Written by: Patrick Maloney
This past week saw some exciting times as our team continued to plant on the open soil of Unit 23 and awaited the arrival of our new intern from Japan, Emi. We built upon the skills developed over the past few weeks which capped off with planting 2200 plants in one day, nearly 300 more than any other day so far. Our high numbers are helped by the fact that we are planting mostly the sedge Carex stricta, which can be planted in large populations and in straight rows. With a practice we found that a three person team can really get some speed going. To top it off, Adam did some number crunching and found that so far, we have installed 10,229 plants into the Great Marsh!
As we finished up with the open space of Unit 23, Jason and I strapped on herbicide packs and began spraying the cattails on the perimeter of our workspace and did some touch up work where we had noticed some sprouts popping up. Carolyn and Kristina went back to a previous week’s site to put a few more plants in the space that opened up after cattail we had sprayed died. With the help of Adam in the afternoon for a bit they put in over 1000 plants, not too shabby guys!
We got lucky on Thursday. With the weather forecast predicting a heat index in the high 110’s the park superintendent declared that no one work outside unless absolutely required so we were blessed with an office day. We used it to do last minute touch ups on our plant guide and presentation for the two interns from Japan who we look forward to meeting!
