In September 2023, my partner and I bought a home in Medford MA, and I was delighted to discover a small urban park with a bit of forest and wetland, Carr Park, just a couple minutes walk away.
The city has an ambitious long-term vision/plan for the place: https://medfordenergy.org/gogreen/carr-park-vision-plan/, but it feels a bit neglected at the moment.
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Per their community study efforts, "Highest response rates about programming the park’s woodland area were in favor of trash and debris clean up and invasive species removal, nature play, and an accessible trail to Stowers Ave."
The woodland area could certainly use the help! I've no doubt the wetland provides valuable storm water buffering and habitat, but it's currently choked with trash.
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| Rubber tires not the native flora of this wetland |
In just two quick trips, I found many native plant species, including witch hazel, Canada mayflower, false Solomon's-seal, and large-leaved aster. But there's also a growing invasive plant problem, with Japanese knotweed, garlic-mustard, and lily-of-the-valley (at least) encroaching into the woodland.
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| Witch Hazel |
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| Canada Mayflower |
I started an iNaturalist project to track the biodiversity: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/carr-park-medford-ma To my pleasure, a couple other folks have already made a number of observations there - including starting to document the invasives.
And I started the woodland cleanup process, removing an entire trash bag worth of recyclables and most of another bag of miscellaneous trash: styrofoam, sports balls, plastic bags and food packaging, and more. There's a whole lot more where this came from!