FRIENDS OF EDGEWOOD NATURAL PRESERVE
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FRIENDS OF EDGEWOOD NATURAL PRESERVE
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REPORT FROM CALIFORNIA EXOTIC PEST PLANT COUNCIL SYMPOSIUM By Elly Hess [The Friends sponsored Elly Hess and Susan Sommers to attend this three-day symposium last October. -ed.] This symposium was held at the beautiful Asilomar Conference Center in Pacific Grove. Because Edgewood is a very sensitive habitat, some of the control strategies presented to us cannot be used there. We were very interested in a Star Thistle control using spring and summer cutting. This control was also used with winter burning which we probably would not be able to do. The plots that we could use this on are the pure stands of Star Thistle off the Serpentine Loop on the north side of the preserve. If we could get rid of the Star Thistle we could revegetate with natives. Other control methods talked about at the conference were the use of herbicides, controlled burning, and biological control. We had a moonlight stroll (no visible moon) with the Asilomar Ranger on Saturday night to hear about his very successful revegetation of the dunes. He talked about the whole process. First, getting the local citizens used to the idea he was going to rip out all of the non-native ice plant, and in some areas bulldozing parts of the dunes. This he said was the hardest part of the project. He grew all of the plants used for revegetation, then used school children and community volunteers for the replanting. It is an impressive success story. It was an intensive weed control weekend with many success stories and a lot of enthusiastic people doing the presentations. The enthusiasm of the people could not help but rub off on us. Thank you for sending me. |
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