Greenbelt Restoration Work Party: June 30, 2018

On June 30th, we held another forest restoration work party. Twenty-three students from the University of Washington’s Introduction to Environmental Science class attended, along with a young man who has been helping at work parties in various Seattle parks. Three GreenFriends members and a neighbor served as team leaders.

This post will include photos of each team’s work followed by before and after photos of the area where they were working.

Team One worked in a part of the site that was heavily covered with blackberry vines and bindweed. They removed the vines and dug out the blackberry root balls. [Note: There are pictures of bindweed and links to information about several of the invasive vines in my  June 22 work party blog post.]

(Click on any of the galleries to enlarge the photos.)

Before 

These photos below may give you a sense of how dense the plants in his area were when we started. The second photo is of a student removing bindweed in the same section of the site during a previous work party. I am including it because it also shows you how dense the foliage was.

After 

The area where Team Two worked was covered by creeping buttercup plants, blackberry vines and bindweed, all of which are invasive.

Before

After

Team Three helped weed a planting area that had blackberry vines scattered throughout. Some were just emerging from the ground and some were well established. They also weeded two planting areas that were full of horsetails and bindweed, in addition to  some blackberry vines.

Horsetails are native plants and we try to leave them alone. They had become a problem, however, because they had grown in so close together that they impeded the growth of the trees, shrubs and ground covers we had planted. We’ve had more plants die in these two areas than in any other part of the site. Also, bindweed had wrapped so tightly around many of the horsetails that it was often impossible to remove the bindweed without damaging the fragile horsetails.

I remembered a plant ecologist once telling me the horesetails were here before the dinosaurs and they will be here long into the future. At this work party the volunteers removed the horesetails that were close to each of the new plants or in the path between the two areas, and left the rest of them alone. To learn more about horsetails click here.

Before 

After

Team Four worked on a strip of land that borders 25th Avenue S. It is in the Greenbelt site that is just north of ours. Some students worked in an area that had blackberry shoots and grass scattered randomly throughout. Others cleared land that was covered by large and well established blackberry vines.

Before 

You can get a sense of how dense the foliage was by looking again at the photos in the gallery just above this statement. Know that those were taken after the team had already done a lot of work. If I had remembered to take “before” photos you would have seen that dense blackberry vines had covered almost all of this area.

After

The photos below show what the area looked like when the team finished. None of these logs and downed trees could be seen at the beginning of the work party. There is also a photo of one of the two drying racks the group built. [Note: The volunteers place the invasive plants on the rack after they are removed, so that they don’t touch the ground and re-root.]

As always, we had accomplished so much during the three hour work party. I enjoyed seeing so many happy and enthusiastic volunteers both throughout the work party and when they were saying goodbye. They thanked the staff profusely as they left.

I believe that this work in the forest is so nurturing for everyone’s body, mind and soul. I know it is for mine.