The Lake Wissota Garden Club of Chippewa Falls, WI
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Have you seen them in the woods around your home or an area park? It’s buckthorn, an invasive plant that is very happy around Lake Wissota. It is usually the last plant to drop its leaves in the fall and one of the earliest to green up in the spring. This invasive plant outcompetes native plants resulting in decreased biodiversity of plant species. In a UW-Stout article, Keith Gilland, a UW-Stout professor of biology notes that “research shows that more diverse communities (of native plants) provide more ecosystem services, such as carbon storage, storm water filtering and nutrient uptake. Restoring diverse, native communities around water bodies in the area could be an important component to restoring the health of our surface waters in the region,” he added.
To this end on November 11th members of the Chippewa County Land Conservancy and the Lake Wissota Garden Club spent a morning removing buckthorn from the Boyd Park Nature Preserve. Although not directly on the water this beautiful 24 acre sanctuary bordered by 79th Ave, 183rd and 185th St is across from homes that border the Pine Harbor and Yellow River areas of Lake Wissota. Four trailers full of buckthorn were removed from the preserve and stumps treated to prevent resprouting. This is the second year that conservancy members have worked on removing invasives in the area. Besides buckthorn, the invasives garlic mustard, prickly ash and Japanese knotweed have been identified. A plan to work on all these invasives will continue in the spring and fall of 2018. You can get involved by identifying, removing and treating buckthorn and other invasives on your own property and disposing of yard waste appropriately. Or volunteer with groups such as the Chippewa County Land Conservancy, Lake Wissota Garden Club and the Lower Chippewa Invasive Partnership. Learn more about invasive plants at http://dnr.wi.gov/topic/Invasives/ Reported by Barb Barrickman, President, Lake Wissota Garden Club
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