Santa Fe's War on Weeds
The War on Weeds: How Santa Fe Plans to Tackle Its Overgrown Medians
by Pam Wolfe
The City of Santa Fe’s 10-point plan to combat the annual cycle of frustration over weeds has generated more than a dozen articles and editorials in the Santa Fe New Mexican since it was presented to the city council last May. Here’s a summary:
1. Convene a panel of experts to develop three simple templates for medians. Each template will take into account the principles of “right plant, right place”; harmonious theme; and ease of maintenance. Basic standards of care will be established.
2. Apply templates to convert 20 high-visibility medians to xeriscape.
3. Identify and clean out unsustainable medians.
4. Revise the adopt-a-median program and enforce compliance.
5.. Stamp medians that are extremely difficult to maintain.
6. Expand maintenance budget (person-power and funding).
7. Clarify lines of oversight (implies shifting responsibility for some properties away from parks-department crews).
8. Upgrade equipment.
9. Continue the practice of no chemicals or glyphosates.
10. Get residents to do their part by launching a comprehensive public-education campaign and enforcing code relating to private property.
City staff will identify medians in need of redesign and reconstruction. A group designated the Special Weeds Action Team (SWAT) will develop the templates (item 1) for those medians and assist in revising the median vegetation management guidelines. SWAT has a three-step agenda expected to take several years to complete. The first step is to finalize a list of recommended plants, which must be low water, low maintenance, and suitable for the harsh environment of medians. Step two is to estimate the cost of reconditioning the soils in larger medians. Small medians (difficult and dangerous to maintain) will be concrete stamped. According to SWAT chair Ruth Hamilton, step three, the design process, is expected to be the biggest challenge. She emphasizes that each step will be presented to the mayor and the city council “to ensure that the entire process is transparent, approved, and funded.”
Ciity horticulturist Andrew Garcia has proposed that one of the templates consist of native grasses. SWAT approves of this idea. “It would be an opportunity for residents and visitors to see the beauty that is unique to Santa Fe’s juniper savanna ecosystem,” explains Hamilton. Savanna is a term for the ecotone between grassland and woodland. This type of landscaping, compatible with our changing climate, would help teach residents how to use similar plantings on their own properties.
John Muñoz, director of the city’s Parks and Recreation Department, plans to address the education component (item 10) through social media, creative videos, and workshops for property owners. Getting neighborhoods involved is a critical element in effecting change. “We are in the process of recommending revisions to the land-use code with the objective of simplification and clarification,” Muñoz says. Adding staff for code enforcement is a priority, along with clarifying lines of oversight and expanding crew and maintenance budget.
Muñoz points out that the number of visitors to Santa Fe’s parks is 1.5 million annually, in comparison to just 95,000 to 100,000 for most cities of comparable size, even those with substantially larger budgets. “Santa Fe is unique in being both a tourist destination and a capital city,” he says. “And it’s unusual in that medians are typically the responsibility of Solid Waste or Public Works, not the Parks Department.”
Santa Fe County’s extension agent, Tom Dominguez, saw a dramatic increase in requests for weed identification and recommendations for their management in 2019. Like the City of Santa Fe, many home-owners associations restrict or prohibit the use of herbicides. In addition to mechanical removal and mowing annual weeds early to prevent seed set, Dominguez suggests incorporating plants that could eventually outcompete the weeds. An established stand of blue grama or native pollinator plants would require only occasional water and an annual mow and would be relatively weed-free.
Victor Lucero, Santa Fe’s Integrated Pest Management (IPM) program manager, agrees. “Planting medians with native grasses will not only beautify the medians but also reduce the maintenance requirements and suppress invasive vegetation,” he said. There may be some public resistance because of the informal look of native grasses, but, he said, “using native plants in medians makes sense as they are adapted to the climate and environmental conditions of our city.”
Lucero notes that noxious weeds, especially Russian knapweed, Scotch thistle, Dalmatian toadflax, and cheatgrass, are also a problem on rights of way (jointly maintained by the New Mexico Department of Transportation and the city).
Seed pressure will persist, he says, “due to many factors, including existing weed seedbank, underground plant parts that are not controlled mechanically, and the logistics of using mechanical control on a large scale.” He adds that in some cases mechanical control may actually spread seed and also that we lack biological agents to suppress many weed species.
The goal, of course, is not eradication but management. The County Extension Service will host a free workshop, Weed Identification and Management, for Master Gardeners and the general public on February 27, 2020, at 6 p.m., at the Santa Fe County Fairgrounds. The speakers will be Victor Lucero and Jim Wanstall, director of the New Mexico Department of Agriculture’s noxious weed program.