Arden Hills Greening

12/09/2025

Here's some of the seeding that was done in time for today's snowstorm: elm-leaved goldenrod. It took about an hour to pace all over the aspen grove (1.4 acres). I'll be doing that several more times over the winter.

12/09/2025

We just placed our winter seed order today: $202 with Prairie Moon Nursery. It includes 14 species of flowers and 3 species of grasses/sedges. (The biggest expense was $30 for 2 oz. of Solomon's Plume seed, but that should hopefully be enough for seeding next winter, too.)

Great River Greening recommended that we also add berry-producing shubs in Chatham to give birds more of an alternative to buckthorn berries. We will be looking into ordering bare-root stock later this winter.

Thanks to those donors who have helped us, so far! (We're at 57% of our goal.)

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12/01/2025

Pictures from Chatham Trails. The Before photo shows typical buckthorn infestation before buckthorn removal. The After photo shows what it looks like after buckthorn removal. These are pictures of different areas separated by a trail.

The cleared area looks very bare. That is because the buckthorn that was there prevented the growth of native understory plants. That is the result of long-term neglect of Chatham Trails and other natural areas in Arden Hills parks. Controlling buckthorn regrowth and establishment of a healthy understory will be a long-term project.

10/31/2025

There's a webinar coming up on Wed, Nov. 12 at 11am comparing different approaches to revegetation for buckthorn management. I'm looking forward to seeing if there's some insight that can improve our restoration efforts.

Join us for this episode to learn how invasive buckthorn can be mitigated with dense native revegetation.

10/26/2025

Check out this progress!

10/26/2025

Cummings Park: It's going to take a few years to get this area fixed up, but we're making progress!

10/16/2025

Our volunteers have contributed over 250 hours of work in the parks this year... so far. At least 214 of that is from just three people. 💖 (We could really use some more help.)

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09/25/2025

We currently have 200 volunteer hours recorded for this year... and we're just getting into the busy season. If you can spare an hour or two this fall, your help would be greatly appreciated!

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09/01/2025

Slow and steady... gradually opens up more space for planting/seeding.

08/25/2025

Here is an update on the planting that was done at Chatham last fall. We didn't have enough volunteers to keep the plants watered during the dry autumn; some plants didn't survive. Others were likely eaten by deer; the 3 Tall Bellflower plants that were noted in yesterday's plant survey were very short and had clearly been nibbled on... as had much of the Brown-eyed Susans. More than half the species were counted at a rate of 10% or less (though some were surely concealed by the new grass), but some species are doing rather well.

The top performers this year are Boneset (94%), Blue Vervain (80%), White Vervain (40%), Early Figwort (35%), and Brown-eyed Susan (30%). And even if there aren't a LOT of flowers yet, there were quite a few more pollinators than could be found there last year. That included bumblebees, flower flies, and different species of wasps.

08/15/2025

If you're curious about what we'll be doing at Cummings Park, here's the plan: https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:VA6C2:14aa542d-159b-4274-9063-ea40a31cb254
Please contact us if you'd like to be part of the Cummings Park team!

08/12/2025

Come on out to Cummings Park this Thursday evening for the Arden Hills Community Picnic! There will be free food and activities, including our table with information about our group, our park projects, and a pollen-specialist bee/keystone species matching activity. We hope to see you there!