Green Terrors and Fight The Phrag!

On Saturday, October 20th, TFN members descended on the lower Don to help EcoSpark and the City of Toronto’s Community Stewardship Program (CSP) “Fight The Phrag” in the Beechwood Wetland. Participants received full training and equipment on site, learning a manual removal technique pioneered by TFN Walk Leader and phrag-crusader, Lynn Short – a protocol now used on all CSP sites to battle this dreaded invasive.

Prior to the stewardship session, volunteers spent an hour touring Beechwood and Cottonwood Flats on the “Green Terrors from Another Land” walk, led by Jason Ramsay-Brown. Along the way they experienced the “thrills and chills of Toronto’s unruly cast of invasive species,” discussing dog-strangling vine, Japanese knotweed, garlic mustard, tansy, Asian bittersweet and, of course, phragmites.

Special thanks to all of the TFN Members who came out for the walks & stewardship session. Together we removed 430 lbs of phrag! Great day – great work!

The Toronto Field Naturalists wish to acknowledge this land through which we walk. For thousands of years it has been the traditional land of the Wendat, the Seneca, and most recently, the Mississauga of the Credit River. Today it is still the home to many Indigenous peoples from across Turtle Island and we are grateful to have the opportunity to be on this land.