

Though the ecolab is a wetland, it is still a garden, and actions taken this second season will determine whether all the native wildflowers and sedges planted the first year will thrive or be overwhelmed by (mostly exotic) weeds. Will a feel-good project (native plants, wetlands, schoolkids, butterflies, birdhouses) actually live up to its billing, or will it fade beneath a blanket of bindweed, horseweed and a wave of exotic grasses.
With students and teachers mostly dispersed to farflung locales for the summer, the weeds have a perfect opportunity to prosper and turn good intentions into chaos. Most communities don't have a niche for someone with the knowledge and time to care for a planting like this, which is one reason why most of the urban landscape is a boring combination of trees and turf that offers little habitat for wildlife. That's where I come in, with support from the nonprofit Friends of Princeton Open Space and help from a summer intern from Princeton University. We've been augmenting the efforts of teacher Tim Anderson, spending a couple hours a week pulling weeds and adding to the initial planting with native Hibiscus, green bulrush and cutleaf coneflower grown from local seed.

Interestingly, the plant most people think of as iconic in wetlands--cattail--is one of the biggest threats to the ecolab, as its expansionist tendencies could easily crowd out all the less aggressive natives, reducing the site to a near monoculture.
It sounds intimidating, but the work is made much easier by being strategic--pulling new cattails before they get firmly rooted, pulling exotic weeds when the ground is soft and before they produce seeds. One of the conveniences of a wetland garden is that the soil is very often soft, so that weeds pull easily. Another plus is that the native wildflowers grow with such vigor, making weeding around them all the more rewarding. As this is written, the JoePyes are about to bloom--a good time to pay a visit. The ecolab wetland is on Walnut Street, across from Westminster Conservatory.