INVASIVE BUSTERS
BY DON DOUCETTE
JASON KULL
Our local forests and neighborhood margins are under constant attack by a variety of invasive plants and trees. The attack is silent as our native natural green community is overcome by the snarl and tangle of green invasive plants. This green-on-green battle is persistently at hand and requires a determined and constant intervention strategy.
Advanced Scout, Jason Kull, along with Boy Scout Troop 61 based at Saint Mary’s Church in Norton, Massachusetts has adopted Jason’s Eagle Scout community work project to help purge invasive plants from the grounds of Jason’s home church, the Attleboro Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC.)
Months of planning and plant identification resulted recently with several days of invasive plant removal from the sand plain forest surrounding the Attleboro ECC property – included in the work project were members of Jason’s extended family, Troop 61 members and fellow members of the Attleboro ECC congregation encouraged through the leadership of Pastor Doug Bixby.
Invasive plants identified and removed were: Asiatic bittersweet, glossy buckthorn, Norway maple and multiflora rose. The amount of negative bio-mass accumulated can be quantified by tonnage, so staggering was the bulk of alien plant mass harvested.
This project remains as a teaching moment for Troop 61 and all other volunteers directly involved.
Several PullerBear weed wrenches were critical tools needed to complete the scope of work which was ultimately accomplished.
The Attleboro ECC church grounds are an environmentally and culturally sensitive westward extension of the greater Bungay River riparian corridor – a natural wilderness tributary to the Ten Mile River with the Bungay River confluence slightly east of the Water Street Bridge in Attleboro.
Respectfully submitted,
Don Doucette
“Ten Mile River Rambles”
Friends of the Ten Mile and Bucklin Brook
Citizens of the Narragansett Basin
Photo Credits: David Dumont