Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger

Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident

 My wife is the gardener of the family, being the only one with actual knowledge of plants. I am enlisted for tasks too heavy, repetitive or boring. This includes controlling Japanese Stiltgrass.

Microstegium vimineum came to Pike County by way of Tennessee, where it was used as packing material for Chinese porcelains a century ago.  Some live seeds were included and took root. It is an invasive plant that thrives along roadsides, trails, anywhere native plant life is disrupted. Uprooted soil from winter storms and over-grazing deer also aid stiltgrass growth. I have no idea why a plant from China is called Japanese. Life has its mysteries.

 I was given the job of keeping this invader from our property. Over the years I have asked neighbors and others how to control stiltgrass.

 I have discovered 1) there are many ways to control stiltgrass and, 2) none of them work.

 Each year I return to the various “how to control stiltgrass” web pages. Every year I better understand when an expert explains why a particular strategy is futile, and try another. So far this has produced intimate knowledge of every corner of our property, which is good and useful. I have also learned how to corrode several sprayers beyond repair by using a formula consisting mostly of thirty percent vinegar. What I have not learned is how to control stiltgrass.

 I have come to identify with Elmer Fudd and Wile E. Coyote, whose objects of frustration lie always in sight, yet always elusive. I have not yet come to identify with Sisyphus, who in the Greek myth is doomed to forever push a boulder up a hill, only to have it forever roll back. This may, however, lie ahead.

 Working fulltime this summer for the first time, I may, all humility aside, have fought stiltgrass to a draw. I won’t know until next summer.

 What I do know, after many hours and much labor, is that in the forest, devotion and futility live as close to each other as stiltgrass and columbine.