April 2011 - Parks & Recreation - 78

76 Parks & Recreation

APRIL 2011

Going Native
Garlic mustard
and pampas
grass removal at
Upper Newport
Bay Nature
Preserve in
Orange County,
California.

already established in the
soil, or roots may be able to
regenerate new growth.

Early Warning
In Michigan, state park managers aim to nip problem
plants in the bud before they
become pests. The Early
Detection and Rapid Response program
turns hikers and park visitors into informants, letting Michigan's Department
of Natural Resources and Environment
(DNRE) know about invasive plants cropping up in parks.
" We've found it's the most effective
means of controlling invasive plants, "
says Lindsay Ross, stewardship assistant of the recreation division of Michigan
DNRE. " If you start controlling invasives
before they become widespread, it costs
less money, takes less time, and is more
effective overall. "
Ross and other state stewards have
been focusing on garlic mustard, Japanese knotweed, and black swallow-wort,
which, " until we had a lot of eyes on the
ground, we didn't realize it was so widespread, " Ross says. Anyone can report
online, clicking on a map to indicate an invasive plant sighting-or they can e-mail,
call, or write to the department. The program has produced some 20 to 30 reports
of invasives within the last year.

www.NRPA .ORG

Plants the Upper Hand
The best defense, however, is prevention. In many cases, invasives flourish
because they get there first, but by establishing native seed banks, parks can
make sure that natives have the upper
hand. One way to do this is to plant native
seeds and plants along any new trail, invasive removal, or disturbance.
" It requires a lot of work and vigilance
from year to year to year to remove the
seed stock, " says Goulee of Milwaukee,
who reports success at Hoyt Park, where
an area overtaken by buckthorn was
cleared by 130 volunteers on two weekends. Now, Goulee has seen the native
plants return.
In sensitive habitats, OC Parks tries to
disturb as little as possible, plucking invasive individuals and allowing the land
to repopulate with natives. " A very difficult species to get a handle on is arundo
[giant reed], " says Naegle, " but if you can
stay on top of it, the area repopulates itself
with natives, and that's ideal. "


oc parks

plants. She likens English ivy vines strangling a tree to a daily smoking habit: " It
won't kill you immediately, but the long
term effects are horrific, " Palmatier says,
who feels a sense of pride in removing all
the ivy that once plagued trees in Lacey
Woods Park.
In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a similar
Weed Out program organizes volunteers
to remove a range of invasive species,
says Jim Goulee, executive director of The
Park People of Milwaukee, which acts as
citizen stewards of 15,000 acres of parks.
Soft vegetation-such as garlic mustard-is hand-pulled in the spring; come
fall, volunteers hack away with tools at
woody invasives such as Japanese honeysuckle. " We concentrate more on natural
areas that have great value, " says Goulee, whose group supplies the tools, along
with a knowledgeable volunteer coordinator who kicks off each session with an
explanation about the threat of invasives.
English ivy impacts about 30 percent of
Portland, Oregon, park acreage, according to Rachel Felice, stewardship coordinator for Portland Parks and Recreation.
" It becomes a monoculture: it establishes,
takes over and grows vertically up trees,
causing them to fall over, " Felice says. Ivy
also smothers ground vegetation.
Portland's No Ivy League hires teens
to remove invasives by hand five days a
week; in fall, winter, and spring, they lead
twice-monthly volunteer work parties.
During the annual autumn No Ivy Day,
hundreds of gloved volunteers tackle ivy
at a dozen locations.
To date, the group has removed
ground ivy across nearly 100 acres and
has saved over 15,000 trees. " We have a
fine-toothed comb and a course brush.
We might use herbicide in a heavily infested area, but use hand-pulling in an
area with lighter infestation and natives, "
says Felice. " Doing any sort of restoration
project is ... an ongoing battle. "
A team of hardy weed warriors can
only do so much, and hand-pulling has
its drawbacks-some weeds may get
left behind to seed, seed banks may be

April 2011 - Parks & Recreation

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of April 2011 - Parks & Recreation