By Tina Roselle, Garlic Mustard Challenge Coordinator

Brush Strokes A Word From Executive Director Lisa Brush BrushStrokes

The Stewardship Network is here to build connections between the many amazing groups out there working to care for the lands and waters that support life on Earth. In that role, we hear of the successes, challenges, opportunities, and needs of groups across the Great Lakes, from state and federal agencies to volunteer groups in local parks. Sharing our stories is an important part of the work we all do as stewards. Tell-ing our stories helps other people understand why we do what we do; it brings more people around to our cause and helps us reconnect with our own reasons for doing this work.

That’s why we decided to use this issue of The Ripple Effect to tell your stories. Just as our fragmented lands and waters are parts of a complete, interconnected system, so are our individual efforts parts of a larger, interconnected movement. Whether we work with wildflowers or wildlife, woods or waters, we all do this work because we want to support healthy ecosystems. When one group or project struggles, so does our over-arching goal of supporting nature. And when another group or project meets with success, we all celebrate the benefits. We hope you enjoy, share, and are inspired by the stories in this issue. If you feel so inclined, drop me an email with your story. I’d love to hear it!

I hope this issue finds you enjoying your summer.

Cheers-

Lisa

The 2012 Garlic Mustard Challenge started with some pretty lofty goals. We had hoped

that we could collectively pull 200,000 pounds of Garlic Mustard and have 20 Garlic Mustard Free Sites.

I never imagined that we would have exceed-ed the poundage goal by more than 147,000

pounds (or the weight of a Boeing 737) for an astounding total of 347,491 pounds. Wow! Here are some other pretty impressive facts from The Challenge:

*It took over 38,000 hours to pull allthat garlic mustard!

*We received 829 garlic mustard pull reports ranging from 3.5 to 19,500 pounds!

*Efforts were made on 178,522 total acres!

*Reports came in from all over the Northeast and Midwest including places as far away as

Missouri, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Vermont, Minnesota, and Ontario!

We also exceeded our Garlic Mustard Free Sites goal with a total of 24 reported

sites and an inkling that there are many more that didn’t get reported. be sure to check out the Garlic Mustard Challenge Blog at http://garlicmustardchallenge.wordpress.com/ to see who won the Cluster Cup in each division (that announcement coming in the next week)!

Finally, I would like sincerely thank every-one who participated in the 2012 Garlic

Mustard Challenge. You each are doing such amazing work and it is humbling to see the impact when we have together.

2012 Garlic Mustard Challenge is in the Bag!

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Summer 2012

“The Stewardship Network is a dynamic organization with the creativity and organization skills to work well within the conservation community. It has a great reputation within our agency for organizing and actually getting

things done on the ground.” -Christopher Hoving, Michigan DNR

Comings and Goings

STEPS for Kids is a 501c3 organization, based in Ann Arbor’s Pinelake Cooperative, a low income housing devel-opment. STEPS’ mission is to expose disadvantaged children to experiences that will inspire them to improve their futures. STEPS’ main warm weather ac-tivity is to rescue the spring-fed Montrio Pond on the grounds of Pinelake from the damage done by development in this neighborhood.

To date, STEPS has several environmental accomplish-ments at Montrio Pond. First, with the help of the City water engineer, Jerry Hancock, we have solved a major hydraulic problem in the neighborhood. Montrio was overflowing its banks, flooding neighborhood back yards, sinking its own fences that protected a wealth of local wetland plants, and eat-ing away the fragile banks on which they grew. This problem

has been solved, and the flood-ing into the neighborhood has ended. Second, Hancock strongly urged us to plant native plants along Montrio’s banks to stabi-lize them, and to purify the run-off from 12 apartment building roofs and their associated roads and parking places. Talk about preaching to the choir! But this was a voice of authority See STEPS, Page 4

Kids Taking Big STEPS for Nature

Inkster Families Learn about Local Wetlands

The Middle Park Manor Block Club hosted the Inkster

Parkwood Park Summer Sci-ence Fun Day on 6/16 to raise neighborhood awareness of a rare wetlands located at the park. River Raisin Institute offered a Bugs N More workshop to about 40 adults and children inter-

ested in learning more about what wetlands do and why it’s important to care for them. Pat Sanders col-lected samples of the macroinver-tebrates living in the wetland at the park. Children and adults enjoyed identifying these small animals that help determine the health of the ecosystem.

