EALT stewards all of our lands by removing invasive plants, installing nest boxes and bat houses, and removing unnecessary barbed wire fences from the landscape. These are common maintenance items on our lands, but sometimes areas have been degraded by previous use and can benefit from more significant restoration activities.
Live Staking and Rough and Loose Soil Treatment
These two restoration actions are being used in tandem at Bunchberry Meadows to encourage faster growth of forest in order to shade out an area with extensive invasive plants.
Rough and loose soil treatment is a type of restoration activity designed to break up compacted soil. The use of large machinery and sometimes heavy use by cattle or domestic animals can compact the soil, and reduce the air gaps between soil particles. This impacts the ability of the soil to hold water, and makes it more difficult for plant roots to spread. In this kind of environment, invasive species often thrive while native plants struggle. In order to fix this, large machinery digs up the soil to loosen it and creates mounds.
Once the soil has been loosened, trees have a better chance of establishing. However, they still need to compete with the invasive plants present in this area. Live staking helps to speed up the establishment of a forest. Certain tree species are taken from another area, cut into several 1m lengths, and placed into the ground at the new location, with a small section of the stake still above the surface. In the first year, the stake will grow new roots in the soil, and in future years, it will grow leaves and branches.
Tree Planting
Tree planting is a common restoration method to speed the reforestation of an area. Different ages of seedlings have different costs, and often different rates of survival. When young sapling are planted, a trench method is often used, with trenches dug in lines beside the saplings. EALT has planted tens of thousands of trees at our lands, including Bunchberry Meadows, Glory Hills, Golden Ranches, Ministik, Pipestone Creek, and the Smith Blackburn Homestead.
Native Pollinator Garden
EALT took on a different type of restoration project in 2021 – a native pollinator garden! Following the advice of native plant experts associated with the Edmonton Native Plant Society, EALT removed the topsoil from the garden site at the Smith Blackburn Homestead and planted over 250 native plants in the subsoil. To prevent invasive plants from encroaching on the garden, staff and volunteers laid a plastic tarp border along the sides of the garden, and placed cardboard between the native plants, covered by a layer of mulch. This garden will support many native species of plants and will allow native plants to re-establish in an area that was heavily infested with invasive plants. Similar gardens have been planted and maintained at Bunchberry Meadows by volunteers with the Edmonton Native Plant Society.
Management of Invasive Plants
Another way that EALT restores previously disturbed land is by management of invasive plants. Invasive plants are species that have been introduced to an area and due to lack of natural predators or disease, outcompete native species and dominate the landscape. At EALT, we often see areas that are completely overtaken with invasive species such as creeping thistle or common tansy, leaving no room for native species to grow. We hold many volunteer events in the summer months to pull weeds, we mow heavily infested areas, use biological control, and even hire goats to help! It requires a lot of persistence, but we have seen a lot of success over the years.
Land Closures
Sometimes the biggest impact on a land is simply people – there are many ways that we can reduce our impact, but we may still affect wildlife just by our presence. Bunchberry Meadows is occasionally closed during sensitive periods of time for wildlife to reduce the disturbance of people walking through the landscape. Even outside of these closure times, you can reduce your impact on wildlife by following Leave No Trace principles, following EALT visiting guidelines, and keeping your dogs on leash or leaving them at home. We greatly appreciate your patience and understanding, and we are happy to welcome visitors to this land outside of closure times. We hope to see you there!
