[APWG] Anyone want to join the 99% weed-free club?

[Craig Dremann - Redwood City Seed Company]

Dear Wayne and All,

You wrote on the APWG list - AlienPlants Working Group:

Dremann keeps making this 99.99% claim. I, for one, doubt it. I would like
to have that doubt removed, but that would take more information than I
have noticed in his previous posts or this one. Successes of this
magnitude and quality should be published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Thanks for your email.

When Mark Vande Pol’s first contacted me, I was curious about his claims
about single-handedly getting his forested and grassland 14 acres back to
99.99% native cover here in Central California--when we are normally 99%
covered with weeds.

I visited Mark’s place in Los Gatos last month, and after measuring an
Evans & Love 100 pace (200 foot long) Toe-point though one of his restored
prairies, and not stepping on a single weed, I was convinced that he has
achieved the best grassland restoration in North America.

Overall, Mark’s may be the very best grassland/woodland understory weeding
project done world-wide by a single individual, and without any ecological
or restoration training, figured out on his own, similar to Michael Shaw
in 2002, (http://www.libertygarden.com/documents/ecolgicalrestoration.pdf)
on how to achieve 99% native cover, when starting with more than 95% solid
weed cover?

Both Shaw’s and Mark’s achievements should give us all the confidence that
we too can join the 99% weed free club?   I want to hear from others on
this list in the future, that they too have joined the 99% weed-free club
also.

Maybe in the future, like the Nobel Prize--and named to honor these two
first achievements, an annual Shaw & Vande Pol 99% Weed-free Prize could
be given to whomever is able to join this club and reach that goal?

Mark is willing to have visitors, but has one important caveat--your boots
must be washed and absolutely free of any weed seeds.  He has his 14 acres
in such a pure state, that it is like a pristine petri dish, and does not
want any diseases or weed seeds to enter from the outside.

I love Mark’s quote--that if you are not getting 99% weed-free grassland
or forest understory habitats when you are weeding, then you are wasting
your time.

You can contact Mark for a visit at contact at wildergarten.com and there is
a very good chance that he would be interested in writing a paper to be
published in a peer reviewed journal, if any editor of such a journal were
to contact him.

Sincerely,  Craig Dremann (650) 325-7333