Civic Projects – Invasive Removal

West Hartford Garden Club members,

We have an opportunity to remove some invasive plants this Saturday, March 26, from 9 to noon at Spicebush Swamp Park, West Hartford.

The town has granted our Civic Projects Committee permission to plan and plant a new Bird & Pollinator Friendly Garden at Spicebush, and the first step is to clear the garden site of invasive plants.  If you can join in this initial stage, please read the details in Ted Goerner’s (science teacher at Sedgwick Middle School) email below.

I hope to see you there.

Thanks,

Madeleine Hexter
Civic Projects Chair & Co-President of the West Hartford Garden Club

Hello,

Just sharing a few details with all of you regarding an effort next Saturday, March 26, at Spicebush Swamp Park in West Hartford to remove invasive plants … particularly Oriental bittersweet, multiflora rose, Japanese barberry, winged euonymus, European (common) buckthorn. and honeysuckle.

Several groups are involved in this effort and the goal is to remove invasive plants from the areas around the pond, along the stream, and along trails going back into the woods.  This is in preparation for a bird garden with oak plantings that will be carried out by the West Hartford Garden Club.

Feel free to share this message and arrive anytime between 9 a.m. and 12 noon.  Parking will be limited in the parking lot on Mountain Road, so some folks may need to park across the street on Gloucester Lane.  If you park in the lot, please park close together.  Carpool or walk if possible.

If you have any of the following tools, please bring them.  Some tools may be available but it is not certain:  eye protection, hand clippers, lopper/pruners, small pruning saw, hand mattock or similar digging tool, garden rake, small shovel, standard mattock, tarps for dragging cuttings, weed wrench or similar device for uprooting, and anything else that you feel you can safely use to remove plants.

Please wear tick repellant and do a tick check immediately afterwards.  The ticks are not terrible yet but they are waking up.  Proper clothing should include boots, long pants and long sleeves, and leather gloves.  Several of the plants have thorns.

As you remove bittersweet vines from trees, please remember not to pull them down from the tree.  We will cut and remove a section at the base of the tree and let the upper vines die and fall on their own.  We will be pulling smaller ones up from the soil, but don’t pull downward.  Vines are often attached to dead branches that have been killed due to shading by the bittersweet leaves.

A few student environmental clubs have been told about this.  Students under the age of 16 need to be accompanied by a parent please.

Invasive plants threaten our local ecosystem.  Native insects and birds are in serious decline partly due to loss of critical food and shelter.  If left unchecked, some of these plants will completely take an area over and make it unfit for recreation of any kind.  We hope that this is the first of many follow-up efforts at Spicebush and other local areas.

Feel free to email me with questions.  This effort is rain or shine and is being planned in cooperation with Leisure Services and Public Works.

Thanks

Ted Goerner tedprez@gmail.com