Montreal-area community working to eradicate Japanese knotweed
Like the Sirens of Greek mythology, Japanese knotweed uses its beauty to attract admirers before inflicting damage.
Drawn to the plant’s exotic green and red stalks and its lovely blooms, 19th-century Europeans and North Americans were enticed to grow the plant to enhance landscapes and add colour to gardens in the late summer.
Unbeknownst to these early patrons, the knotweed would a century later be labelled one of the 100 worst invasive plants in the world.
Resilient to cutting, Japanese knotweed grows to a height of three to four metres, reproduces rapidly through its root system, and can literally push through concrete and damage infrastructure. The beauty of the knotweed is truly only skin deep. Secretions from its rhizomes poison indigenous plants, and the intruder is wreaking havoc everywhere it has inserted itself – proving a real challenge to eliminate.
“Part of the reason Japanese knotweed has been so pervasive is that it’s a really lovely plant,” says Valérie Aubin, project manager at ZIP Jacques-Cartier in east Montreal.
ZIP Jacques-Cartier is one of 13 committees in Québec dedicated to protecting the St. Lawrence watershed (in French, ZIP stands for priority intervention zone). With the help of three years of funding from Enbridge, ZIP Jacques-Cartier is tackling the Japanese knotweed problem in east Montreal – studying the plant, mapping it around the region, looking for ways to fight it, and developing educational materials to teach the public about the threat it poses and the ways to safely remove it.
“The knotweed problem is aggravated around the St. Lawrence watershed,” Aubin says, noting the invasive plant thrives in wetland. “Near the water’s edge, the knotweed grows so tall and thick that it completely blocks the public’s access to the water.”
Since 2012, ZIP Jacques-Cartier has received $10,000 a year from Enbridge in support of its work around Japanese knotweed. After three successful years with visible results, the project will wrap up in the fall of 2015.
“We are very happy with the results of this project; ZIP Jacques-Cartier was a great partner,” says Eric Prud’Homme, Enbridge’s Québec-based senior public affairs manager. “(Before this project) there was no information available about Japanese knotweed adapted to environments in the east of Montreal, no tools for the public to learn how to manage it.”
Communities beyond the borders of eastern Montreal have also approached ZIP Jacques-Cartier to make use of the educational materials produced in partnership with Enbridge.
“Funding this project in east Montreal, near our right-of-way on the North Shore, was a way for us to invest in a community in which we work and live,” Prud’Homme says.
“This project shows the power of working together and the positive impact we can have on the environment.”
