Weeding for Wildlife in Washing Bay

21 June 2010

I am working at Conservation Volunteers Northern Ireland with Susan who is the Biodiversity Officer. I come from France as a European Volunteer Service participant, and am currently living in Bangor. I am very happy to get this experience with Conservation Volunteers.

We have recently been working with the pupils from St John’s Primary School, Kingsisland on Washing Bay Local Nature Reserve, taking away an invasive, non-native plant that threatens to engulf local river banks and damp grounds.

This plant, which is native to Asia, is called Himalayan Balsam, and must been removed because this rapidly colonises new areas, especially along riverbanks and damp ground and has become a problem weed.

Himalayan Balsam is an annual plant which, in ideal conditions, can grow up very fast in summer - standing up to 3m tall. The purplish-pink flowers, which appear in June-September, are large and distinctive.

Each plant can produce up to 800 seeds and, when the seed pods are fully grown, they will explode sending seed up to 7m away.

In spite of the fact that Himalayan Balsam does produce an attractive flower, it has dire consequences concerning environmental conservation in Northern Ireland. Amongst the problems this plant causes are shading out native plants and erosion in winter as it dies back and leaves no vegetation to hold soil together.

Fortunately, Himalayan Balsam can be pulled up by hand and it was this way that the pupils from St John’s School helped clear the site.

We were able to say that, in the end, the involvement and hard work of the children made a big difference in clearing the Balsam from the site at Washing Bay.

_Fathia, 21 June 2010_