
Tom Zetterstrom picking the last of the garlic mustard and narrowleaf bittercress on his North Canaan property.
Photo by Shane Stample
Even if you have been assiduously pulling your garlic mustard and narrowleaf bittercress you will see that the ones you missed — and there are always some you have missed — have already released their seed. The narrow seed pods — called siliques — propel seeds like little bombs exploding at the lightest touch. I read that single narrowleaf bittercress plant can produce over 5,000 seeds. I think that data point is quite motivating. “Today I pulled what would have been a million weeds next year” you might say after a morning of light weeding.
Some of the larger narrowleaf bittercress plants keep growing and producing seed even after the first seeds have exploded. And some of the garlic mustard has not yet released its seed so they are still worth pulling. You will want to pull the plant from the bottom of the stem, keeping the seed head far from you and surrounding obstacles. Using a contractor’s bag, gently place the pulled plant in headfirst to catch the explosion of seeds. Also keep in mind that some of these plants are top-heavy and will have fallen over, especially with the rain we have had over the past week; try not to step on them. You can keep the bag in the sun for the summer to rot down the contents and dispose as compost the following year.
It all comes down to staying ahead of a plant’s seed production which happens after the plant flowers. After several seasons of this kind of work the sequencing of weed pulling takes on a distinct rhythm. April and May are dedicated primarily to garlic mustard and narrow leaf bittercress eradication then, at least on my property, nipplewort (which is in flower now) the dreaded Japanese stilt grass and then poison hemlock.
The weed currently on Tom Zetterstrom’s mind is mugwort. You might already know Tom; he is a guru for many when it comes to restoring native environments; he has been doing this work on his own 60 acres and for others for decades. A fine art photographer by trade and dedicated to preserving our area’s native elm trees, Tom has seen the woodlands and grasslands in the Northwest Corner change significantly as invasive plants and fungi have wrought havoc to native habitats.
Tom thinks that mugwort, Artemisia vulgaris, may now be more of an environmental threat than Japanese knotweed due to its massive seed proliferation. A single mugwort plant can produce 200,000 seeds (making narrow leaf bittercress an invasive lightweight by comparison.) By seed and by rhizome, mugwort creates dense monocultures and chokes out anything in its way.
It has taken over on roadsides; you will easily identify them by their leaves’ silver undersides. Tom posits that their quick and wide spread is due to the unintended consequence of roadside brush cutting which is done in early spring when the seed heads have not yet grown, then again in late fall, after the seeds are ripe and ready to fall off. The very thing the brush cutting is trying to minimize is making the problem worse.
Even then, brush cutting alone will not eradicate mugwort because it has a rhizomatous root system. You can cut it and it will grow back — again and again. Tom sprays herbicide on swaths of mugwort with glyphosate at a 2% ratio to water with the addition of a surfactant to help it spray well and penetrate the leaves. If you want more info on herbicide best practices, email me at dee@theungardener.com
Over in Sharon, Barbara Zucker Pinchoff has the remnant of a 3700 square foot patch of mugwort. Two years ago, after watching it expand over several years, she sprayed a small area with Roundup as an experiment. It did not work. Researching non-chemical solutions, she had it mowed down and covered the area with black tarps — from BillboardTarps.com, which sells vinyl that has previously been used as billboard creative. She waited (impatiently, as you can imagine with that much of her land covered by several billboards!) for two years. Then an area which had blown off exposed the area. The offending plant looked dead and gone and so the tarps came off. In one area Barbara planted native plugs and also pasture grass; not native, which she regrets, but sufficiently quick to green up and prevent a mugwort comeback. In another part of the plot she seeded with a combination of native plant seed and a cover crop of oat seed.
This area has been slower to take and Barbara’s keen eye IDs the mugwort as it pops up and she pulls it up right away.
I won’t get into the chemical debate; both sides make honorable arguments and the variables for good decision-making are many.
When it comes to chemical eradication of weeds, I will stress that common sense and adherence to best practices is key to minimize animal harm and habitat contamination and keep humans safe. Also, as I finish up this column, an opinion piece from Dana Milbank in The Washington Post has hit my inbox.
Anyone trying to make an informed decision should read it — www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/06/30/herbicide- invasive-plants-national-parks-shenandoah/
Dee Salomon “ungardens” in Litchfield County.
SHARON — Angela Derrick Carabine, 74, died May 16, 2025, at Vassar Hospital in Poughkeepsie, New York. She was the wife of Michael Carabine and mother of Caitlin Carabine McLean.
A funeral Mass will be celebrated on June 6 at 11:00 a.m. at Saint Katri (St Bernards Church) Church. Burial will follow at St. Bernards Cemetery. A complete obituary can be found on the website of the Kenny Funeral home kennyfuneralhomes.com.
Sam Waterston
On June 7 at 3 p.m., the Triplex Cinema in Great Barrington will host a benefit screening of “The Killing Fields,” Roland Joffé’s 1984 drama about the Khmer Rouge and the two journalists, Cambodian Dith Pran and New York Times correspondent Sydney Schanberg, whose story carried the weight of a nation’s tragedy.
The film, which earned three Academy Awards and seven nominations — including one for Best Actor for Sam Waterston — will be followed by a rare conversation between Waterston and his longtime collaborator and acclaimed television and theater director Matthew Penn.
