Photo: Porcelain-berry, Olivier Vanpé via Wikimedia commons
Margaret Fisher (Plant NOVA Natives), Betsy Martin and Barbara Tuset (Audubon at Home)
This year, the Fairfax County Tree Preservation and Planting Fund (TPPF) gave Audubon at Home and Plant NOVA Natives a grant to fund mini-grants for invasive plant removal on community association or faith community common open space. In October we awarded mini-grants to 10 home owner associations (HOAs) and faith communities.
Each community will receive $3,000 on a reimbursement basis which it can use to pay for removal of invasive plants that are a threat to trees in landscaped or natural areas. The TPPF mini-grant requires a match of $1,500, which can be fulfilled either with money or volunteer labor. We encourage the use of volunteers, so that residents can gain first-hand experience of the difficulties posed by invasive plants and a sense of the value of paying people to do the work in the future. We also encouraged communities to engage their current landscaping companies in the work so as to increase the number of companies in our region that can offer invasive control services, especially of the invasive vines that threaten native trees.
Porcelain-berry, Olivier Vanpé via Wikimedia commons
We restricted mini-grants to projects focused on removal of the invasive vines and trees that most threaten native trees in Northern Virginia, namely Japanese Honeysuckle, Asian Wisteria, Asiatic Bittersweet, Wintercreeper, English Ivy, Multiflora Rose, Porcelain-berry, Kudzu, Callery Pear, Tree of Heaven, and Autumn Olive. These eleven vine and tree species overrun natural areas and overtop trees, killing and displacing native trees and plants, creating food deserts for wildlife and destroying their habitat, and creating hazards for humans. You can learn more about the threat posed by these plants, and how to control them, from the excellent fact sheets published by Blue Ridge PRISM. Mini-grant recipients will be required to educate their members about the problems caused by invasive plants and about native alternatives that residents could install on their own properties. Communities will display a sign that we will provide: “Invasive plant control area. Please don’t plant the non-native species that damage our ecosystem.” The sign will include a QR code linking to an information page on invasive plant control.
This project dovetails with the Plant NOVA Trees campaign in which volunteers count trees at risk from invasive vines and drop off literature for homeowners to warn them of the problem. This Tree Rescuer program has already increased awareness and led community associations to start looking for ways to save their trees.
A $3,000 mini-grant, when matched by a community with $1,500 in funds or volunteer labor, is sufficient to make a noticeable improvement in both the habitat value and appearance of a common area that has been overrun by invasive plants. Several companies specialize in invasive plant removal in Northern Virginia, should the job call for that level of experience and expertise. In common areas where a lower level of expertise will suffice, such as those that simply need cut stump treatment of invasive vines on trees or uprooting of easily identified plants such as Multiflora Rose, communities can handle it with a combination of volunteer labor to do the cutting or pulling and a certified pesticide applicator to apply the herbicide. Those communities will need to train the workers, whether paid or unpaid, in control techniques as well as in identification of the plants and how to distinguish them from native look-alikes.
Applicants were required to request pre-visits from Audubon at Home Ambassadors and Plant NOVA Natives volunteers who walked the property with the applicant, identified which invasives were present, and advised on developing a plan and method of control. The board of the HOA or faith community also had to approve the application.
We received 22 applications, most of them deserving of funding. We could fund only 10 of them and made the selections by weighing several criteria, including the efficacy of the plan, the degree of infestation and the habitat value of the area in question, the visibility of the property and potential to serve as a model to members and passersby, and any proximity to a disadvantaged neighborhood.
We thank all of the applicants for the hard work they put into applying. We are very happy to learn that this grant opportunity has prompted even some of those who did not win mini-grants to start working on a long-term plan for invasive plant control in their common areas. We also encourage them (and you) to go through the process of certifying their properties as Audubon-at-Home Wildlife Sanctuaries, which requires, among other things, that the residents spot at least 10 out of a list of 41 species of wildlife using the property.
We congratulate the mini-grant winners:
Antioch Baptist Church (Fairfax Station), Chesterfield Mews Community Association (Fairfax), Crest of Alexandria Homeowners’ Association (Fairfax), Fox Lake Property Owners Association (Oakton), Lakeford Community Association (Falls Church), Little River United Church of Christ (Annandale), McLean Greens HOA (Falls Church), Poplar Heights Recreation Association (Falls Church), Ridge Road Estates HOA (Springfield), The Timbers HOA (Springfield).