes it very verdant. I pruned the Gorse back before they went to seed. I believe it's called the Pioneer Plant in New Zealand. Named after the Europeans who took it there.
ReplyDeleteHave a look at Extractigators on You Tube Tigger. It's a tool that is used to lever out the Gorse plants.
I have kept goats but needt to be tethered and are browse grazers and are always getting tangled up around brambles and Gorse.
I have read the same about rabbits being introduced to Australia Linda and they take over. I noticed in the Algarve a lot of vegetation burns up and they seem to grow our summer vegetables like potatoes in the winter. Suppose they get rain then. Ireland could export rain water we get that much and yet I guarantee there will be hosepipe bans this Summer. Unbelievable.
ReplyDeleteMares Tail.....
ReplyDeleteDrat. Ground Elder, Couch grass or "twitch" and Sorrel and Mares Tail are awful pernicious weeds GZ. I don't like using weedkillers and prefer to manually hand weed and dig them out. I believe Mares Tail takes the Nitrogen out of the ground. Lining is said to help. Have you tested the soil PH recently? Mulching also helps. Rushes are another pernicious weed that trouble us. The seeds are said to be able to live in the ground for sixty years.
ReplyDeleteBeing in an ex coal mining area here..sour ground, rushes and mares Tail are rife. I had hoped when I moved from the Ebbw Valley I wouldn't see Mares Tail.....no such luck.
DeleteWith two allotments to clear after years of neglect there, I got them free for three years until I had got on top of the weeds.
One experiment was to compost all the pernicious weeds together..except for thistles as the prickles, full of silica, do not break down! Surprisingly after three years in a black bag, the only thing that hadn't composted was bindweed roots.
The best thing I did with them was make liquid manure, making sure that no seeds got in...they were burnt....after all all that goodness was brought up by their roots, it might as well go back!
Yes I have read that Silica roots have been found fifty feet down in coal mines. They are a preheat pernicious weed and have evolved over time. Like most wild plants they have their uses like hair shampoos or your garden tea.
ReplyDeleteThe pernicious weeds that trouble me are The Jacob Rees-Mogg Dock Leaf, The Dominic Raab Ragwort, The Suella Braverman Cow Parsley and the worst weed of all - The Boris Johnson Puff Ball which is very invasive with a nasty odour.
ReplyDeleteNasty Tory perennials that seem to be able to flower and seed every General Election.
DeleteI have a similar utensil, bought from the local supermarket for $5, a small folding pruning saw, which I used to cut down a 20 foot tall shrub at my daughter's house. Took me about a month bit by bit. The only part left is the stump which was too thick for the saw, it's about two and a half feet tall and dead, I plan to add fairy windows and doors to it one day. Maybe a tiny chimney.
ReplyDeleteA fairy House residence sounds the perfect solution for a tree stump.
DeleteSilica is a plant? Off to google.
ReplyDeleteMares Tail contains Silica. Often used for bone strengthening and the treatment of Osteoporosis River.
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