July has been a big month for The Stewardship Network! Aside from having just wrapped up (or wrapping up) our Spring Membership Drive and our Garlic Mustard Challenge, we’ve also had some staff changes to tell you about.

Spencer Kellum, Conservation Specialist

Spencer starts this month as the Conservation Specialist for the Raisin Cluster. This is a new position for The Stewardship Network, and we’re excited to have Spencer to fill it! Spen-cer is coming home to the River Raisin area from St. Louis Missouri, where he studied Environmental Science at Saint Louis University. This role is being funded by a Sustain Our Great Lakes grant. Welcome, Spencer!

Brandon Krieg, Community Relations &

Fundraising Manager

We say good-bye this month to Brandon Krieg as he moves on to his next adventure! Brandon has worked in sponsorship and fundraising at the Network since 2009, and has established some great systems that we will continue to use. Brandon, we’re sorry to see you go and we look forward to hearing about the great things you’re up to next!

Raisin ClusterDeveloping Land

Management PlansAug. 4, Saturday

10:00 am to 12:00 noon

Southwest Corner ClusterWorkday with Stewards

of Kleinstuck Aug. 12, Sunday

3:00 pm to 5:00 pm

Upcoming Events

by Diane Macaulay, STEPS for Kids

by Sharon Venier, River Raisin Institute

Raisin ClusterRiver Raisin Networking

Aug. 16, Thursday 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm

Lakeplain ClusterBelle Isle Habitat Tour

Aug. 4, Saturday 10:00 am to 12:00 noon

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“The Stewardship Network has a demon-strated ability to get multiple stakeholders to work together in a harmonious way. They do

this as well as, or better than, anyone else.” -John Curry, NFWF

Selected Poems By David Sharpe

Several years ago, after moving to Michigan from the Chicago area, my husband Ken and I discovered a gem of a small woodland garden just down river from Dexter at the Dexter-Huron Metropark. The first inkling of this discovery was in the spring of 2009, as we explored the short woodland trail, and found the largest patch of wild ginger we’d seen in many excursions to the woods – and certainly very different woods from the dry upland woods at Hudson Mills Metropark, just a bit up river. The problem was that among the rich moist ginger patch was also a murder of huge, healthy garlic mustard (GM). Thus began our multi-year multi-visit to Dexter-Huron (DH) in pursuit of saving the ginger patch from invasion, and discovering so much more in this woodland gem, and learning much more about garlic mustard management strategy.

At first, the task appeared overwhelming. We are used to “workdays” and working several hours at a time to pull as much as you can and bag ‘em up. At the same time, we were also working to rid our 2 acre woodland yard of the huge seedbank of GM that had been established there over several years – and learned that even though we cleared an area “100%” one week, another week would go by and another batch would be coming up. So we got

back to the ginger patch at DH several times that first spring, and diligently pursued every last GM. As the spring weeks went along, the ginger patch was also changing – now to a healthy patch of waterleaf. This was a lovely reward for our work – but we realized we’d need to keep coming back to continue to de-plete the GM seedbank, and to hopefully, work on the rest of the woodland – which also showed promise of rewards, but was also substantially infected with GM.

In the spring of 2010, we had help! Metroparks had started “workdays” and had coordinated a garlic mustard pull at Dexter-Huron along with REI, which brought a great gang of GM hunters out, filled up the pick-up with dozens of bags of GM, and all were rewarded with a colorful REI volunteer t-shirt. This effort helped clear a much larger sec-tion of the park than the original ginger patch, and we continued to visit every couple of weeks to search out new GM pioneers. The ginger patch continued to do well, and one of the new dis-coveries on the other side of the trail, and slightly drier area, was a huge patch of false rue anemone (Isopyrum biternatum) – rarely seen in this quantity – and we worked diligently to clear this area as well.

