Tags: phragmites

This winter, Freshkills Park is offering two bookmaking workshops at the Greenbelt Nature Center. Participants will learn about the Freshkills Park transformation, see examples of native and invasive plants, and create their very own passport-sized field notebook using paper that’s made from plants at the park!

As invasive species become a greater problem and harder to deal with, New Yorkers are looking to more creative solutions to control their presence. Parks in the area incorporate a wide array of methods to control invasives including manual removal, pesticides and even controlled burnings.

Happy National Invasive Species Awareness Week! An “invasive species” is a plant, animal, or other organism that’s not native to the ecosystem under consideration whose introduction causes or is likely to cause economic or environmental harm or harm to human health.

There is no more exciting time to join a new working environment than when a huge event such as Freshkills Park’s annual Sneak ‘Peak’ is around the corner!

Eva Neves and myself, Rachel Boeglin, are members of this year’s Conservation Corps with the New York City Parks Department.

You may have read our recent blog post about the herd of goats that were used in Freshkills Park to clear the invasive reed Phragmites, but did you know that goats were once a common fixture in New York City?

Last week, a New York Times article featured the work of one man, Eymund Diegel, and his hydrology studies of the Gowanus Canal. One of the tools he employed was aerial mapping using a helium-inflated balloon with a handheld camera attached.

This summer marks the one-year anniversary since the restoration of salt marsh wetlands along Main Creek in North Park. During the spring of 2013, a crew that specializes in ecological restoration completed construction in an area formerly dominated by Phragmites into a successional wetland.

Susan Mills, an artist who works entirely in artist’s book form in her NYC studio, is working with Freshkills Park on a project to be presented at this year’s Sneak ‘Peak’, on September 28 called UnCommon Pages. On July 19, Susan will lead a group to harvest plants including phragmites, the invasive species on our site (also known as the common reed) to make paper for a bookmaking workshop at our fall festival.