Back in July, we posted in North Mankato lawn wars: local man cuts lawn buckthorn suckers, sees buckthorn in city park:
Our post from Friday, Mankato Free Press: Borchardts' North Mankato lawn war case heard in Minnesota appeals court, attracted two emails. One reader sent us the recording of the hearing in the Court of Appeals.
We also drew a response from North Mankato preservationist and conservationist Tom Hagen.
He emailed us:
Two weeks out from a hip replacement Ed Borchardt gets a letter from the city claiming there is buckthorn in his yard and that he has 5 days to remove it or the city will do it for him and bill him for the work. I went to his yard to look and found some suckers that had sprouted from a few stumps that Ed had cut down the previous year. There was no buckthorn infestation and the pieces I cut, seen pictured here, laying in the gutter, would maybe fill a paper shopping bag.
The email included the letter, dated July 15, 2021; we're not posting the PDF of the letter, as it includes the Borchardts' exact address.
A couple of days later, we filed Another dispatch from North Mankato lawn wars: City removes buckthorn in Spring Lake Park.
The appeals court has yet to deliver its opinion, though citizens continue to badger the city about its treatment of the Borchardts and its own more serious buckthorn problem. Thomas Hagen, our source for the city's threatening letter last month, sent this email on Friday, along with the photo at the top of this post:
Buckthorn spreads by seed. The birds eat the berries, fly off (to your yard?) and deposit the seeds in their droppings, blocks or even miles away! Two city parks in North Mankato are literally full of buckthorn and this appears to be a bumper crop year for the berries (see the following photos from Bluff Park. Spring Lake Park has a similar problem.) The city made a half-hearted attempt to remove buckthorn over two days in Spring Lake Park but never touched the berry producing trees! In spite of the city’s infestation of buckthorn, they ordered Ed Borchardt, in a walker due to a recent surgery, to remove his buckthorn in 5 days or the city would do it at a cost of $125.00 an hour. (His yard had about two dozen 12” shoots with no berries and those trimmings only filled half a paper grocery bag!) At the North Mankato City Council Meeting of August 16, two council members, Billy Steiner and Sandra Oachs publicly apologized to Mr. Borchardt for the city order that they claimed came from city staff and that they as council members knew nothing about. The Mayor, Administrator and the two other council members remained silent. Really, City of North Mankato???
I tweeted that the video of the city council meeting. Hagen speaks about the letter to the Borchardts at the 11:25 mark; beginning at the 13:24 mark, Barbara Church confirms his account from July. The city council members respond beginning at the 19:00 (Sandra Oachs) and 21:12 (Billy Steiner) marks.
Click on the link in the tweet to watch the video of the meeting:
North Mankato citizens object to picking on senior couple with natural lawn, first speaker at 11:25.https://t.co/PgwVN6tEGf
— Sally Jo Sorensen (@sallyjos) August 23, 2021
Hagen provided a half dozen more close-up photos of North Mankato's buckthorn branches laden with berries (birds love them but they're bad for people).
There's also this map of the location of lots of Buckthorn at Bluff Park:
Bluestem recommends that North Mankato take Voltaire's advice tend it own garden. An invasive, non-native plant, buckthorn not only crowds out native flora, but serves as a winter haven for soybean aphid eggs and an alternate host for oat crown rust. Bad for nature, bad for agriculture.
Perhaps the City of North Mankato can set up a goat ranch at Bluff Park.
Related posts:
- Another dispatch from North Mankato lawn wars: City removes buckthorn in Spring Lake Park
- North Mankato lawn wars: local man cuts lawn buckthorn suckers, sees buckthorn in city park
- Mankato Free Press: Borchardts' North Mankato lawn war case heard in Minnesota appeals court
- North Mankato lawn wars: City Council passes natural yards ordinance limiting pollinator habitat
- North Mankato natural lawn fight update: Borchardt sues city for public nuisance order
- Buzz kill: North Mankato Planning Commission not so much into lawns to legumes
- North Mankato declares “Monarch Wayfair” lawn a public nuisance from “infestation of the premises by plants, animals, and birds”
- Strib picks up North Mankato lawn police story
Images: Buckthorn berries in a North Mankato Park, top, courtesy Tom Hagen; Map of Bluff park and buckthorn locations curtesy of Bess Tsaose, via Tom Hagen.
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