At this point in the Italian thistle season, some of it is beginning to go to seed and you also start to see a particular phenomenon — tiny plants that are going straight to flower. It’s like they know that they only have a short window in which to go to seed before conditions become too dry, so they pop up and go to flower immediately. Of course we can’t ignore these, as their seeds have as much reseeding potential as seeds from a large plant, they just might not travel as far.

So that means being very watchful and careful to pull ALL the plants you see, rather than just the large, obvious ones. It might be annoying to have to bend over for these little guys, but if you don’t, next year will likely be worse. It comes with the territory.

This is also the time of year when we get out the cordless weed whacker and chop down large patches that we won’t have the time to pull by hand. Chopping the heads off before they seed is actually a last-ditch effort, as it isn’t as sure as pulling and carrying it out, and if it’s done too early the thistle can still put on new flowers. Some areas could need multiple sessions over time to prevent them from flowering.

As the Italian thistle season eventually winds to a close (although even after it goes to seed I might still carefully bag it), the Yellow Star thistle season begins, which will take us into August. Invasive species removal season really doesn’t have a season per se, as we could work on Scotch broom year-round, but I still consider January to August as being the main invasive species removal season, which means we are barely halfway through it.