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Loosestrife strife
As part of weed management, this spring the City
Council is helping target a plant pest called purple
loosestrife. It is now an “unwanted organism”, a serious
weed that has been sold in the past at nurseries and
planted in gardens in Christchurch. It has the potential
to become a serious problem around waterways, as
has happened in North America. It can colonise water
margins, ponds and shallow lakes, and has the potential
to clog drainage and irrigation ditches. Each plant can
produce millions of seeds, which are mainly dispersed
by water. The Department of Conservation —
purpleperil@doc.govt.nz — wants to hear from people about where
it is growing in order to work out how best to deal with the pest. |