On Sat, Nov 1, we held our monthly Invasive Pull. For the first time in the history of Free the Fern our invasive pull fell on a very wet, rainy day.
But, the rain didn’t keep our volunteers away! 17 people gathered at the Douglas Fir Teaching Garden. In light of the weather, we decided to forgo our standard welcome stretch and, instead, grabbed our gloves and headed straight up to the trail.
We proceeded up the Red Alder trail, to the north/east edge of Kinross Creek Co-op. Our focus was on removing invasive lamium ground cover and some pesky Himalayan blackberry. A big maple tree had nearly dropped all its leaves on the ground, so we began by raking the leaves aside before we got our shovels out to dig out the invasive plants.
Grace Nombrado, Free the Fern Executive Director, shared a rhyme to remember how to identify lamimum, which has green and white verigated leaves:
Mary had a little lamium
Its fleece (or its leaf!) was white as snow
As for Himalayan blackberry, Grace shared that, when mature, it grows leaves in groups of five, vs. native trailing blackberry whose leaves grow in groups of three, so:
If it has five let it die
If it has three let it be
After removing 180L of lamium and Himalayan blackberry, we planted 40 plants: 36 woodland strawberry, 1 red flowering currant, and 1 oceanspray.
We then took a break for some hot chocolate, tea, and snacks. The volunteers were very wet in teh rain, so some decided to leave early (or had other commitments). The remaining volunteers dediced to head back up the trail and shift gears to focus on removing invasive ivy.
Ivy is an invasive ground cover that spreads to form a dense carpet on the forest floor. Eventually, it will begin to climb our local trees. If a tree is completely covered in ivy, then it can’t get enough sunlight and can die.
Together, we succeeded in removing 660L of ivy. So, all together, we removed 840L of invasive plants at our pull! So, despite the rain, it was quite a success!
Thank you to our volunteers: Connie, Doe, Erin, Evan Grace, Greg & Greg’s mom, Hulya, Jeannine, Jennifer, Liam, Robin, Rosanna, Sung, Trevor, and Veronika.
WE were happy to partner again with Curiko for this event. We hope that those with intellectual disablities can feel welcome at our events. We believe strongly that nature is for everyone!
Funding for this event was provided by Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation, as part of our Nature is for Everyone Project.