Ongoing Event: Invasive Plant Removal at 2nd Montgomery College Food Forest Site

Ongoing management at 2nd Montgomery College site. For more details or to help out with this site, let us know via our contact page and write in your message: “I want to help with invasive plant removal efforts at Montgomery College”.

Ultimate goal: remove specific invasives so area can be mowed over and mulched.

What we’re focusing on as of 6/7/24:

- Poison Hemlock:

• Must be placed in garbage bags for trash as debris from plant parts can remain very poisonous for up to 3 years. DO NOT PLACE IN HABITAT PILE

• Must wear protective clothing to prevent skin contact (pants, long sleeves, gloves)

• 2nd year flowering plants were removed on 6/6/2024 (Poison Hemlock is biennial and flowers/reproduces in the second hear)

• Volunteers may look for first year sprouts (typically present in fall and spring) and they are much easier to dig out when small

• Has shallow root system and is easy to dig up (you must remove all parts of the plant including the roots)

- Firethorn:

• Currently focusing on the corner next to compost bin.

• deep roots. Must be dug out

• all parts of the plant can be placed in ‘habitat pile’

• may be misidentified as ‘winterberry’. Winterberry is native and does not have thorns- if you find it, please don’t cut it down.

- Non-native Thistle - 2 different types of non-native invasive thistle have been identified and they’re flowering/seeding right now as of 6/7/24

• Remove seed heads/flowers and place in trash. The rest of the plant may be pulled out of the ground and placed in habitat pile

- Common Ivy

• Pull up from ground and ‘wrap’ vine over itself as you would an electrical cord, then you can place on top of habitat pile.

Before

After

Below will be the site of the new Food Forest at Montgomery College (these are ‘before’ pictures)