On an early Saturday morning from 9:30 to 12pm, AYLUS volunteers helped local staff at Planting Fields Arboretum State Historical Park to remove invasive and obstructive plants from the Main Drive to make room for the donated rhododendrons!. The staff gave a quick overview on the area. Volunteers were given leather gloves, cloppers, hedge shears and pitchforks to work with.
The group was primarily situated at a crab apple tree which was engulfed by vines. After about an hour’s work, the team was able to pull all the vines off and transport them away via truck. The crab apple tree was also to be removed, and volunteers used a handsaw to cut it down. Climbing up the crab apple tree was a swarm of hundreds of spotted lantern flies, which volunteers immediately killed.
Due to the hard work of the team, we were able to remove roughly 150 pounds of invasive and obstructive plants including Porcelain Berry and native Sassafras (this was one of those rare cases where we have removed plants that are “good” but were not wanted by the park for this section of land).
Volunteers: Jake Wu, Jonathan Fan
Volunteer Hours: 2.5 hours each