In the spring of 2011, GM

continued to proliferate from the established seed bank, and with the approval of the Metroparks, we used herbi-cide (2% glyphosate) to spray the dense areas of seedlings, including some areas of the park where we had not yet had a chance to work on pulling, and some areas near the edge where plants formed a hedge and mowers continued to carry seeds along. The spray definitely helped these areas, but some plants come up later and escape being sprayed. Metroparks again had a work-day and the many volunteers again helped enormously with removal of many bags of GM, and we also continued our regular patrols every week or so, now for the first time, covering the “whole woods” - all 7 acres. Our early trips were rewarded with huge patches of trout lilies, and as these faded, next came the large patches of toothwort, in addition to the may apples, ginger, isopyrum, and more treasures.

Spring of 2012 brought more GM, more workdays, more volunteers, more bags – but our biggest reward as yet – no GM hedge ringing the woodland – and an

Dexter-Huron Metropark Woodland Restoration and Rewards

Finlandia Gardens By David Sharpe, MNA Board of Directors,

Founder of Finlandia Gardens of the Finnish Center Association

The development of Fin-landia Gardens includes

an evolution to the green concept including the collection of 800 gallons of rainwater from our wood shop roof, composting, recycling, a greenhouse, en-abling gardens and much more. A visit to our gardens could be enlightening. This

is evolution has taken place on six acres in Farmington Hills. We like to think of our-selves as an urban habitat. We are part of the Finnish Center Association finn-ishcenter.org. You can find out more about Finlandia Gardens at the website finlandiagardens.org.

Finlandia Gardens

Beauty lies in these fair gardens.Years bring progress on the way.

Moments spent in contemplation Add peace and comfort to your stay. Who will wander through the flora

Spending time amid the day? Mother Nature offers solace

With many gifts for those who may.

Thunderstorm

Cool breezes on the heavy air, The sudden darkening of sky,

Rolling clouds of white and gray, Make night o’er take the day.

Lightning separates the sky, Rain pours out in glassy cool, All is fresh and green again,

With plants bedecked in heavenly jewel.

Sunlight breaks the western sky, Distant rumbles end at last,

The earth is peaceful once again A thunderstorm has passed.

By Toni Spears, Wild Ones Ann Arbor Chapter

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STEPS Continued from Page 2

Recognized by Pinelake management. For the last

four summers we have worked at this planting, and plan to con-tinue. See http://stepsforkids.org/montrio-pond. And for photos, see http://stepsforkids.org/photo-gallery.

The long-term fix for the Pond banks requires affixing coir

logs under eroded overhanging banks and around other eroded spots. Coir logs are rolls of sturdy biodegradable netting that catch soil from the water, thus rebuild-ing the banks. Native plants can also be planted in these rolls, fur-ther solidifying the banks. At our last estimate, the cost for this fix approaches $10,000, so we have a bit of work ahead of us.

We would love to have your help at our planting days,

and any wetland plants you could spare for us. Sign up at our website--www.stepsforkids.org--to receive our newsletters and you will be automatically notified when these spring and fall plant-ing days take place.

At our website you will see that our current fundraiser

is a fantastic benefit jazz concert offered by Rick DellaRatta with Jazz for Peace. You will not regret attending! Your attendance will help us save this small jewel of a pond for future generations of Ann Arborites, even as it builds pride of environment in young children, and teaches them about outdoor careers. Please forward this article to your friends who are committed to the environment, and/or who are jazz aficionados. This Jazz for Peace concert is a not-to-be missed event in Ann Arbor this fall. What is more, you will receive a tax-deductible dona-tion receipt!

