In last week’s newsletter, I wrote an article about our neighborhood caring for the sidewalk area on Jones Maltsberger in front of our Community. I thought about this all week.
So one day, I walked up Jones Maltsberger and took a few photos of how other neighborhoods have handled their sidewalk areas.
Thank You
I want to thank Alice McKinney once again for her efforts to inspire our Community to do go the extra mile and pick up litter in the sidewalk area. The regular lawn crew that handles the mowing of our six Common Areas, also handles the mowing of this area on an as needed basis.
Digging Into Weeds
I started digging around — of course my “go to” was digging around on the internet rather than in dirt. I found several articles talked about non-native grasses that spread easily and are endangering our native plants.
One of the invasive non-native plants that i read about was the Bluestem Grasses. These grasses “establish quickly and crowd out other species. Because of incidental seed movement and the grasses’ invasive nature, introduced bluestems are common in many areas where they were never seeded intentionally.”
It is reported that bluestem grasses are widely distributed in Texas, including Bexar County.
With McAllister Park, all 975 acres of it, right across the road, talk about invasive grasses in our native land got my attention.
Source: Texas A&M AgriLife article “Introduced Bluestem Grasses-Management on Native Lands”
Our Community
Common sense tell me that if any of these invasive grasses land in our beautiful McAllister Park, it would not take much for them to spread to our community. the wind can easily distribute seeds into the Jones Maltsberger sidewalk area… and within our community.
Before that happens, I thought the last paragraph of the “King Ranch Bluestem in Texas” article in Landmark Wildlife Management is a good reminder for all of us.
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
“Take care of your native grasses. Keep your eye out and routinely check for signs of invasive bluestems in other areas and take them out before they have a chance to become established.”
“King Ranch Bluestem in Texas” article in LandmarkWildlife.com.