Despite forecast of rain or snow, we were blessed with bright beams of sunlight shining through the Douglas fir trees. 16 amazing volunteers came out to help along the Red Alder Trail for our monthly invasive pull, including 5 volunteers from Wild Outside.
Together, we removed an incredible 2,400 L of invasive plants, including ivy, Himalayan blackberry, and Daphne. Due to its toxicity, the Daphne will be picked up and properly disposed of by the City of Vancouver on Monday. While, the rest of the invasive plants were safely piled or disposed of in city green bins.
Today, several volunteers applied the “rolling up ivy like a carpet” technique, with incredible success. This is a great way to effectively remove ivy from the forest floor. You gently pull up its shallow roots as your roll it. After you have it in a large roll, you can cut any remaining vines holding it down with large loppers. The entire roll of ivy can then be deposited in a City of Vancouver green bin.
For 7 of the volunteers it was their first time volunteering with Free the Fern and for many it was their first time ever removing invasive plants! Lots of learning for everyone. We freed quite a few native plants from the invasives, including: flowering osoberry, oceanspray, snowberry, and salal.
What a glorious day!!
We look forward to future partnerships with Wild Outside this Spring.
Thank you to Park People and Green Streets Program for making our stewardship effort possible.
Special thanks to all our 16 amazing volunteers for your help: Alex, Annette, Barbara, Carla, Ellie, Emma, Grace, Jeannine, Jodie, Kiran, Laura, Mattias, Mehak, Robin, Sylvia, and Tom.