The slope patch...and a visitor

This week, we had a small crew, so we decided to work on the slope patch located in the middle of the park. It's our unofficial site but we like to remove invasives there, so they don't come to our site. The main invasive there is Phragmites which I will talk about later this season. This time around, we had a lot of burdock to deal with.

There's always a lot of it at the front of the site in the sunniest part, so it's a big job.

There was also quite a bit of thistle to deal with.  Now the trees will have a bit of breathing space.

 

We had a visitor at the site a couple of weeks ago, a gypsy moth which is an insect native to Europe and Asia that has been severely weakening trees across North America.

Gypsy moth on a green ash tree

However, even though the gypsy moth can do damage to trees, the ash tree in this picture will have a much harder time with the Emerald Ash Borer.

But I'm tired of talking about invasive stuff, so here are pictures of Blue Flag Iris and Swamp Milkweed  from a couple of years ago. I'm hoping to see a lot more of these plants this year on the edge of the pond. 

Blue Flag Iris (Iris Versicolor)

Swamp Milkweed

I saw this sign after stewardship a couple of weeks ago. I thought it was a pretty cool idea especially since Riverdale Farm was my stewardship site for a few years and we still go there 2 or 3 times in the season to work on the site. 

This sign is on Broadview north of Gerrard, on the south of Riverdale Park East.