A critical part of habitat restoration is ridding the area of invasives. At the Oak Ridge Marsh Nature Park, we have quite a bit of buckthorn to remove. Although it’s designated as a shrub, it can grow to ovver 20 feet high. It spreads out and becomes entangled with the other trees( in our case, other buckthorns). This past Saturday we were able to cut quite a bit down, thanks to the help of our volunteers. But what to do withh the stuff that’s been cut down? We used to be able to drag it to the nearest stree, pile it up and the Community Services folks from the Village would remove it for chipping. But we are too far from the streets to lug all of it. So we are now cutting it up into small branches and piling it into little parcels. The idea is that next fall, when we have aprescribed burn, these piles will quickly be dispensed in a nice conflagration!