I have lived in Independence Township in Oakland County for 55 years, and in the last 10 years I don’t recognize the place. Where have the wetlands gone? I miss the Spring Peepers, and the song of the red-winged black-bird. As I drive the roads near my home and around the County, I’m sur-rounded by tall corridors of a plant that is choking the life out of our wetlands. This plant, I learned, is called Phragmites.

This is how my story begins.

I took a class through Southeast-ern Oakland County Water Au-thority (SOCWA), taught by Lillian Dean, to become a Composter. I not only learned how to compost, but also how to enrich the soil without chemicals. I learned about the benefits of using native plants in landscaping and the threats posed by invasive plants, like Phragmites. These invasives have made Michigan their home be-cause when they were brought to America, their enemies were not. They flourished at the expense of our precious native plants, animals and insects.

I wanted to share my newly learned information with my subdivision. The entrance gardens were in need a face lift, and I volunteered to do the job. I introduced native varieties to the landscape, and limited the use of chemicals. My subdivision is at the headwaters of the Clinton River Watershed, and I talked with my neighborhood to help them understand our Storm Drain responsibilities.

The subdivision has over 5 acres of wetlands, and I’m lucky enough that my backyard faces them. I get to hear the Spring Peepers. I have toads, snakes, bats, hawks, numerous birds, tree frogs, grey frogs and the occasional deer who buffets off my garden. I get to see the Skunk Cabbages in the spring. I have the song of the red-winged blackbird every day when I open the windows. I have a lot to lose if Phragmites creeps in and destroys this wetland.

In September 2011, I acted to make sure that wouldn’t happen. I hired two young men, Ian Bal-lard and Ryan Treece of Invaders Be Gone, to work on remov-ing the Phragmites. They were recommended by staff of The North Oakland Headwaters Land Conservancy. I documented their process, and as winter came on, I waited to see what would hap-pen to the area come spring.

A couple months later in Novem-ber, The Oakland Press ran an article: Conservationists warn of invasive land species. By Amy Bell. The article explained how researchers were going to focus on trying to restore the state’s wetlands by indentifying the plant and eliminating it at the largest areas of concentration, which have the most impact of wildlife and habitat. They talked about using Synthetic Aperture Radar data and results from numerous field studies to create a data base to locate the Phrag-mites. Sounded ridiculous to me, I can drive anywhere in Oakland

county and see Phragmites. I can see and hear (or not hear) the devastation it is causing. I called the Oakland Press to share with them what had been done in my subdivision. Before receiving a return call, I also read an article about the Internship Program for blogger training offered through The Oakland Press. I made another call and that is how I started blogging about our native landscape here in Oakland County. Check out my blog at: http://troublein-nativeparadise.blogspot.com.

http://troubleinnativepara-dise.blogspot.com/2012/01/getting-inspired-to-inspire-others-how.html.

Since I have retired, I have made an effort to educate myself about native plants and their benefit to maintain-ing the balance of our ecosys-tem. The Stewardship Net-work, Wild Ones , The Clinton River Watershed Council, SOCRA and numerous other organizations have offered to me educational programs with environmental leaders in their fields of expertise, volunteering opportunities and hands on experience, to expand my insight on how I can make a difference. I have changed my way of garden-ing, fertilizing and maintain-ing a lawn. You can too!

Go Plant a Native Tree!

From Awareness to Action By Linda Walsh Lapinsky

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Mike Bald, founder of Got-Weeds?, embraces a strictly non-chemical approach in his pursuit of weed control and eradication. With a residence sited alongside the railroad tracks in Royalton, Vermont, Mike has full seasonal exposure to the wind-dispersed seeds of the invasive vine black swallow-wort. The vines are well established along the rail line and offer a constant seed rain when the pods dry out and dis-perse their seeds every autumn.

