Image: Invasive Plant Control Area Sign for Mini-grants Program
Elizabeth Martin, Margaret Fisher, and Barb Tuset
A year ago, Fairfax County awarded NVBA’s Wildlife Sanctuary Program and Plant NOVA Natives a $32,500 grant from its Tree Preservation and Planting Fund to provide mini-grants for invasive removal on common open space owned by community associations or faith communities. We received 22 applications and funded 11 of them. We selected applications with the most effective and reasonable plans to address threats from invasives and involving property containing habitat of value where invasive removal efforts would provide a visible demonstration of educational value to congregants, residents, and passersby.
We selected three faith communities and eight neighborhood associations, although one neighborhood association dropped out when it could not muster sufficient volunteers. The final awards went to Antioch Baptist Church (Fairfax Station), Crest of Alexandria Homeowners’ Association (Fairfax), Fox Lake Property Owners Association (Oakton), Good Shepherd Catholic Church (Mount Vernon), Lakeford Community Association (Falls Church), Little River United Church of Christ (Annandale), McLean Greens HOA (Falls Church), Poplar Heights Recreation Association (Falls Church), Ridge Road Estates HOA (Springfield), and The Timbers HOA (Springfield).
We restricted mini-grants to projects focused on removal of the invasive vines and trees that most threaten native canopy trees in Northern Virginia, namely Japanese Honeysuckle, Asian Wisteria, Asiatic Bittersweet, Wintercreeper, English Ivy, Multiflora Rose, Porcelainberry, Kudzu, Callery Pear, Tree of Heaven, and Autumn Olive. These 11 vine and tree species overrun natural areas, overtop and kill trees, displace native plants, create food deserts for wildlife, and create hazards for humans. For more information about invasive plants and how to control them, see the excellent fact sheets published by Blue Ridge PRISM.
Clearing with a forestry grinder and growth of native milkweed, Photos courtesy of McLean Greens HOA
Each community received $3,000, and each mini-grant required a match of $1,500, fulfilled either with money or volunteer labor. Although the grants were modest, they enabled the grantees to effectively treat substantial invasive infestations on large areas of common property. These projects would have been impossible to tackle without the funding that the mini-grants provided to pay contractors; volunteers alone could not have done it. All told, almost 10 acres of invasives were treated.
The benefits from the mini-grants go beyond the acreage directly treated. Many of the common areas border parks, so the treated acres help buffer and protect Fairfax County parkland from invasions by harmful exotic plants. In addition, the success of their projects motivated several HOAs to embark on further projects to build on the work accomplished with mini-grant funds. For example, one grantee obtained additional funding from another source to replant a cleared area near a stream with 640 native plants. Another grantee reports its HOA has decided to use its own funds to contract for removal of Autumn Olive and English Ivy from another area of common property. Success is motivating, and one thing leads to another!
An example is the Fox Lake Property Owners’ Association, which owns 26 acres of common property. They treated two acres heavily infested by Autumn Olive, Multiflora Rose, English Ivy, Japanese Honeysuckle, Asiatic Bittersweet, and Porcelainberry. They began with forest mulching, hiring contractors who used a machine to cut, grind, and clear invasive vegetation. They experimented with three different invasive removal approaches in three different areas: sheet mulching with cardboard covered by mulch; hand pulling (near a stream), and herbicide (on a steep slope). Very soon after treatment, they found regrowth of native Milkweed, Sassafras, and Devil’s Walkingstick in treated areas. They observed wildlife returning, too, including wild turkeys and a female fox who raised a den of kits in the just-cleared area. After clearing what was once a solid wall of invasives, residents can now “see” who inhabits their woods, which has increased interest in their wild areas, even among teenagers!
About half the mini-grants were for projects in riparian areas, and applicants were required to obtain waivers from Fairfax County to work in Resource Protection Areas along Accotink Creek, Piney Branch, Tripps Run, Difficult Run, and Holmes Run. Careful removal of invasives will improve the quality of wildlife habitat in these environmentally sensitive areas.
Invasive Plant Control Area Sign for Mini-grants Program
Mini-grant recipients were also required to educate their members about the problems caused by invasive plants and about native alternatives that residents could install on their own properties. Communities received a sign to display. Some communities embarked on ambitious activities to involve their residents, congregations, and neighbors, including:
distributing brochures and doorhangers about the Tree Rescuers and Wildlife Sanctuary programs;
creating and distributing their own stewardship flyers and project descriptions to residents and Master Naturalists;
publishing newsletter articles;
making presentations or distributing information at annual meetings and other events;
conducting site tours and community hikes; and
providing an opportunity for an ecological restoration stewardship internship for a high school student as part of the project.
We thank Fairfax County for the initial grant and we especially thank all of the grantees for the hard work they put into volunteering on invasive removal, and on managing these projects. We hope this project starts them, and their neighbors and fellow congregants, on a rewarding journey of rediscovering and restoring their own nearby wild places. We have applied for renewed funding for a new round of mini-grants to community associations and faith communities in Fairfax County for next year.