On Saturday, from 9:00 am – 12:00 pm, the Roslyn Branch helped to repot native plants and remove invasive species to help restore Monarch butterfly habitats at the Sunken Meadow State Park.
Monarch butterflies are an endangered species who lives on Milkweed. However, the habitats were infected with other weeds including Mugworts. These invasives not only disturbed the natural habitat and ecosystem but also drained away the nutrients of Milkweed, making it crucial for us to remove. After weeding out the invasives, we dug holes into the ground at a six-inch interval to plant in the native plants and Milkweed. One incident that occurred was when digging the holes, one of the volunteers (outside of AYLUS) hit the pipe in the ground and created a geyser in the middle of the gardening patch. This situation was quickly taken care of by shutting down that part of the water system. After watering the holes, we unpotted the plants and buried them into the holes we dug.
Even in the sweltering weather, our volunteers managed to work efficiently as a team throughout the three hours. Despite many surprise incidents, such as the pipe explosion and the discovery of a hornet nest, we carried on with our task instead of freaking out.
Members who participated includes:
Yang Amy Wu (3 hours), Angeline Li (3 hours), Michael Zhang (3 hours), Ryan Lin (2.5 hours), and Ethan Lin (2.5 hours).
Reporter: Yang Amy Wu