Recognizing that the large populations along the railroad are likely to remain a permanent threat, Mike is attempting to pre-vent any spread of the vines into fresh locations closer to Route 14 and beyond to the banks of the White River. He began doing formal control work on two sites in 2011, a 100 square foot berry patch infestation, and a 70 square meter rect-angular patch adjacent to the town library. Both sites are only partially sunny and have other invasive plants present, namely greater celandine, jewelweed, and the occasional burdock and wild chervil. Mike pursued a two-pronged approach on both sites: the prevention of new seed formation, and the root starva-tion of established plants.

The berry patch called for a half hour of hands-and-knees work on five separate pulling dates throughout the summer. Pulling was the attempted control meth-od, but most vines simply break off at the surface, above the root collar, so this action is effectively a cut with little or no root extrac-tion. The greatest number of plant sprouts detected was on a date in June with 169. By the time of the final treatment ses-sion in August, the total number of re-sprouting plants was just 59. No vines in the treatment

area reached the flowering / seed formation stage.

The same drop in stem density occurred on the library prop-erty. Here the control work took longer, a little more than an hour over the course of a week, but again the number of plants steadily declined over the course of the summer. The first pass in early June clipped 688 stems, but that number was down to 498 for the third treatment in mid-July. Neither of the control sites were contract work. The berry patch is on Mike’s personal property, and the library next door is town property, so the work there is essentially donated time. The hours of time conduct-ing treatment represent the cost or investment.

In contrast to the two smaller sites detailed above, GotWeeds? took on a larger project in downtown Randolph, Vermont, as part of a stone terraced garden re-build. This area was in complete dis-array as the summer of 2011 opened: stone walls were collapsing, several invasives were taking over, and the site was visually unappeal-ing. Routine maintenance was impossible due to the unsafe conditions, and native plants had been completely overwhelmed. A 2006 volunteer group treat-ment of the black swallow-wort vines had served as a setback to the population, but the five years since that action had given the vines plenty of time to rebound emphatically. Black swallow-wort dominates the space together with wild chervil, multi-flora rose, barberry, and just for emphasis, a large Norway maple. It is clearly a complex site; but the renovation work offered a unique opportunity to attempt an eradication of the only known black swallow-wort infestation

in all of Randolph. The terraces harboring the vines were located along the town’s main street and within sight of an ecologically significant floodplain forest; suc-cessful control would shut down the only seed source for miles around.

With excavation required as part of the stone work, Mike coordinated with the masons to separate out large quantities of root material as work progressed. Buckets full of swallow-wort roots were removed where possible, and the mature vines were ground-clipped where they could not be pulled. Work on this project took place primar-ily in August and September, so there was little early season control action. The stone walls however, made for somewhat easier extraction of the vines, but the walls also made some deeper places unreachable. The site will need follow-up treatment; the current arrangement calls for two more years of funded, inten-sive manual control (pulling and cutting several times during the growing season). An important

Black Swallow-wort Treatment By Mike Bald, Got Weeds?

aspect of the rehabilitation is the re-planting of strictly native plants on the newly re-built ter-races. With poor quality soil and such a heavy period of distur-bance, the native plants (spice-bush, fragrant sumac, bee balm, and multiple fern species) will be nurtured through their first growing season to better their survival odds. Lilies and hostas were salvaged from the site and even propagated to contain costs and “manage sunlight.”

Interestingly, while the vegeta-tion work here cost several thou-sand dollars, the invasive plant control aspect represented only a small fraction of that total, not even twenty percent. The bulk of the cost was in the rehabilitation, with the expenditures on plant material and site preparations. The most novel and critical features of the project are its commitment to a multi-year timeframe and the immediate action on a re-planting scheme. The site is along Main Street in downtown Randolph; interested parties can look down on the terraces at the entrance to Randolph House. The Randolph See Swallow-wort, Page

