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Q. Who is Mr. Smarty Plants?

A: There are those who suspect Wildflower Center volunteers are the culpable and capable culprits. Yet, others think staff members play some, albeit small, role. You can torture us with your plant questions, but we will never reveal the Green Guru's secret identity.

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Ask Mr. Smarty Plants

Ask Mr. Smarty Plants is a free service provided by the staff and volunteers at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.

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Please forgive us, but Mr. Smarty Plants has been overwhelmed by a flood of mail and must take a break for awhile to catch up. We hope to be accepting new questions again soon. Thank you!

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Saturday - May 02, 2009

From: Kenai, AK
Region: Northwest
Topic: Invasive Plants
Title: Invasive plant in pond in Kenai, AK
Answered by: Barbara Medford

QUESTION:

We built a pond in our back yard with materials from the beach. Including some plants. Didn't investigate the plants(our mistake). Well now it has taken over all of our landscape. It looks like extra large blades of grass. Its grows to about 4' and buds acouple times a year. It has numerous sprouts growing under and up through everything. How do we get rid of this horror we created.Thank you for any advice

ANSWER:

Much as we would like to help you, we're going to need a little more help from you. It would be hard to help you without knowing what you have. While the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center focuses on plants native not only to North America but to the area in which the plant is being grown, we need to know (or try to find out) what the plant is, first. Please go to our Mr. Smarty Plants instructions on how to submit a photo; when we get that, we'll try first to identify it, and then help you figure out what to do about it.
 

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