Take 10 Days
To Fight Chervil

Feeling overwhelmed by wild chervil? It is hard to avoid that feeling right now. But I encourage you not to turn away from it, not to give up. 

If you do give up there will be even more next year—this is the reason Anthriscus sylvestris is called an invasive plant. There is only one thing that will make any difference, and that is you. In the next week or 10 days before the plants go to seed you can slow the invasion in areas that are important to you. 

Probably the most effective action is to weed out the single plants in areas that are not already infested. This will keep those plants from seeding and becoming patches next year. The next most important thing to do now is to cut, string trim, or mow as many patches as you can to keep them from going to seed. The plants will be there next year, but they will not have seeded into new spots. 

It is a matter of triage—deciding what are the most effective things you can do with limited resources and limited time. So, keep the plant from getting established in new locations and contain the infested areas.

Safety tips include: check for poison ivy; cover legs, arms, eyes, especially when string trimming, so the juice does not get on your skin; thoroughly wash off mowers before you move to new areas; don’t spread the seeds yourself.

Just because a problem seems overwhelming does not mean we do not try to change the situation, be it hunger or world peace or an invasive plant in our neighborhood. The interesting thing about wild chervil is that no one else is going to do this for us. We are the only people who are capable of making any difference, and we can make a difference.

For example, several neighbors are keeping a two-mile stretch of road chervil free. Every year we have to pull the single plants that appear, but they are manageable, and this stretch remains refreshingly green to drive along.

Persistence pays. I know I get a burst of energy and encouragement when I see where someone else has mowed, or pulled chervil. During the next two weeks we can each work on some chervil areas, thus slowing its advance, and at the same time offering energy and inspiration to others to do the same.

Victoria Weber

Bethel