Maintenance day at Ritts Park boosts local plant life
On Sunday afternoon, a group of people stood surrounded by yellow flowers, blooming trees and green grass at Ritts Park — most of which wasn’t there in April, the last time Community Tree Resources held an event at the park.
Jennifer Senchak, certified arborist with Community Tree Resources, said people need to periodically manage plant life at Ritts Park because of the stream that runs through it and into Butler.
“This environment is part of our community; our community is not just people but it’s plants and animals too,” Senchak said. “This is a special waterway and really it’s the only opportunity to manage this before it goes into a pipe and under the entire city and comes out downstream somewhere where it most likely gets intercepted to be processed into our drinking water.”
Diane Smith, coordinator with Community Tree Resources, said the group plans to have four workdays a year at Ritts Park — one per season — where volunteers from a number of ecofriendly agencies could come together to keep the park in good shape.
Butler received a grant from the Penn State Extension Service and the Butler Conservation District in 2021 for stream bank stabilization and park maintenance, which included the planting of trees. The project came at no cost to the city, and Community Tree Resources is keeping up with the park maintenance with four work days a year.
“This is a really good opportunity to do what we can to prevent erosion and prevent road debris and other chemicals from getting into it,” Senchak said. “Dirt and soot and sediment from big washouts is one of the largest contaminants.”
The group met at the park in April to uproot some invasive species that would harm the park’s overall ecosystem if left unattended. The focus on Sunday was sharing information on what plants should be appropriate to the area.
Randall McDonald, a 50-year arborist, attended the meeting to share information on how to avoid spreading invasive plant species. He said gardeners should be aware of what they are planting and how it could affect other plants in their yard.
“People are transporting things they think are cool and bright and bringing them to their garden,” McDonald said. “For example, Euonymus turn red in the fall, but they seed and take a lot of resources from native plants.”
Senchak said the end goal of these meetings is to educate Butler residents on how they can best care for the environment, even on a scale as small as their backyard gardens.
“What we want to do is build a good foundation for volunteer events so we can have more people,” Senchak said. “We are essentially modeling our little gatherings in Ritts Park after Jennings Environmental Education Center’s events. They have prairie management day; they do invasive species management day.
“Our goal is to bring that state park-type of education and support to our city and make it more accessible to people who live in the area.”
