Watertown
Community Gardens

On Saturday, 7/22/23, we had a crew of 9 people removing invasive plant species on the Watertown-Cambridge Greenway.  This was our second time cutting down the large patches of Japanese knotweed on the stretch near Arlington Street.  Everyone had a great time, and are eager to do more of this work.  We anticipate having another event in 2 to 4 weeks.

Black swallow-wort is another invasive that has been blooming for a couple weeks and now has its distinctive seed pods.  It's really important to get these plants and seed pods in trash bags before they open up and spread further into green areas and fence lines (this is a common place to see it).

In June, we worked together with the city's Conservation Agent, Katie Swan to put together this informational document about BSW.  Check it out!  Now is a great time to learn how to identify and remove this plant.

Knotweed is being cut and left in-place to decompose because it has not yet flowered and set seed.  The BSW already has flowers and seed pods, so must be disposed of in trash bags.  Thanks to the Watertown DPW for picking them up.

We have also created a Google Groups for these volunteering activities, Watertown Pollinator Volunteers  Please consider joining the list, or sharing it with people you know.

This will be a years-long effort to get rid of and replace these tough invasive plants with native plants.  We will be back out there in the next month to get rid of as much knotweed and black swallow-wort as we can to prevent its further spread.  Over time, we will also be planting vigorous native plants to compete against the invasive plants.

I've added photos from the event to this public photo album: Pollinator Pathways - Invasive Species Removal.