Hitch 9

Chapter 9: Congaree

And the Home of the Wisteria

The crew returned to Congaree National Park once again to revisit an old friend, and by friend I mean nemesis. The crew returned to one of the Chinese Wisteria sites they had treated the last time they worked in Congaree. To their surprise and astonishment the prior treatment had been a success!! All that remained of the plants that they had foliar sprayed were skeletons of once prosperous plants and an occasional mutated leaflet. This made it much easier to access Chinese Wisteria that had been interior to the previously treated plants and thus unable to reach. It was a grand success and this was a wonderful Independence Day gift to the crew. If only the founding fathers knew how hard we were working to rid their land of foreign plants that they cultivated (not in this case but bamboo), they would be so proud. Happy Fourth of July to all and happy invasive plant removal!! We were also able to take a boat ride down the Congaree River to get to a bamboo re-treatment site that Park staff had been controlling for several years. And for half a day we helped with a bird banding event that happens multiple times throughout the summer. We checked nets for birds, collected data, and learned about the bird species of Congaree.