Prairie Burn at Crosby

Thanks to a grant provided by Capitol Region Watershed District, FMR will be working with St. Paul Parks & Rec and lots of volunteers this year to plant an interpretive native prairie at Crosby Farm Regional Park.

The first major volunteer-powered effort will be to put in about 1000 native prairie plants in one section on Saturday, May 31st from 9:00 a.m. - noon. Several volunteer events will be held throughout the growing season to weed around the new plants. The remaining area will be seeded with native prairie seed in the fall. There will also be a guided hike in late summer to offer participants an interpretive look at the work that has been done, the different species that were installed, and the other sections of this beautiful park.

To prepare the site for this planting, St. Paul Parks & Rec conducted a controlled burn early last week. Controlled burns help manage and remove weeds, reduce the duff or plant litter layer, and return nutrients to the soil.

Keep watching the Events and Activities page of the FMR website for more info on all of the upcoming events at Crosby Park!

Spring at Crosby Park

Last Saturday morning I woke up and immediately looked outside, expecting to see an inch of snow on the ground and more on its way down. But there was no snow, no precipitation at all, and the sun looked like it was fighting to peek out! Good thing, since we had a birding hike at Crosby Park in St. Paul.

We had a fairly small group (I suspect because of the forecast), but a nice size for birding, and the good fortune of 3 guides. We saw about 40 species, including lots of warblers (yellow-rumped,
black-and-white, and palm to name a few), a ring-necked duck, a green heron, a broad-winged hawk, and a blue-winged teal.

In addition to the birds, spring woodland wildflowers were everywhere! I was thrilled to see lots of Dutchman's breeches in bloom. They are a small spring ephemeral with flowers that look like upside down pants hanging on a clothes line. There were also tons of marsh marigolds surrounding the pond, large-flowered bellwort on the hillside with their pretty yellow droopy flowers, and bloodroot back in the forest.

Later in the week I pulled garlic mustard with a group from Aveda at a site upriver from the marina at Crosby. The area we worked in was full of trout lilies, jack-in-the-pulpits, and wild ginger, as well as other beautiful little native wildflowers.

Native woodland plants complete their entire life cycle in the spring before the trees and shrubs really leaf out, and spring ephemerals then disappear entirely for the rest of the year. These plants are up against several formidable threats: garlic mustard, earthworms, and deer among them. So every plant I see in the woods seems like a sign of hope, a tough survivor fighting for life and winning - so far. It also is a reminder of why we and hundreds of volunteers work so hard to help them in their fight.

Drawdown Tours Revisited

On February 20th John Anfinson and David Wiggins of the National Park Service led several tours of the St. Anthony Pool of the Mississippi River after it had been drawn down 13 feet. If you weren't able to attend a tour, or if you did and want to relive it in a much warmer environment, check out these wonderful videos of the tour, provided by Andrew Busam of the Mill City Museum. The videos are full of beautiful footage, fascinating facts, and river lore, not to mention that seeing all those bundled up folks sure will make you happy it's finally spring!

First Garlic Mustard Pull of the Season

Thanks to everyone who joined us on Sunday afternoon for the Garlic Mustard pull!

An awesome group of 43 people turned out despite the rainy forecast and pulled a LOT of Garlic Mustard. We saw a few signs of spring too! The trees are starting to bud, there's a lot of bird action going on, and there's green peaking out from underneath all of the leaves on the ground as well.

A few of our volunteers took some Garlic Mustard home to test out some of the recipes we had available on site. If you took some home and missed out on the recipes, they can be found on the Mid-Atlantic Exotic Pest Plant Council's website.

Not all of us are fabulous chefs, and you don't have to be to help eat away our invasive species! The Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden is partnering with Heartland Restaurant and Lucia's Restaurant and Wine Bar to give the Twin Cities a taste of Garlic Mustard. Throughout the months of April and May, both restaurants are featuring selections on their menus made with Garlic Mustard provided by Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden-- just be sure to call ahead to make sure it's on the menu.

For anybody who missed out (or those of you who made it and had so much fun that you can't wait to do it again), there will be another pull on Wednesday May 21st from 6-8pm. For more information or to register please visit Friends of the Mississippi River's events page.

Photos courtesy of Hillary Oppmann.