Well, the huge team of Lukie Marriott and I gathered at the trail about 9am last Saturday. We started at the north end and scoured the full length south to Lawrence and then back the other side of the trail, picking up trash, pulling garlic mustard and thistle and bindweed, and noticing that there seems to be more wild parsnip popping up this year than last.
We only found garlic mustard in scattered spots, though there is a big chunk of the west side of the trail where all the garlic mustard was little shoots off of bigger roots. We didn’t have proper tools, so there we couldn’t get the bigger roots. Next time! …as they are sure to make themselves noticeable again. The tall, thick patch that the Lab School kids pulled a couple of weeks ago, on the far southwest edge of the park (just north of the trees and bushes) looked totally clear. No new flowering.
Lots of columbine blooming, some other teeny tiny white clustered flowers, and many things we couldn’t identify. And the weather was perfect. We were finished before it got too hot. I walked home through the park proper, catching last bits of trash. Hopefully a really clean park discouraged some would-be litterers over the long weekend.
Next trail day sometime later in June. Stay tuned here for details. OR… join our mailing list for email alerts.
Total volunteers: 2. Total hours: 6.
2 responses so far ↓
Pete Leki // July 6, 2009 at 3:17 pm |
Good work! I wonder what the parsnip was? There are invasive parsnips, but also two natives in the family that are beautiful additions to out riverbank south of Montrose: cow parsnip and great Angelica.
I was happy to see the progress being made there, tho it is frustrating when the river covers everthing with sludge.
Pete
ronanparktrail // July 7, 2009 at 2:36 pm |
it was the non-native, invasive, yellow stuff, pete. there is also some cow parsnip around. maybe some of the angelica, but i’d have to go back and take a closer look to be sure.