DEPS workers walked the Roland Run Stream Restoration areas and identified most of the plants . The identification went to the end of the wetland at the end of the BGE property and the results are promising. Here are the results:
- Native Woody = 33 species
- Native Herbaceous = 43 species
- Invasive Woody = 8 species
- Invasive Herb = 24 species
This shows that the natives are doing a good job of suppressing non-native species from taking hold. However, there were more native species than non-native species, there was a higher density of non-native. Plants rated as high include:
- Vines (most likely infestation is caused by the heavy seed bank
- Foxtail (from our temporary seed mix)
- Hairy joint grass aka carpet grass (easily shaded out so it won’t take over)
- Barley (from our temporary seed mix (easily out competed by native veg)
- Ornamental grasses (tough for us to distinguish species, but I suspect they are not shade
tolerant) - Lespedeza (not shade tolerant)
- Red-top grass (will be out competed by native grasses)
DEPS grabbed photos for their monitoring reporting. They noticed the switchgrass and sycamore are coming in strong and dense. Overall, for 3 years growth, this is exciting to see and is another data point to disprove the “stream destruction” followers’ arguments against stream restoration.
I’ve noticed that the pipe referenced never stops flowing. We have no idea where the water is coming from, but it continues to flow.