Aman Park: A Legacy & A Promise By Joan Meyer, Kent County ISD

Jacob Aman was an interesting recluse who lived on the land (in a shack) that is now Aman Park, located in Ottawa County. On August 9, 1926 he donated 342 acres of virgin forest to the City of Grand Rapids and it was his expressed request that he be buried there. On June 14, 1928 he was, in a site of his own selec-tion, under a huge boulder with an inscription that his beautiful land remain so that “generations to come might have the joys of

native woods that gave him the keenest pleasure.” This virgin forest is filled with a vast array of wildflowers unmatched in the rest of the State of Michigan. However, unbeknownst to Jacob was an invasive weed called gar-lic mustard raising its ugly head in his beloved forest. Approxi-mately 20 years ago, Mary Jane Dockery was giving a wildflower walk and tour of Aman Park that I attended. At that time she pointed out the garlic mustard See Aman Park, Page 7

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Area Community Development Corporation manages the prop-erty (and other town lands) and deserves credit for its clear vision and willingness to bring an un-healthy / unsafe landscape back to a healthier condition. The choice of manual black swallow-wort treatment work fit nicely into this larger vision.

The brief update for July 2012: Follow-up on the three treat-ment sites in May and early July of 2012 revealed some interest-ing numbers. Essentially the two smaller sites on and adjacent to my property saw a serious reduc-tion in stem counts. Both sites are partially shaded, and have a stem count of one third to one quarter of last year’s count (208 versus 688 and 14 versus 59). In Randolph, the largest site, stem counting was initiated for the first time on an area of approx. 350 square feet, also mostly shaded.

Interestingly, all three sites showed a delay in plant emer-gence compared to other black swallow-wort vines in the immediate vicinity. Vines in the case study sites were just emerging and were seemingly much thinner than other vines on my property which were “full size” and exhibiting flower buds in late May. Compared to their untreated comrades, the vines in all three treated sites were significantly behind in their phenology.

Two difficulties encountered thus far are the control of blown-in seeds and the incidence of multiple stems emerging from a singular root clump. The counts have been consistent in method; there has been no effort to lump stems that are bunched together. They may pinpoint a dense “hotspot”, but all stems are counted toward the total. Blow-in of fresh seeds, or airborne drift, was likely not a major factor at any of the sites, although it may be impacting the counts at Randolph House together with the suspected vast seed bank. During both pulling sessions at Randolph House, seven stems were pulled with the seed shell still attached to the stem. By all indications, those plants were newly germinated, not re-sprouts, but seven out of three hundred is a pretty small percentage, even if I consider the possibility that I am missing a few plants in this category simply due to technique.

Thus the numbers to this point are trending in the desired direc-tion. There are certainly other factors at work on the sites…. other invasives, for example. These include celandine, jew-elweed, and creeping Charlie. There seems to have been an uptick in the stem counts with the second treatment, so the numbers from the third pulling sessions will make for an interest-ing comparison.

Swallow-wort Continued from Page 5

Arbor Day, Friday April 27 turned out to be a beautiful day for the group of volunteers and U.S. Forest service personnel that gathered to plant 38 paper birch trees at the Loda Lake Wildflower Sanctuary. The trees were donat-ed by Carol Brock of Newaygo, the Arboriculture Chairman for Michigan Garden Clubs. Karen Motawi of Big Rapids, Garden Club Loda Lake Sanctuary Chair-man, coordinated the event with the U.S. Forest Service. Mark Shermak, forester from the Bald-win Ranger Station, was on hand to direct the planting.

Mark demonstrated the proper planting procedure, giving instructions on how big to dig the hole and how to properly replace the soil, water the roots, mulch with leaves and place a protective cage around each tree to discourage the deer. Volun-teer planters included Garden Club members from Fremont, Newaygo, Bitely, Big Rapids, Rockford and Grand Rapids. A family with home-schooled children also came along to learn more about the outdoors and help plant.

The choice of birch trees has special significance. Birches were one of the first tree species to grow up in the area after the original pine forests were lumbered off. (The near-by one-

room school is called Birch Grove School and the new trail loop that connects the Loda Lake trails to the North Country Trail has been named the Birch Grove Loop.) The most recent genera-tion of birch trees is now dying out. The forester recommended the planting of new very small trees as having the best chance of survival.

