Aylus Great Neck Branch Volunteer at Bethpage State Park on October 26, 2024
On October 26, 2024, at 9 AM, we were at Green Acre doing fall cleanup for the plants. Our task was to remove dead branches, remove invasive plants harming the native plants, and rake up the leaves to clean up the area.
There were different types of vines that were harming the plant: multi-flora rose, mugworts, and bittersweet. Multi-flora rose is a type of rose that once you cut it, will start suckering which is when one stem spreads into many and continues growing from there. Mugworts and multi-flora roses are rhizomes that when their stems grow into the dirt, will grow more roots and form into another plant. Bittersweet has one tap root that goes down into the dirt and then spreads. They can be rhizomes and they have orange roots, so when identifying them, you can check if their roots are orange. There were also black cherries that are native but they are aggressive so they were also removed.
The Great Neck Aylus volunteers pruned the spice trees by removing the dead branches and breaking them off the tree. We also removed all the invasive species that wrapped around the branches of the spicebush. We also raked the leaves under the area to expose all the stems of the invasive species. Then, we used a root ranch to fully extract the roots from the soil to prevent them from spreading in the future.
Report By: Tiffany Zhang
Volunteer: Zoe Xia, Tiffany Zhang, Qishen Han (2 hours)
