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Fall and winter work accomplished in the northern section of the trail adopted by Diane Alden

| DAlden

The work on the trail continued this past season.  The donations the Friends made to the NY- NJ Invasives Strike Force (ISF) and to Wild Woods Restoration Project (WWRP) were well spent and well deserved since these organizations did some very impactful work on the trail.  Teatown staff and the NY-NJ Trail Conference’s Stewards also made some significant contributions.

The weekend of September 7 and September 8 started the fall season on the trail with the ISF

Twelve volunteers assisted the 6 Invasives Strike Force crew members in managing mainly Barberry bushes, plus many other invasive plants and bushes on Saturday, September 7, with assistance from one of the NY-NJ Trail Stewards.  They made enormous difference on the trail, so it will be safer for trail walkers with fewer dangerous tick-harboring Barberry bushes.  The Deputy  Supervisor of the Town of Cortlandt, Jim Creighton, came to cheer us on.

The group made a significant find: a whole cluster of invasive Linden viburnum bushes with red berries; the berries were carefully bagged for disposal and the bushes cut and flagged for treatment in the afternoon. Look closely for the red berries.

The plants removed were carefully distributed along the edge of the trail for future retrieval by the State Parks crew members.

Continuing the work

Five ISF crew members came to move further down the trail on Sunday September 8, along with 6 volunteers, including two moms with their 10 year old sons, both named Ben!  A trail steward also participated.

In the morning everyone worked energetically to dig out invasive plants and cut some of the larger ones and flag them to identify them for later herbicide treatment by the ISF crew.

They gathered up the cut ones for placement along the edges of the trail for the State Parks crew to remove at a future date.

In the afternoon  I took charge of the volunteers and brought them south on the trail so the ISF crew members could do the herbicide treatment of the plants that had been flagged, away from the volunteers.

We focused on removing stilt grass from some areas where we had found some native plants; this will encourage them to spread and flourish.

September 15, 2024 Native planting day

Thirteen volunteers and seven Invasives Strike force crew members including yours truly worked on planting with Linda Rohleder from the Wildwoods Native Restoration Project on the OCA.  They worked all day to do the planting, and then watered the plants along the way.  We drafted two additional OCA neighbors to help with planting and photography. Amazing work!

We planted a total of 507 native, ecotype plants across 5 locations on the Old Croton Aqueduct trail in the Croton-on-Hudson area. The sites had previously been cleared of invasives during past I Love My Parks Day events and on-going volunteer work. The total area planted was about 0.2 acres. The plants used include a few plants provided by Hilltop Hanover Farm, plants grown from seed provided by Hilltop Hanover Farm, plants rescued from Scenic Hudson’s Black Creek Preserve in advance of a parking lot expansion, and many plants grown from seed collected by WWRP volunteers. WWRP provided tree tubes and the Friends provided stakes for the spicebushes that were planted.

Site 1 (ostrich fern area): 32 White turtlehead (Chelone glabra) planted in a 856.3 square foot area.

Site 2 (alcove): 20 Christmas fern (Polystichum acrostichoides), 32 Blue heart- leaved aster (Symphyotrichum cordifolium), 32 Bottlebrush grass (Elymus hystrix), 32 White snakeroot (Ageratina altissima), 32 Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) in a 2748 square foot area.

Site 3 (wall): 11 Christmas fern (Polystichum acrostichoides), 64 White wood aster (Eurybia divaricata), 31 Blue-stem goldenrod (Solidago caesia), 64 Swan’s sedge (Carex swanii) in a 703.9 square foot area.

First, we staged the plants.  And then we got work planting them.

Here is what it looked like after we finished planting them and watered them.

Site 4 (Spicebush area): 20 Spicebush (Lindera benzoin), 64 Blue heart- leaved aster (Symphyotrichum cordifolium), 36 Virginia jumpseed (Polygonum virginiana), 32 White wood asters (Eurybia divaricata), in a 2756.4 square foot area.  We used tree tubes to protect the Spicebush saplings and special augers to dig the holes.

