2010 Earth Day Cleanup

About 3,000 volunteers joined the annual Minneapolis Earth Day Cleanup on April 17, 2010, and almost 300 of that force volunteered at Friends of the Mississippi River's two locations in the river gorge. Volunteers removed over 15,000 pounds of trash from sites throughout the city - that's 15,000 pounds of trash that won't end up in the river! Thank you to all the volunteers who helped give the city a good spring cleaning!

Thanks to program partners and sponsors Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board, National Park Service, Longfellow Community Council, Peace Coffee, and Parkway Pizza!

Thank you also to volunteer photographer Ami Thompson who took the following photos:

Early Spring in the Gorge

Spring has sprung a bit early this year, giving a jumpstart to the growing season. Take advantage of this beautiful weather if you haven't already and get out to the river gorge to see what's popping up! Like...

bloodroot (left) and Dutchman's breeches (below). Spring ephemerals are doing their best to complete their entire life cycle during a very short period of time, after which they will disappear completely under the soil for the rest of the year!

Unfortunately for the spring ephemerals, garlic mustard is also already popping up, and threatening their success by crowding and shading the little beauties out, possibly even changing the quality of the soil. There are several upcoming opportunities to help remove garlic mustard from the river gorge - see our events listing for more details on how you can join the effort.

Very few native shrubs are leafed out right now, though one you might see is Sambucus racemosa (Red-berried elder, below).

Non-native shrubs Tartarian honeysuckle and common buckthorn are leafed out already. Leafing out early in the spring and retaining their leaves late in the fall is one of the major ways in which they are able to out-compete the natives: this longer growing season enables them to do extra photosynthesizing and simply outgrow everything else.

What interesting things have you been surprised to see popping up early this spring?

Photos courtesy of Carolyn Carr.