SOUTHWEST EDGE

Invasive Thicket on the Southwest Edge

Work on the invasive thicket on the southwest edge of the park (section adjacent to the Sons and Daughters of Ham Cemetery) is ongoing. The invasives here include tree of heaven, Himalayan blackberry, and the English ivy, wintercreeper, porcelain-berry vine, and Japanese honeysuckle vine. If left alone, these invasives encroach further and further into the field as well as the vines traveling up into the trees (which will weaken and eventually kill the trees).

The principal project for the Spring 2019 Volunteer Day was to push this thicket of invasives back to the treeline, and plant the area in meadow grass so that continuous mowing would kill the roots of the invasives.

Here are before pictures from March 2019; note that the light brown thin tree stems without boughs are all tree of heaven and the green vines are mostly Himalayan blackberry and Japanese honeysuckle vine.

Also indicating the extent of the invasive thicket is this picture of volunteers trying to rescue a tree smothered by Japanese honeysuckle vine.

After cutting out the larger vines in the area, volunteers used a brushcutter and a mower to cut the thick mesh of vines near the ground, then raked out the debris.

Here are photos of the area after applying meadow grass seed and straw and fencing off the area.

We didn’t have the time and resources to complete work on the entire edge area, but we did use the brush cutter to cut the invasive thicket back to the treeline over the entire Southwest edge.

We relied on the City of Richmond Parks and Recreation Department to dispose of the considerable quantity of debris generated.