African lovegrass has spread like wildfire across Canberra in the past 10 years, seizing on drought conditions and overgrazing to force native species out.
The noxious weed now covers more of the ACT than natural temperate grasslands.
But as Maree Gilbert puts it, even the most powerful forces have a weakness.
"If you think about African lovegrass like a super villain, shade is probably its kryptonite," the ACT Parks and Conservation Service ranger in charge of urban reserves in Canberra's south said, referring to the material that weakens Superman.
In terms of biodiversity, the noxious weed certainly is a super villain. That's why creating shade is high on the list of new approaches Ms Gilbert hopes to experiment with in a patch of land on the Canberra Avenue median strip.
The ACT Parks and Conservation Service has been managing the presence of African lovegrass in conservation estates for about 20 years.
"Every year, it's getting worse and worse," Ms Gilbert said. "We go and treat it and then the next time we come back, there's more."
That has prompted her to think outside the box. She wants to focus less on responding to the presence of invasive lovegrass in sensitive areas, and more on a "landscape approach" to prevent it getting there in the first place.
Wind, water, soil, animals and vehicles including mowers all move African lovegrass seeds around the landscape.
Seeds don't have to travel far from areas like the median strip on Canberra Avenue to reach conservation estates that form important habitats for creatures like the endangered Canberra grassland earless dragon, which is hampered by the presence of African lovegrass.
Lovegrass also poses a significant fire risk and is only palatable for the first six weeks following germination, after which time it has no nutritional value and grazing animals ignore it in favour of other grasses. Once those animals have eaten the nutritious grass, African lovegrass spreads into the bare ground.
"African lovegrass out-competes everything," Ms Gilbert said.
"Once it gets a toehold, it's very hard to get rid of.
"Within a couple of years a beautiful, natural grassland can become a monoculture of African lovegrass because it kills biodiversity.
"It can turn a [grassland earless] dragon habitat into something completely inhospitable."
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ACT Parks and Conservation has primarily used herbicides to treat African lovegrass. Ms Gilbert said $200,000 had been spent last financial year on herbicide control alone, across 700 hectares of land.
Working with a similar budget this year, she hoped, pending approvals, to trial some innovative control methods in areas like the Canberra Avenue median strip.
These included creating a buffer zone and planting trees to create shade, which Ms Gilbert said appeared to act as "kryptonite" for African lovegrass.
In addition to applying herbicides, Ms Gilbert said planting native tussocks and grasses that were more naturally resistant to African lovegrass invasions, like kangaroo grass, was another planned experiment.
"We also want to do some landscaping at the entrances to our nature reserves to create physically hard areas that vehicles will have to cross before entering," Ms Gilbert said.
"That way any [African lovegrass] seeds on the vehicles will fall off and collect in an area where we can come in, collect them and take them away."
The ACT government has already started blowing down or washing mowers before moving them out of areas affected by African lovegrass into non-contaminated areas.
Ms Gilbert said African lovegrass was "a huge problem" throughout the Monaro region. Seeds had gradually spread north to the ACT over the decades, with Canberra's most significant problem areas in its south.
