Yellow Flag Iris is one of just two invasive plants present in Lake Owen, the other being Forget-Me-Not. Although the Yellow Flag Iris is a showy, flowering plant, the Lake Owen Association is working to remove it from the Lake Owen shoreline. A USFS fact sheet reports “it can form dense colonies and impenetrable thickets in fresh or brackish water displacing native species and altering habitat for animals. All parts of the plant are poisonous.”
The Lake Owen Association’s lake manager crew identified and marked Yellow Flag Iris in 19 locations along Lake Owen shores in 2019. The Lake Owen Association received permission to chemically treat these identified Yellow Flag Iris plants to remove them at all but one of the locations shown in the map. This included permission to remove the plants from U.S. Forest Service land. Although it is a good idea to remove seed pods to prevent Yellow Flag Iris spread, manual removal efforts in other lakes have proven ineffective in controlling Yellow Flag Iris.
Contractor Dale Dressel, from Northern Aquatic Services, completed the Lake Owen Association-sponsored Yellow Flag Iris chemical treatment on September 4, 2019 at 18 sites and removed 8 pounds of Yellow Flag Iris seeds.