If you are wondering where Wild Woods obtained the seeds to grow these Spicebush saplings, look no further.  With permission, Linda gathered them for the Old Croton Aqueduct.  Spicebushes have separate male and female bushes; they both flower; the pollen from the male flowers are brought by pollinators to the female flowers which eventually produce lovely red berries.  Linda had no trouble finding enough to plant and nurture last season.  Here is a photo of Spicebushes on the trail taken in November of 2021; they are the yellow bushes thriving along the edges of the trail. If the saplings we planted thrive, this is what we can expect:

 

And for a special treat, take a look at this Spicebush caterpillar I found roaming on the trail in August of 2022, looking for a place to make its chrysalis.   I originally found it on a ventilator and I moved it to a nearby Spicebush.

Site 5 (Turtlehead area): 27 White turtlehead (Chelone glabra), 10 Honewort (Cryptotaenia canadensis) in a 1633.6 square foot area.

This is a very special area.  The white flowers in the picture are mature Turtlehead blooms.  Last year Diane Alden gathered seeds after the blossoms were finished, Linda and her volunteers planted them and took care of the seedlings all year, and brought them back to this area to plant them in bare areas to increase the size of this patch.  Many years ago, this area was covered by invasive multi-flora rose bushes that were removed by volunteers and since there were Turtlehead seeds in the ground, the emerged.  So, this area is completely transformed.

 

Adventures in the Briar Patch

This photo was taken on May 4th during  I Love My Park Day.  The volunteers were digging out the Wild Chervil plants, a whilte flowering invasive plant, along with Wineberry, Multiflora rose and others and weighed them, for a total of 225 pounds.  They were led by crew leaders Leigh Draper and Eva Georgi from Teatown.  Eva suggested that although there were some good native plants interspersed, it would make sense to plant some native, aggressive roses to compete with some of the invasive plants that remained.

She offered to donate over 50 plants of Rosa Carolina- common name: Pasture Rose.  They were being maintained in a bed at Teatown as bare root and so we accepted.  We set a fall date of October4 for the planting since the NY-NJ Trail Stewards were available that day to help.

However in the meantime some invasive plants had taken over, including Stilt grass, Mug wort,  Wineberry and others.

 

What to do?  I had arranged for the NY NJ Trail Conference’s ISF to spend the afternoon of September 15th removing what they could, since they were already planning to help with the restoration planting led by Wild Woods Restoration Project in the morning and should have the afternoon available.  But no, Linda Rohleder brought so many plants that we could not get them all planted in the morning, despite the help of the 10 volunteers.  So, the Strike Force completed the planting that day as detailed above.

While I was thrilled to have so many plants in the ground, I expressed my distress that the invasive removal could not be done.  Hearing my lament, the ISF crew members suggested that I request that they return.  Request I did and my entreaty was granted.  All seven returned on September 29th to work in the Briar Patch.  Although I was out of town Leigh Draper volunteered to return to provide guidance to the ISF crew.  Here are photos from that day.

 

Here are the invasive plants removed and all piled up waiting for our Parks crew to remove them when they can.

Since Eva recommended that it would be best if the roses could be mulched with wood chips, I arranged for a load to be delivered to the site the day before.

And then Eva arrived to deliver the roses.  We put them in a barrel of water while we arranged to make space for them (remove more invasive plants) and dig the holes.

Leigh Draper with verve and energy led the charge for one last ditch effort to remove invasive plants to make space for the roses.

Proud Trail Stewards with their bounty

 

We arranged to bring water to the site and the planting and watering began:

Then came the mulching

Here is a close up of one of the rose bushes:

Here is an overview of the site at the end of the day.

 

This is the group of Trail Stewards on their last day working on the Aqueduct.  The previous blog included many photos of their invasive removal work during the season.  And the blog about the Ossining Youth Bureau shows their work mentoring the high school students for two days of invasive removal work on the trail.

The final chapter of the story occurred in late December when the three newly hired Parks Crew members came with their shiny new green truck and removed all of the piles of the invasive plants that had been staged along the edges of the trail.  The trail is now ready for the emergence of native plants next spring.