| <div class="ck-content"><h3>Join NC-IPC In Wilmington!</h3><div class="raw-html-embed"><img src="https://drive.google.com/thumbnail?id=1nJDZDkIj9DtLqmB_C9Kp0bSosUf8PWhD&sz=w600-h400" alt="REPLACE"></div><p>The North Carolina Invasive Plant Council (NC-IPC) is holding its annual symposium February 11 - 13 in Wilmington. <strong>I've been asked to kick things off with a presentation titled “Volunteers to the Rescue!”</strong> I bet you can guess what it is going to about…it's going to be about <i><strong>you</strong></i> and all the wonderful things we have done together over the past few years. And it's going to be about how important it is to recruit volunteers to restore our native ecosystems, first and foremost by ridding them of invasives.</p><p>You can read more about the symposium and its agenda <a href="https://nc-ipc.weebly.com/2025-annual-symposium.html">here</a>. I hope you can join us! </p><h3>2024 - Leigh Farm Park on the road to recovery</h3><p>Early in 2024, I was contacted by staff at the wonderful Piedmont Wildlife Center. They are based in Town of Durham's Leigh Farm Park and they were hoping to have it approved as a wildlife habitat by the New Hope Bird Alliance. Unfortunately, there were waaaaay too man invasive plants for that certification. One of their volunteers had helped at Brumley and she suggested they talk to me.</p><p>I was excited to add another park to my "itinerary" and started holding tree rescues there at least once a month. In the end, we held 45 events in this park in 2024.</p><p>Chinese privet was the main focus of our work. It had spread widely and thickly. There was also no shortage of Bradford pear, ailanthus (Tree of Heaven) and mimosa. </p><p>Speaking of mimosa, A very lovely tree.**</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><img src="https://drive.google.com/thumbnail?id=1WP_9yLgRons0A8HlkO_80xTpNrHfNyV6&sz=w600-h400" alt="REPLACE"></div><p>Leigh Farm Park was the first place I'd really experienced it as an <i>invasive</i>. By which I mean, I've seen them elsewhere (most notably Morgan Creek Greenway, see ** below). And no question they were spreading there, but they were also scattered and didn't seem to present an obvious threat. Well. After several months of clearing privet at LFP, a disc golfer told me about an area of the park that had lots of wisteria. It was distant from where we've been working, so I hiked over there and, wow, yes lots of wisteria. But it was also <i>full</i> of mimosa - including lots of really<i> big</i> mimosa. Clearly, a damaging invasive species.</p><p>Here's a picture I took that points out all the mimosa in just one small section.</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><img src="https://drive.google.com/thumbnail?id=1TvwV045IP-B9ACdkxmjNqlboj2QtcVHN&sz=w600-h400" alt="REPLACE"></div><p>And boy did the chainsaw come in handy.</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><img src="https://drive.google.com/thumbnail?id=13ROq7-uyq8A9hSuiAFqOHw4NosgqY_Z5&sz=w600-h400" alt="REPLACE"></div><p>The tree on the right was too big to cut down. As in: I'd probably hurt myself and also crush a bunch of native trees. So, instead, I <i>girdled</i> the tree. This means I cut through the <a href="https://www.arborday.org/tree-guide/anatomy-tree">cambium layer </a>all around and then squirted in some herbicide. There was so much mimosa, and so many of them large, full of leaves and flowers, that we could do little more than cut them down. It was quite a mess, but that's OK. Over the next year or two, they will dry, and then they will decay and contribute to the next generation of native trees.</p><p>On the plus side, lots of Leigh Farm Park's 82 acres is in really good condition, with lush landscapes full of natives, including a multitude of lovely American holly. So many big, beautiful hollies, in fact, that I think they should change the name of the park to Holly Land. 🙂</p><p>As with Brumley Preserve, slow and steady wins the race. By holding lots of events (32), by obtaining the help of several "regulars" plus a whole lot of high school students from several different Durham institutions (including Green Hope and Durham School of the Arts), we have had an enormous impact in a relatively short amount of time.</p><p>For sure, we created some of the biggest piles of privet I've ever seen. These aren't "habitat piles" (places for small creatures to evade predators). They are habitat hotels, habitat multiplexes...and a testament to many hours of hard work.</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><img src="https://drive.google.com/thumbnail?id=1l0hD_MerwPGhL9t27zi_ZdusrJtuVKWT&sz=w600-h400" alt="REPLACE"></div><p>There's still more to do, of course, but the worst of the invasives in main area of the park where PWC operates is largely free of invasives.