Conservation Corps Update: June 6th-8th

Post contributed by Conservation Corps of Minnesota, Youth Outdoors Crew 2:

June 6^th 

Invasive species control in Crosby Park

Crosby park has been improving day by day. Wednesday, we focused on the top of the bluff and along Shepherd Road. The day began with brush cutting. We focused on white sweet clover and yellow sweet clover and other invasives in the drainage areas/ wetlands along the road. After clearing the roadside areas, we focused on the cliff tops and the walking trail, eliminating many different invasives including clovers, curly dock, motherwort, common mullein, nightshade, burdock, and alfalfa. We finished the day by cleaning up and disposing of some of the cut material.

June 7^th 

Rain gardens and CWOC

Thinning out Canada anenome in one
of the Como neighborhood raingardens

Our crew focused on raingarden management on Thursday. We covered seven different rain gardens in the Como neighborhood. There were many different projects that we worked on in the raingardens. The first raingarden was too crowded with Canada Anemone--a native, yet aggressive species--so we thinned it out to allow other species to thrive there as well. In other rain gardens, we focused on removal of invasives including thistle, clovers, ragweed, and volunteer trees. At the end of the day, we returned to the Como Woodland Outdoor Classroom (CWOC) to work on eliminating burdock.

June 8^th

CWOC with Youth Outdoors Crew 3 (YO3)

The day began with finishing off a section of CWOC by eliminating/ treating all of the burdock in the section. We continued to treat burdock until we were joined by YO3, another Conservation Corps team to remove garlic mustard. We concluded the day by clipping seed heads of reed canary grass to prevent spread.