LETTER: Invasive plants, even the pretty ones, threaten parks, bike trail

    This is in response to two letters to the editor in last week’s Ozaukee Press. One criticized Ozaukee County for spraying herbicide on prairie grass in Tendick Nature Park. The other praised the beauty of “phlox” blooming along the Ozaukee Interurban Trail in Port Washington.
    I don’t blame the reader who wrote about flowers along the trail and assumed they were phlox. I used to think it was that wild flower too. But it’s not; it is the invasive dames rocket. Yes, it is very pretty, but it invades woodlands and natural areas. Dames rocket is from Europe and has invaded our natural areas, displacing valuable native flowers.
    As for the spraying of prairie grass at Tendick Park, why doesn’t our county parks department spray the highly invasive teasel and Phragmites at Lion’s Den Gorge and the bike trail? They claim they don’t have a budget for it, yet they find the money to poison grass at Tendick.
    If that is native grass that they sprayed at Tendick, then I’m confused. I can’t get them to spray the really nasty stuff destroying our parks, yet they poison native plants.
    Good luck with the county parks department. They do their own thing, and don’t really care what we think.
Debra Rappold
Cedarburg