This is wisteria. Its lovely lilac racemes are harbingers of spring and the Easter season. It is also a scourge, invading native landscapes, girdling trees, and smothering trees via dense networks of runners that criss-cross the woodland floor. Wisteria eradication is the greatest challenge to reclaiming Odd Fellows and Rountree Cemeteries, but our teams of volunteers have made unbelievable progress in just three months.
LSP volunteer days at Odd Fellows are normally the first and third Saturday. However, Easter is the first Sunday in April this year, and for that reason we are shifting to the 2nd and 4th Saturdays for the month. We’ll need all the help we can get as the weather warms up and privet, honeysuckle, and wisteria try once again to overwhelm the cemetery. We also need help with two side projects — the pruning of trees and shrubs around the monument in Vick cemetery, and application of defoliant chemicals at Odd Fellows.
If you’ve been thinking of coming out, please do — and bring a friend. If you’ve already been, please come back — and bring your sorority sisters, your lodge brothers, your motorcycle club, your soccer team, your usher board, your anybody!
As always, thank you!
I plan to continue fine tuning (for lack of a better term) the defoliation effort on site at Odd Fellows tomorrow Sat Apr 3 btwn 10am and 2pm .. anybody that wants to help snip and haul wisteria, privet, honeysuckle et al ground runners out of the way come on down .. no spraying until as much of this as can be handled in four hours is completed and the bulk of volunteers are cleared out. Briggs Sherwood (828) 275-5341
This is great, Briggs! I’ll amplify the call for anyone who wants to come out tomorrow.