While the rest of Team Udall was showing the local kids to appreciate and photograph the redwood forest as part of their Parks in Focus program, five brave Udallers volunteered to help Ellen Patum eliminate the invasive Tansy Ragwort (yellow flowering weeds) on Endert’s Beach outside Redwood National Park’s office in Crescent City.
Prior to our arrival, we were uncertain what Ellen would need us to help out with. Upon our arrival, bus driver Joel joked that our assignment was going to be weeding the ubiquitous yellow flowers in the meadow in front of the office. Turns out, not so much a joke. It looked like a recreation of the field of poppy flowers from The Wizard of Oz.
While it was a daunting site, we Udallers did what we do best: figure out why the heck we’re doing what we’re doing, and then get it done. The ragwort was obviously thriving in this field, and was surely out-competing some native species for resources (many invasive species can create a “monoculture,” which not only crushes plant biodiversity, but ends up restricting the ability of native insects and animals to thrive). Some potential evidence that these plants mess up the ecosystem’s balance was that they were covered in caterpillars and (seemingly intoxicated) bumblebees.
Before we started, I found out (and others knew already) that the best time to remove invasive weeds is in the summer when they are flowering (i.e. before they go to seed), and ‘tis best to rip out the plants by the roots. We split into pairs and created different roles. My partner was the “flowerhead clipper/bagger”, and I was the “root ripper upper”. We left the de-flowered plants out in the meadow, after shaking the dirt off the roots so they would dry up and die quicker. After about four hours of working, we felt pretty accomplished, as we removed almost half of the yellow from the meadow. After this hard day of work, most of us went out for dinner and enjoyed eating fresh local fish at a nice restaurant overlooking the water.
By: Bret Strogen
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