(Impatiens glandulifera)

Himalayan Balsam is one of the invasive plants being managed with help from Natural England, who paid for labour until 2015, to pull or slash the plant. Initially slashing was the only option in the far fields (Riverland) as the growth was so thick in many places it covered the land or was so integrated into ferns etc, that pulling would have been too arduous.

A small amount in the willow carr, in the southern reed bed, is hand pulled.

For a number of years records have been kept of the work which has been divided into three main areas, each area then divided into manageable lots. The following links show the history of the areas managed.

General Control
The plan is to stop Himalayan balsam spreading by working from the outer edges of it's domain, largely along the riparian boundary, which is divided in to 3 areas; hopefully limiting it's growth to the very edges of the boundaries as seeds will inevitably be carried over from other places for the foreseeable future.

From July 26th 2013, given the ongoing success, new boundaries and labels are applied to the areas as follows:

In the early years of management the Himalayan Balsam was largely restricted to the ditches around the lower fields adjacent the river. Afriqnmun and I pulled them out for a number of years and that seemed to limit their growth and may have stopped their expansion.

However after quite a number of years of neglect and a large focus on Giant Hogweed and more recently Japanese Knotweed too, the Himalayan Balsam has had unfettered room to expand and is now by far the greatest problem. It probably always was but due to its colourful character and lack of invasive root/rhizomes, was deemed less of an issue compared to Giant Hogweed and Japanese Knotweed. That was probably a mistake.

• Area 1(page 2) is the land starting at the far north (Riverland) and working from inland to the river and then south.
  Area 1X This is a new location (July 2014), comprising the area immediately to the south and east of the place where the red and blue patches meet and in general the whole field to the south east of Area 1
• Area 2(page 4) formerly Sites 3 and 6, is the land from the boat northwards towards Area 1.
• Area 3(page 6) formerly Sites 4 and 5 is the land from the boat westward and includes the main SSSI reed bed, The Southern Marsh.

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