Garlic Mustard Removal Season in Acton's Conservation Areas

Spring 2013: We need your help - please sign up for one or more of the picking sessions listed to the right.

Goal: To minimize the impact of invasive plants on the wild areas of Acton, Massachusetts

There is also an Acton Invasive blog, because it's easier to keep adding news and events there.

Garlic Mustard is an invasive plant that is moving in to Acton conservation lands. Together, we can get it out of there.

Garlic Mustard shoots up in thickets from basal rosettes in a two-year cycle in both grasslands and woods, and crowds out the native spring ephemerals that are otherwise a lovely and diverse part of the wild understory. It even damages the fungal communities that trees depend on; and it threatens some butterfly populations that are looking to lay eggs on native mustard plants and find the non-sustaining garlic mustard plants instead. We humans introduced it to this area as a salad plant late in the 19th century, but it has escaped our gardens since then, and is growing wild and thick.

The good news is that it is easy to identify, and it can be hand-picked to extirpation in five years of Spring (and sometimes Fall) picking sessions. Picking the second-year plants is a simple hand-pulling operation. We need your help - many hands make the task doable. On most weekend days we will have picking sessions. You can sign up to start at 9:00 AM, 11:00 AM, 1:00 PM, or 3:00 PM.

We'll provide bags, you provide water, snacks, sunblock, gloves & clothes that cover your arms & legs. Some sites have some Poison Ivy - we'll provide TecNu soap, but let us know ahead of time if that's of concern, and we can steer you away from the worst sites.

Here's our target sites (updated May 3, 2013)

Acton Arboretum.

Nashoba Brook at Wheeler Lane

This area is complete for 2013

There is one large sprawling invasion at the end of Wheeler Lane. This includes areas under pine trees, in the open, and in the woods. Meet in the parking area near the end of Wheeler Lane, which is off of Rte 27 in North Acton.

Camp Acton

This area is complete for 2013

Plans are subject to change, so please be sure to put your contact information in the sign-up sheet to the right, or contact Jim Snyder-Grant at 978 266-9409 (home) or, on work days, you can call 508 572-2985 (cell). You can also contact us at info@actoninvasives.org

There are other smaller invasions on conservation lands, or sites that need special care in scheduling. All these other sites are listed below. If you'd like to work at one of these sites, sign up and suggest a time, and we'll work something out.

Nashoba Brook at Milldam and at Davis Road

There's an invasion along the access from Milldam, which has some potentially tricky abutter issues

Guggins Brook

A small invasion at Guggins in the inner meadow that has developed some satellite invasions.

Jenks

This invasion is right near the entrance - it is beginning to creep down the path toward the main part of the conservation land

Nagog Hill

This large invasion is on both sides of the trail between the Grassy Pond entrance and the inner meadow on the way to the Hybid Farm entrance.

Will's Hole / Town Forest

There is one small dense invasion on the Captain Handley access trail, and a more scattered invasion along the paved portion of the yellow trail.

Great Hill

This invasion is in two clumps, near Main Street, south and north of the parking area. This area has been picked by Senior Service Day volunteers, but some additional work is needed on an abutting property.

Morrison Farm

This area is complete for 2013

This small invasion is mostly in between the sidewalk and the paddock fence.