So if you will recall, 5 years ago I was the high-and-mighty know-it-all New Jersey suburbanite with a permaculture certificate anxious to "teach" my neighbors about lakeshore management.
I quickly backed down from that position, and planted the more resilient seeds of community rather than fight for a cause for which I was the minority among others that feel that the best way to manage the lakeshore is to cut the lawn down to the nub, despite VT regulations to the contrary.
Little by little I've been making my case for the benefits of a vegetative buffer to deter the Canadian geese that drive my neighbors crazy. Well, I've made headway! My neighbors are coming around!
This year, the lake pushed up a large berm of earth and vegetation is growing on it fast and furiously. I thought it was the old invasive weeds of yore--cocklebur and such. So I went along with the majority in terms of sanctioning DH to rent some kind of a bushwhacker and cut it down and then tamp down the earth so it's level again. But I did note a mild affirmation among my neighbors that the vegetation does seem to keep the geese at bay.
As we speak, DH is mowing down the 3 ft wall of vegetation with a rental bushwhacker (that's not the real name). Before he started I used my phone app to identify the "weeds" which were lined up as a single monoculture, no cocklebur or any other nasty stuff. Turned out the wall is nothing but persifaria lapathfolia, pale smartweed, which is native and non-invasive and has pretty blooms in late Sumer/early fall.
If I had known that I certainly could have pitched that to my frugal neighbors as a free good deterrent with fringe benefits of providing pretty blooms. I'm so bummed I didn't know this sooner.
I certainly can't tell DH he shouldn't have cut it down. I'm annoyed with my own lack of proactivity. Why did it take me this long to find out what was growing there??
I think I'll hit the pause button, and when the opportunity presents itself, like when DH and the neighbors are smoking a different kind of plant, I'm going to just mention a "BTW.. " and suggest that if pale smartweed does start growing back, we leave it alone. Better that than having to spend hundreds of dollars and many hours cultivating a natural barrier of our own.
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Originally Posted by iris lilies
