On Saturday, December 4, Free the Fern member, Susan Atkey, hosted a very successful Invasive Weed Pull along the Red Alder Trail, adjacent to the Cartier Place Townhomes. 14 volunteers, from the ages of 4 to over 70 years old, showed up to lend a hand with removing invasive English ivy, English holly, and Himalayan blackberry.
The morning was blessed with a rare burst of sunshine, rather than the rain and snow as predicted. Joe focused his attention on removing a giant holly bush. Anne and Doug kept working on untangling and delicately removing the ivy entwined with a patch of braken ferns. First time community pull volunteer, Mya, diligently worked to remove ivy entangled in between native bushes and plants. Martin used his strength to dig out ivy and blackberry root balls. While several kids along with other adult volunteers joined in to help with pulling ivy roots and getting in to the difficult to reach spots. A lot of hazardous long buried garbage was unearthed and removed, including a light bulb fixture, rusty metal sheets, survey spikes, and fencing.
In the end, volunteers succeeded in removing 5 giant piles of invasive weeds, totaling 3,120 L or 11 city green bins in volume! Everyone should be proud of their hard work. Thank you to Susan and your team from Cartier Place for organizing such a successful event. We look forward to planting native plants in this stewardship area next year, using funds from our Art for Plants Fundraiser.
Photos below by Susan Atkey
