As promised, I recruited individual families to continue the work of removing Garlic mustard from the trail. Two parents and their two little girls enjoyed clambering along the hillsides of the trail pulling Garlic mustard and bagging it for disposal. This family had participated in the 2019 I Love My Park Day and were pleased to have the opportunity to continue the work the following May.
In July the Considine brothers offered to help. They walked with me along a section of the trail, learning to ID the invasive species that had emerged in this section that we have been managing for years and pulled every single plant they could find, including Bittersweet and Garlic mustard that was just about to drop its seeds. Kudos to Joey, Brian, Mitch and Bart. Can you guess which two are twins?
In September, the NYNJ Trail Conference Stewards who had been stationed along the Aqueduct on weekends and holidays all spring, summer, and fall managing visitors to the Unique Area and serving as Aqueduct Trail ambassadors expressed an interest in learning to manage invasive plants. They spent a full day receiving on-site training in identification and removal techniques. Here are two photos showing them at work.
In October, three of them participated in the Riverkeeper Sweep along the OCA.
See the next blog entry.