“This came out of the blue,” Waterston said of the Triplex invitation, “but I love the town, I love this area. We raised our kids here in the Northwest Corner and it’s been good for them and good for us.”
Waterston hasn’t seen the film in decades but its impact has always remained present.
“It was a major event in my life at the time,” Waterston said of filming “The Killing Fields,” “and it had a big influence on me and my life ever after.” He remembers the shoot vividly. “My adrenaline was running high and the part of Sydney Schanberg was so complicated, so interesting.”
Waterston lobbied for the role of the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for years, tracing his early interest to a serendipitous connection while filming in England. Even before Joffé’s production was greenlit, he had his sights set on playing the role. “I knew I wanted the part for years even before it was a movie that was being produced.”
What followed was not just critical acclaim, but also a political awakening. “The film gave all of us an intimate acquaintance with refugees, what it is to be a refugee, how the world forgets them and what a terrible crime that is.”
In Boston, at a press stop for the film, two women asked Waterston a pointed question: now that he knew what he knew, what was he going to do about it? “I said, ‘Well, you know, I’m an actor, so I thought I’d go on acting.’ And they said, ‘No, that’s not what you need to do. You need to join Refugees International.’” And join he did, serving on the organization’s board for 25 years.
Both Schanberg and Dith Pran, whose life the film also chronicles, were “cooperative and helpful … in a million ways,” Waterston said. Upon first meeting Pran, Waterston recalled, “He came up to me, made a fist, and pounded on my chest really hard and said, ‘You must understand that Sydney is very strong here.’ He was trying to plant something in me.”
There were more tender gestures, too. Schanberg used the New York Times wire to relay that Waterston’s wife had just given birth while he was filming in Thailand, adding to the personal and emotional connection to the production.
Though “The Killing Fields” is a historical document, its truths still resonate deeply today. “Corruption is a real thing,” Waterston warned. “Journalism is an absolutely essential part of our democracy that is as under siege today as it was then. It’s different now but it’s the same thing of ‘Don’t tell the stories we don’t want heard.’ Without journalists, we are dust in the wind.” Waterston added, “Democracy is built on the consent of the governed but the other thing it’s built on is participation of the governed and without full participation, democracy really doesn’t stand much of a chance. It’s kind of a dead man walking.”
When asked what he hopes the audience will take away from the screening, Waterston didn’t hesitate. “This is the story that puts the victims of war at the center of the story and breaks your heart. I think that does people a world of good to have their hearts broken about something that’s true. So, I hope that’s what the impact will be now.”
Tickets for the benefit screening are available at www.thetriplex.org. Proceeds support Triplex Cinema, a nonprofit home for film and community programming in the Berkshires.
Scott Reinhard, graphic designer, cartographer, former Graphics Editor at the New York Times, took time out from setting up his show “Here, Here, Here, Here- Maps as Art” to explain his process of working.Here he explains one of the “Heres”, the Hunt Library’s location on earth (the orange dot below his hand).
Map lovers know that as well as providing the vital functions of location and guidance, maps can also be works of art.With an exhibition titled “Here, Here, Here, Here — Maps as Art,” Scott Reinhard, graphic designer and cartographer, shows this to be true. The exhibition opens on June 7 at the David M. Hunt Library at 63 Main St., Falls Village, and will be the first solo exhibition for Reinhard.
Reinhard explained how he came to be a mapmaker. “Mapping as a part of my career was somewhat unexpected.I took an introduction to geographic information systems (GIS), the technological side of mapmaking, when I was in graduate school for graphic design at North Carolina State.GIS opened up a whole new world, new tools, and data as a medium to play with.”
He added, “When I moved to New York City, I continued that exploration of cartography, and my work eventually caught the attention of the New York Times, where I went to work as a Graphics Editor, making maps and data visualizations for a number of years.”At the New York Times, his work contributed to a number of Pulitzer Prize winning efforts.
In his work, Reinhard takes complex data and turns it into intriguing visualizations the viewer can begin to comprehend immediately and will want to continue to look into and explore more deeply.
One method Reinhard uses combines historic United States Geological survey maps with “current elevation data (height above sea level for a point on earth) to create 3-D looking maps, combining old and new,” he explained.
For the show at Hunt Library Reinhard said, “I knew that I wanted to incorporate the place into the show itself. A place can be many things.The exhibition portrays the exact spot visitors are from four vantage points: the solar system, the earth, the Northwest Corner, and the library itself.” Hence the name, “Here, Here, Here, Here.”
He continued, “The largest installation, the Northwest Corner, is a mosaic of high-resolution color prints and hand-printed cyanotypes — one of the earliest forms of photography. They use elevation data to portray the landscape in a variety of ways, from highly abstract to the highly detailed.”
This sixteen-foot-wide installation covers the area of Millerton to Barkhamsted Reservoir and from North Canaan down to Cornwall for a total of about 445 square miles.
For subjects, he chooses places he’s visited and feels deeply connected to, like the Northwest Corner.“This show is a thank you to the community for the richness that it has brought to my life. I love it here,” he said.
The opening reception for the show is on June 7 from 5 to 7 p.m. On Thursday, June 12, Reinhard will give a talk about his work from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at the library.“Here, Here, Here, Here” will be on display until July 3.
Scott Reinhard’s 16-foot-wide piece of the Northwest Corner is laid out on the floor prior to being hung for the show. L. Tomaino