7/8/2023 0 Comments Flower french broomVolunteers have clocked 7,000 hours in the last year alone, and the broom is still spreading at a rate of 50 acres a year. Photo: Autumn Sartain.įor the past 12 years, the Marin water district has been working against all odds to get rid of the thing. French broom is a pretty ornamental perennial and a ferocious invader. Genista monspessulana has taken over an estimated 100,000 acres in California since its mid 19 th Century introduction as an ornamental, growing at a rate of more than two feet per growing a season. In the case of French broom, a woody perennial shrub that comes dressed up in attractive yellow flowers, removal has been a focus of native plant restoration efforts for many years around the Bay Area. As we reflect on the compounding problems facing the planet, as individuals it may seem like the best we can do is keep pulling the weeds we see in our own backyards, however intractable they might be. That might as well be the motto for Earth Day 2014. She laughs: “What are you going to do? Whatever you can.” One of the volunteers tells Whelan that the effort is “analogous to reclaiming the Sahara with watering can.” And yet, volunteers put in about 3,000 hours on Marin Municipal Water District (MMWD) land during the 2012-2013 fiscal year in habitat restoration, much of it involving removing the “No.1 weed in Marin County.” Pulling weeds is not glamorous or easy work. She cautions them about the hazards of the job: ticks, poison oak, sunburn, uneven terrain, bees and general exhaustion from the heat. Suzanne Whelan stands in front of a thick patch of French broom and addresses a group of 17 volunteers who traded in last Saturday to help remove this invasive plant from the Mt.
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