Friends of Sylvania

Four field workers and 38 volunteers treated 471 previously identified terrestrial invasive plant sites in Sylvania and identified, treated, and recorded 190 new sites. Most of the sites are thistles (european swamp thistle, canada thistle, and bull thistle); less abundant invasives they worked on include japanese barberry, tansy, spotted knapweed, and garlic mustard. The field workers spent 831 hours and the volunteers donated 988 hours doing this field work. In addition, 6 volunteers donated an estimated 280 hours doing trail clearing work in Sylvania. One volunteer spent an estimated 24 hours maintaining a native plant garden in Sylvania. The garden is open and free to the public and provides examples of native plants found in Sylvania. We sponsored a speaker in the ottawa national forest visitor center summer speaker series. The topic of this speech was global warming vs. cooling effect of browsing pressure on the forest of the upper peninsula of Michigan, including Sylvania. We also organized an educational hike in Sylvania the following morning.