Canada thistle.

Canada thistle.

Posted on 3 Aug, 2008 7 comments

Canada thistles.

The last weed in my weed collection is the Canada thistle. These come up in Spring when after the winter rains everything comes to life again. These Cirsium arvense ( thistles) are a herbaceous perennials and are native in Europe, Asia and North America. They are a creeping, rooted perennial producing erect shoots to 1.2 metres, commonly to 60-90 cm. They grow in cooler months, dying back in autumn to re-shoot from root buds and form large colonies with dense growth crowding out desirable plants. Each plant forms several flowerheads which are lilac to purple coloured and are spineless. The stalkless leaves have sharp spines. They are a declared weed in Australia as they compete vigorously with crops and pastures. Sheep who graze in paddocks invested with the thistle can get infection of the mouth. We had several patches on the farm. At first there were few and they looked pretty. But they soon spread; as the flower dies off the seeds disperse in the wind. So we had yet another fight on our hands, actually on our gloves. You couldn’t touch them with your bare hands. The trick was now to get them in the budding stage, before the flowers had opened. You didn’t have to dispose of them as they would dry up and could not spread that way. But we had to go about it sensibly. Armed with a shovel and blundstones leather boots, gloves on our hands, we just sliced them off the grass, cutting through their stems. They would not regrow. Carefully then I picked them up by the very end of the stem, trying not to touch the leaves and then piling them up against a tree or hollow trunk or whatever, outof the traffic way of our cattle. These were not as bad as the doublegees, you could at least see them and there were not as many either. But they grew in the same season. They were around the cattle yard, the hayshed, near fallen trees, along tracks, in patches in the paddocks and in the lilac tree. Seeds must have blown into the fork of the old lilac tree, where they happily emerged using leaves, moss and bark to anchor themselves on. That posed a slight challenge. The fork of the tree started at least at about 3 meters.”Hmm…., how do I get there?”, I asked myself. The kids had once made a cubby there and a rope swung from the thick branch. But I was no climber, and I did have to take tools along for my job up there. I had an idea. In the hayshed was a large picking ladder and I dragged it to the lilac tree. The ladder had only three legs, with treds between two of them, the other standing backwards. It was a bit dicey, but I managed to firm its position in between the roots of the tree and the branches where it forked. I started the climb, holding my spade in one hand and holding onto the ladder with the other. I was glad nobody watched me, I must have looked rather clumsy there. But I made it to the top. I was really nowhere near the fork. I managed to throw the spade to the spot where I had to be. Then I could grab the rope and pulled myself into the fork of the tree, and with one leg high and the other just touching the top of the ladder I closed my eyes and dragged myself to safety. It was tricky as I could not sit, cause those thistles wouldn’t feel right through my pants. So rather awkwardly I pulled them out, one by one and threw them to the ground below. Some were even higher, had grown up the branch. I had to climb further, but that was not so bad, those branches were quite big and strong. When I finally was convinced there were none left I could go down again. Haha, easier said than done. With the aid of the rope in one hand and the other holding on to the tree I just slid down slowly until I could feel the top of the ladder underneath my feet. In the process I did hurt my belly, scraping it on the bark of the tree. Never mind, I had ridden the tree of its weeds and I was now on my way down. Lucky I had those boots on as I landed in the middle of those thistles! The next year again there were some up in the fork of the tree. Those seeds must have still been sitting there and not germinated the year before. But this time I let my hubby do the job! And he came with the tractor and the bucket and all I had to do was lift him in the bucket to the tree, hydrolicly, LOL. Now why hadn’t I thought of that myself the year before? Slowly but surely we also rid the farm of Canada thistle. In looking up data about these plants I read there is a fine now for people having these weeds on their property.

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