Garden Club News

21 June 2005
Gardeners:

I went out to my plot today to drop off water and found PEPCO hard at work 
clearing vegetation from the power lines and poles.  There is/will be 
damage to some of the west campus gardens.  

The most obvious thing will be the absence of the bamboo patch.  Pepco is 
completely clearing it.  The taller stalks were definitely interfering with 
the power lines and needed to be cut.  I was told by the GSFC representative 
supervising the cutting that Pepco hasn't trimmed the area in 10 years.  
I assume that the reason Pepco is cutting so aggressively is that they 
don't want to come back for another 10 years.  

Be advised that Pepco is applying herbicide as well!  It was unclear to me 
exactly where they will be applying it.  I was specifically told to advise 
the club to not use the mulch from the shredded bamboo, but I don't know if 
this was because herbicide was being applied to it or if it was advice to 
prevent further propagation of the bamboo.  I will try to find out more, 
but it may be obvious once the herbicide takes effect.  Until I can verify
 that herbicide has not been applied to the bamboo patch, I recommend that 
nobody gather bamboo shoots for human consumption.

Some of the other older, unrented plots outside the electric fence had already 
been trimmed pretty aggressively.  One pole obviously had a lot of vines 
growing on it, and I was told that there were visible burn marks where the 
vines had been shorting the power.

Apparently Pepco will be trimming some of the trees that overhang some of the 
plots inside the electric fence.  This will happen either later today or 
tomorrow.  All west campus gardeners should be prepared to see damage to 
their plots. 

This also means that access to the gardens via the road is blocked during 
working hours today and tomorrow, since the work crews are blocking the road.

I received no advance warning of this, which frustrates me a great deal. 
I will do what I can to find out how the garden club can be kept informed 
about future cutting.  Ideally I will try to negotiate with the center and/or 
Pepco so that future cutting occurs in the off season.  

Anne-Marie Novo-Gradac