VERMONT—Green Mountain & Finger Lakes National Forest staff joined partners on the Batten Kill River to restore an area of floodplain forest once infested with non-native invasive plants by planting locally grown seedlings.

For the past three years, non-native invasive plants control has occurred along a stretch of the river. The floodplain was heavily infested with large honeysuckle shrubs and other invasive plants such as buckthorn, multiflora rose, purple loosestrife, barberry and wild parsnip, which have been reduced by pulling, cutting, burning and herbicide treatment. Forest Service staff partnered with the Vermont Conservation Corps to manually remove these aggressive plants followed by herbicide treatments applied by contractors.

While many hands were working to eradicate non-native invasive plants from the site, staff and partners were also collecting seed of woody species in the area. Those seedlings grew at Hildene Nursery until this fall, when partners came together to transplant them to their new home along the floodplain. Although the site was managed as a wildlife opening, the existing woody vegetation suggests the site would naturally be a sugar maple-ostrich fern riverine floodplain forest (a rare community in Vermont). By converting the opening to a floodplain forest, the hope is that those native seedlings flourish, helping to prevent the regrowth and spread of non-native invasive plants.

“The native floodplain forest vegetation was being outcompeted by NNIP,” said Marybeth Hanley, botanist technician. “This project aims to interrupt this progression by planting native plants. We hope to restore the floodplain to its natural state to the extent possible.”

While the main goal is to combat non-native invasive plants, regrowth of the floodplain forest community is expected to have additional benefits. Four species of rare plants including great blue lobelia (Lobelia siphilitica), meadow spikemoss (Selaginella apoda), switch grass (Panicum virgatum), and butternut (Juglans cinerea) can be found in the area. Two rare animals—wood turtle (Glyptemys insculpta) and Jefferson’s salamander (Ambystoma jeffersonianum)—have been documented in the general area as well. Restoration of the floodplain forest could provide important habitat for these rare species.

Native trees and shrubs propagated by Hildene were planted on the floodplain by staff from the Forest Service and Hildene, Burr & Burton Academy students and the Batten Kill Watershed Comprehensive Invasive Species Management Association. The team planted white pine, red oak, witch hazel, buttonbush, red elderberry, silky dogwood and ninebark, as well as a sycamore and a smattering of alder, many of which were grown from seeds collected on site.