Tuesday, May 6, 2008

A good start

The new stewardship season was off to a good start tonight. We had a turnout of 11 people, the weather was perfect (not too sunny, not too warm, no rain, no wind) and we set ourselves to attack some garlic mustard. Some of the plants already have flowers and right now at Riverdale, that's pretty much all you see. The slopes are covered with it.

Stewards getting ready to pull the nasty plant from one of the slopes.


We managed to remove it from about half the slope.


Garlic mustard was introduced in North America as a culinary herb (it's edible and used in salads and pesto) and is an invasive species in much of North America and is listed as a noxious or restricted plant.

Luckily, Riverdale also has beautiful scenery that makes it all worthwhile.


Since we started early this year, we were able to admire the fields of tulips that have been planted by the Riverdale Garden Club.




And the ponds, which look decidedly poetic in the spring.