</p><h3>Bye bye wisteria, hello lovely shroom!</h3><p>About nine months ago, I cut down the wisteria vines that were killing several 40 foot trees near Booker Creek. The largest vine was so big that I ended up using an axe to cut all the way through it. And now? It is a host for these lovely, large mushrooms!</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><img src="https://drive.google.com/thumbnail?id=1JwS97VjU4wzbx1bVnAGY2vcgwwRWljKy&sz=w600-h400" alt="REPLACE"></div><h3>Please: keep your cats indoors</h3><p>I came across this death scene near Bolin Creek last week.</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><img src="https://drive.google.com/thumbnail?id=1RfOozPDaGexXOnQbT24PL9uajKAwR3Sz&sz=w600-h400" alt="REPLACE"></div><p>Domestic cats are lovely creatures - and <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380">incredibly competent killers</a>, especially of birds. Please don't let them outside off leash.</p><p>This got me wondering: keeping a cat inside all the time seems so wrong (we'd never do that to a dog), and letting them roam and kill outside also seems wrong. Why <i>don't </i>we take our cats out on leashes, like we do with dogs? </p><h4>** The lovey mimosa, a sort of amusing story</h4><p>the very first location I worked with official approval (as opposed to "guerrilla operations" on the sly) was the Morgan Creek Greenway, through Town of Chapel Hill's <a href="https://www.townofchapelhill.org/government/departments-services/parks-and-recreation/parks/adopt-a-park-greenway">Adopt a Greenway</a> program. My main focus was Chinese privet, and then omg Dahurian buckthorn in Merritt's pasture. There was a bunch of mimosa, including several large trees, growing right over the creek. But I had bigger threats to focus on. As I worked there in 2022 and 2023, I got to know lots of the “regulars”, mostly older folk who walked the greenway on a regular basis. this included one very friendly fellow who asked lots of questions and was very supportive. </p><p>Then one day I finally got disgusted with the mimosa and spent a couple of afternoons cutting down the big ones with my trusty <a href="https://silkysaws.com/silky-katanaboy-500-folding-saw/">Katanaboy saw</a> (a Silky handsaw designed to “replace” power chainsaws; I couldn't use a chainsaw on the steep creekbank, so they were my tool of choice). A month later, my friend stopped by to say hi and asked if I'd cut down the mimosa. “Oh yes,” I replied enthusiastically, “they were really a problem, dropping those seed pods into Morgan Creek!” Well, you know how we all have our <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_line_(phrase)">red lines</a>, right?</p><p>His eyes started shooting out sparks. “But they are so beautiful! I can't believe you did that! That's, that's….” (at this point he was sputtering he was so angry) “.…that's xenophobic!”</p><p>At which point I realized that he'd done some on-line searching, found some articles by people who have developed some very interesting perspectives</p></div><div class="ck-content"><h3>Receive all my reports on tree rescues</h3><p>If you'd like to get some good news about restoring native habitats delivered straight to your brain upwards of a few times a week, sign in to <a href="https://rewildearth.net">Rewild Earth</a>, click on your name in top right, then My profile. Under Communication Preferences, switch “Send reports of all events” to ON. </p><div class="raw-html-embed"><img src="https://drive.google.com/thumbnail?id=1BeynVqu8taOGrsvi56u0mmDKuNJko22h&sz=w600-h400" alt="REPLACE" width="358" height="138"></div><h3>Resources you might find useful</h3><ul><li><a href="https://shop.naisma.org/collections/buckthorn-blaster">Buckthorn Blasters</a>: safe, easy herbicide delivery system from the North American Invasive Species Management Association. Don't start cutting without them! Note: I now recommend that you buy one of these, but otherwise invest in more generic (and much much less expensive) <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Dab-Ink-Pack-Bingo-Daubers/dp/B00FNXGX46">bingo daubers</a> that are exactly the same, except for being opaque).</li><li><a href="https://nc-ipc.weebly.com/nc-invasive-plants.html">NC Invasive Plants list</a>: recently updated by NC-IPC, the NC Invasives Plants Council.</li><li><a href="https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/AG259">Overview of different herbicides</a>: glyposphate, triclopyr and others - which should you use?</li><li>Volunteer for <a href="https://triangleland.org">Triangle Land Conservancy</a>: the biggest land conservancy group in our area. </li><li>Volunteer for <a href="https://ellerbecreek.org">Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association</a> (Durham): a wonderful group working hard to maintain contiguous natural areas along Ellerbe Creek.</li></ul></div> |