Michigan Garden Clubs (MGC) initiated the idea of creating a wildflower sanctuary in the state in the 1930’s. The Forest Service purchased the land that now includes Loda Lake in 1937. Since that time, MGC has worked cooperatively with the Forest Service to manage the property. Over the years, Garden Club members have helped to plan, promote and fundraise for improvements. They have also gotten involved in wildflower planting and invasive species removal. A number of improve-ments aimed at easing parking and access are now in the works, and Garden Club members are raising funds to build a pavilion to shelter educational groups and other visitors to the sanctu-ary.

For a virtual hike through the sanctuary, watch the YouTube video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkn9-YKi7tY

Arbor Day Celebration at Loda Lake Wildflower Sanctuary

by Karen Motawi, Michigan Garden Clubs Loda Lake Sanctuary Chairman

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and made an off-hand comment that in about 30 years the wild-flowers would be gone and there would be nothing left in Aman Park except garlic mustard. At that time I consciously thought “not while there is breath in my body!” So for all these years I and my friends and family have faithfully been pulling the garlic mustard in Aman Park. Anyone who knows anything about garlic mustard knows that no matter how faithful and dedi-cated one is, the weed usually wins. However, with persistence and a lot of volunteers and hard work we are making headway in the garlic mustard infestation in Aman Park. I especially feel the need to eradicate the garlic mustard around Jacob Aman’s grave. We, as the” recipients of his bounty” that Aman had in mind, owe him that much. He donated the beautiful, wildflower-filled land to all of us and his act of generosity needs to be followed up with commitment on our part to assure his bequest continues.

astonishing prolific display of tril-lium! The DH woodland garden is getting better and better every year. With the very early spring, our strategy changed, and we did spray herbicide selectively in dense areas as soon as we could (mid-March, with the unusually warm March weather). There still were plenty of GM to pull, but we noticed that many of the plants are getting smaller and smaller. Also, our recent discovery is that if the plants are pulled before the seeds are viable, we can chop off the roots with hand clippers and pile the plants in a “not nice” area for mulching – and found that the seeds don’t develop once separated from the root energy

source - and we don’t have to bag and ship them to land fill. We are still careful about where we stack the GM mulch pile – and can always herbicide the pile if necessary (so far – not needed). Clearly, bagging is necessary for the seed heads once they start to turn brown.

Next spring, hope that you can stop by at DH to enjoy one of the best displays of woodland wild-flowers in the area. We’ll be back, and if you see a GM we missed, bless you for pulling it out!

Other notes: Volunteer op-portunities are many in SE MI. Metroparks conducts workdays at several parks periodically through

~Lessons Learned at Dexter-Huron Metropark~

Start with an area with nice plants still present.

Pick a section to defend your territory “100%”.

Be persistent over several months each spring – into June for late emerging plants. Consider early herbicide spray in dense areas before the spring ephemerals emerge. Repeat annually – and each year it gets better and better.

We have been so blessed to find this lovely park with it’s wealth of spring wildflowers.

Aman Park Continued from Page 5

the year for garlic mustard and shrub control. Check the website at Metroparks.org. NAP and DNR also conduct workdays at various locations. REI participates and publicizes a number of these workdays.

Also, this spring, the hike-bike bridge over the Huron River was completed at DH. Later this year, construction is planned on the trail from Dexter to DH, and from Dexter to the Hudson Mills bike trail. What a terrific trip that will make! But after construction, there’s always pioneer GM, too – so come enjoy the new trail next year, and maybe pick a few GM along the way.

Dexter-Huron Metropark Woodland Restoration and Rewards

Continued from Page 3

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Photo Credits-Page 2-

Toni Spears

-Page 3- (Upper right) David Sharpe

(Lower left) Toni Spears

-Page 4- Karen Motawi

-Page 5- Patricia Pennell,

Riverhouse Photography

-Page 6-(Upper right) Mike Bald

(Lower left) Karen Motawi

-Page 7- Glenn Hieber,

TBI Photography