This past week, Emma and I have been working with the conservation crew at the Holden Arboretum. Their main focus this week was on invasive species, meaning that we spent most of our time pulling garlic mustard on various Holden Arboretum properties. It is important for them to pull this particular plant because it is highly aggressive and can out-compete native plant species if left alone.
This work began as a somewhat nostalgic experience for me because when I was younger and had friends over, my mom would make a deal with us: if we pulled garlic mustard in the garden, then she would buy us ice cream. However, it soon became a much bigger-scaled operation than what I had done back then. When a small team of us set out for a day of pulling garlic mustard, we stuffed our pockets with plastic bags and then dispersed to pull as much as possible.
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| Garlic mustard |
This work began as a somewhat nostalgic experience for me because when I was younger and had friends over, my mom would make a deal with us: if we pulled garlic mustard in the garden, then she would buy us ice cream. However, it soon became a much bigger-scaled operation than what I had done back then. When a small team of us set out for a day of pulling garlic mustard, we stuffed our pockets with plastic bags and then dispersed to pull as much as possible.
After several hours of digging around in a dangerous forest filled with tangles of pricker bushes and poison ivy, we managed to hike out with many bags of garlic mustard! Success!
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| A bag filled with garlic mustard |
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| It was a ten bag day!
Doing this sort of work makes me really appreciate what these conservation crews go out and do. It's definitely a tough battle to try to control invasive plant species, so the fact that there are people who are still committed to it is amazing.
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