EVERETT — Crews from the Washington Conservation Corps plan to spend June ridding a patch of Forest Park of invasive plants, along with dead and dying trees.
They intend to focus their efforts on the wooded area between the lower ballfield and Mukilteo Boulevard. Everett parks crews will assist.
The work is happening because Forest Park was chosen as a site by the Urban Forestry Restoration Project, which is run by the state Department of Natural Resources’ Urban and Community Forestry Program.
Once the unwelcome plants are gone, state crews will help replant native species to replenish the forest’s trees and understory.
The replacement trees were chosen for disease resistance and are intended to mimic the original mix of plants. They include: western red cedar, Sitka spruce, vine maple, cascara, eastern white pine, golden cedar, giant sequoia, incense cedar and white giant sequoia.
Forest Park is Everett’s largest park and also one of the city’s oldest. The wooded area at the park was planted in the 1930s by the crews from the New Deal-era Works Progress Administration. Some 80 years later, a five-acre section is in major decline, with the proliferation of blackberry, ivy, holly and laurel.
In addition to crowding out native vegetation, these invasive plants grow in dense thickets that also harbor rodents. The animals may pose public safety hazards.
For more information about the Urban Forestry Restoration Project, contact Micki McNaughton at 360-902-1637 or micki.mcnaughton@dnr.wa.gov. The Washington State Urban and Community Forestry Program is made possible through a partnership with the USDA Forest Service.
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