05/14/2026
Volunteer workday yesterday removing invasive Asian Bush Honeysuckle from around the outdoor classroom area at Boyd Woods. A dozen volunteers broke up into teams made up of one person cutting the shrubs, another applying a chemical agent to the fresh cut stumps to prevent re-sprouting, and a third dragging the cuttings to a central pile to be chipped into mulch at a later date. Much was accomplished but much remains to be done as the plant is an extremely aggressive invader! Why are we doing this? Asian Bush Honeysuckle grows so densely that it crowds out nearly everything else on the forest floor, often leaving only bare soil underneath. While it does bloom and produce red berries that many birds like, those berries are considered a poor food source, sort of like feeding your kids candy. Also, Asian Bush Honeysuckle does not host the insects that birds need, particularly to feed their nestlings. More information can be found at the Indiana DNR:https://www.in.gov/dnr/files/Bush_Honeysuckle.pdf
