Tackling Morning Glory (aka bindweed)

When Jim sent out the notice for this morning's session, he said he'd talked with John who had noted a number of evergreens covered with morning glory in the north end of the park. So, Jim, Gordon and I headed out to the Northern Forest. We stayed on the westernmost trail; we did not go all the way to 155th. Gary was elsewhere in the park--Jim ran into him when he went back to the Trail of Cedars to free a western hemlock he'd noticed smothered by morning glory.

Below, you can see Gordon getting started. You'll note a plum tree in the background. It turned out it was growing in a neighbor's yard, had fallen taking down part of a fence, and the top of the tree got tangled in a young cedar in the park. We lopped off some of the plum branches. Also ate some plums. They were small but sweet. Couldn't say the same for the apples off the nearby apple trees!

This is the after photo.

I found a small pine with climbing morning glory and false Solomon's seal intertwined with more morning glory.

Mostly cleared of morning glory!

This is a vine maple with morning glory. Also another false Solomon's seal.

Morning glory mostly gone--for now!

There were actually more severe cases of trees covered in morning glory but I didn't take photos of those.

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In today's Seattle Times, there was an article on drought-stressed trees. Gary often talks about how we still haven't seen the full impact of last year's drought. John had counted 17 conifers he had planted between 2001 and 2012 that had died last summer.

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