Weed warriors take the fight to the streets

IF THERE’S a harmful weed, on your nature strip, who you gonna call? Weed Warriors! (Insert funky 80s music here.)

A community driven weed-busting program led by Bruce ‘Weed Warrior’ Jones has so far attracted more than 30 volunteers in Swan Hill, who have each nominated streets they would patrol, but Mr Jones said the group would need more than 100 volunteers to spray all the town’s weeds.

To raise awareness of the program, weed warriors have been dropping council-funded calling cards into letterboxes to let people know they’re committed to keeping nature strips in their area weed free.

Volunteer Ross Cox has been monitoring his local streets for weed since last month, and said the flyers were a great way to keep people interested in the cause. 

“It’s a good way to use council rates to benefit the community,” Mr Cox said. 

“And the weeds are certainly getting worse around town. 

“If everyone does their little bit then it’s not a big job at all.”

Germination of khaki weed, calthrop, and spiney emex was expected to begin from mid-October, but Mr Jones said the lack of rain in the past month had so far kept the problem in check.

“The odd plant is coming up so volunteers need to be vigilant,” he said. 

“The minute we get a reasonable rainfall event we are going to have a major operation.”

High visibility equipment with weed warrior logos will be rolled out to volunteers in the next month.