Fall work day planned at Ritts Park
People will be slicing, dicing, dragging, spraying, seeding and collecting plants at Ritts Park on Saturday, Oct. 7.
Community Tree Resources, comprised of people from the Butler Conservation District, Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Penn State Extension and others, has recurring maintenance days where people can help the environment at Ritts Park.
Certified arborist with Community Tree Resources Jennifer Senchak said the organization has tended the landscape at the park at previous work days in the spring and summer, and the fall work day will be about preparing the area for winter.
“We are going to be expanding the meadow area to cover a hillside that is hard to maintain by park staff,” Senchak said. “We're going to prepare the area and add some native pollinators … Continue to follow the maintenance plan for the stream bank repair project.”
The work day will take place from 9 a.m. until noon, and will include other activities like an introductory tour of the park and yoga, which will follow the maintenance.
According to Senchak, the later months of the year are when plants stop growing and begin storing up nutrients for winter, so now is the best time to remove invasive species. The work day will target Japanese knotweed plants at Ritts Park, because the plant is an invasive species and can harm other native plants in the vicinity.
“The importance of this timing is really working with mother nature to help native species,” Senchak said. “The plants we're attacking at this time of year, even if you pull them out they leave bits and even one cell can grow into a new plant. It has to be done delicately.”
Senchak and the other leaders of Community Tree Resources encourage helpers to bring gloves and other gardening tools they are comfortable using to the work day. She also said these work days are also educational, because homeowners can attend them to learn about how they can implement good landscaping practices at their homes.
“We've kind of been taking things slow to lay the groundwork,” Senchak said. “We're instituting a repeatable program that can sustain itself in the future and people can learn from and implement it in their own yards.”
