February 15^th, 2022

Report and Photos Submitted by Nigel Peck

Last week saw the third and fourth invasive species removal work parties at New Brighton Park on Wednesday and Saturday.  With these efforts, twenty three people have now volunteered in the endeavour, with about a third of them participating multiple times for a total of thirty five ‘work party days’. At this point we have cleared about 65% of the Scotch Broom on the hillock to the west of the off-leash dog run area and removed 90% of two major Himalayan Blackberry infestations through the cutting of vines and digging out of roots.

We had two additional significant milestones in the Nature Vancouver project last week. First was the participation of six teenagers last Saturday from the Hastings Community Centre who joined us to pull Scotch Broom from the hillock. It was great having their enthusiasm and energy, coordinated by a Hastings Community Centre staff and the able assistance of former Vancouver Parks manager, Paul Calderhead. The youth seemed to enjoy both the work and the collaboration with ‘old’ folk, so we are hopeful they will return for future removal sessions.

Update to the update… from the Hastings Community Centre Youth Worker: “The youth had a lot of fun and spoke highly about the experience.”  It’s great to know the youth appreciated the experience as much as we appreciated their participation! We look forward to working with them in March.

The second milestone was getting approval from the Port of Vancouver for the removal of invasive species from an about a seven metre wide strip of vegetated space which exists between the New Brighton Park and the Port of Vancouver transport trailer tarmac staging area. This will allow us to remove a significant amount of broom and blackberry that would otherwise simply re-seed the cleared areas in the park.

Our next removal date will be on Saturday, February 26^th which we hope will be the most productive yet. We will have the use of three ‘extracticators’ to remove Scotch Broom on both the remainder of the park hillock and also in the Port of Vancouver strip.  Additionally, if there are sufficient volunteers, we hope to have a work party removing a blackberry infestation at the west entrance to the park, as well as the garbage that is strewn about near the entrance. On Port of Vancouver property, in addition to the Broom-pullers, we also hope there are folk to ‘blackberry bust’.

Looking beyond the immediate task invasive species removal, we can start contemplating the planting of native species.  As described by Krista Voth, the Environmental Stewardship Coordinator at Vancouver Parks:

“Here is the planting plan for New Brighton.  The roses will be planted along the west fence where the Himalayan Blackberry is now.  That would be a great area for the volunteers to clear if you are looking for more work!  The wooly sunflower, pearly everlasting, and nodding onion will be planted in the spots where the ground is disturbed from scotch broom removal.  We also have camas bulbs we can add in, but they are quite small right now.”

Consequently we look forward to the participation of those more interested in assisting with planting in the future than wrestling with Scotch Broom and Himalayan Blackberry in the next few months.

NEW BRIGHTON PARK
Latin Name	Common Name	container size	number of units
Allium Cernuum	nodding onion	plugs	288
Anaphalis margaritaea	pearly everlast	plugs	144
Eriophyllum lanatum	wolly sunflower	plugs	360
Rosa Acicularis	prickly wild rose	two gallon	10
Rosa nutkana	Nootka rose	two gallon	10
Rosa rugosa	Rugosa rose	two gallon	10
Rosa woodsii	Wood’s rose	two gallon	10
		TOTAL	832

For more information or to rsvp if you can help, please email nigel@naturevancouver.ca.  Hopefully see you there!    

Ps. One important point for volunteers is that we do require everyone participating to be fully vaccinated.