CENTRAL WEST SIDE

Invasive Thicket on the Central West Side

The area and the project are best described in the following two photos from Google Earth Pro.  The first photo shows the area in May 2018 and the second shows the same area in April 2021 after our Spring Volunteer Day when we planted meadow grass in the area cleared of invasives.  (Note the section of the swale in the upper right section of the photos and the corner of the Ridgetop Recreation Association tennis court in the upper left corner.)  

In the second photo, you can discern the orange colored fencing which was put up to protect the area and let the meadow grass come up.  All of the area between the orange fence and the tree line represents the area cleared of a thicket of invasive species.

As in several other of our invasive species projects, control of the invasives started with FOBFNP bringing in RVA Goats, whose November 2020 stay included time in the Pine Grove area as well in this section.  The photo of the goats in this area shows how thick and nearly impenetrable this area was.  Visible in the photo is Japanese honeysuckle vine and Himalayan blackberry, but the area also contained English ivy and wintercreeper.

After the goats left, a mass of woody vines remained.

Dedicated volunteers spent weeks using various means to clear out the area so the area could be planted in meadow grass.  We relied on the City of Richmond Parks and Recreation Department to haul out several dump truck loads of debris.

Having completed clearing the area, one of the projects at the Spring 2021 Volunteer Day was to put down meadow grass seed and protect it with straw and fencing.

As the grass came up, a happy coincidence: In one section of the cleared area, hundreds of shoots of the native perennial dogbane came up in the area previously overtaken with invasive species.

Currently, we leave a section of this area unmowed so that the dogbane will continue to have a place to grow.