Bowdoin Students Join HIPP Volunteers to Make Lighter Work of Invasive Plant Removal
On Wednesday August 28 a team of eight Bowdoin students and six HIPP volunteers came together at the Giant’s Stairs & McIntosh Lot Preserve on Bailey Island to remove invasive bittersweet. Bittersweet is a woody vine that can quickly overwhelm and choke out native plant species. On Friday August 30 the same Bowdoin team again joined HIPP leaders to pull bindweed at the Potts Point Preserve. Maine’s Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry (DACF), calls bindweed “one of the most problematic weeds in the world”.
This was the second year that students from Bowdoin’s First-Year Orientation Program collaborated with HIPP to bring many hands and energy to the task of removing invasive plants from Harpswell lands. Within a few hours this highly productive team removed 110 pounds of bittersweet at Giant’s Stairs and a significant amount of bindweed at Potts Point. These plants will no longer encroach on these preserves’ sensitive ecosystems and HIPP is very grateful for the Bowdoin students’ enthusiasm, support, and impact.
HIPP conducts work days at different times of the year to take advantage of the unique lifecycle characteristics of particular invasive plants. In late summer, for example, bittersweet leaves start to yellow which is sooner than other deciduous species. This makes identification of bittersweet a little easier and improves the thoroughness of removal efforts. Other late summer plants that are HIPP targets include knotweed, knapweed, loosestrife, and bull thistle because they are still flowering and are not yet dispersing seeds. Fall plant targets include bittersweet and shrub honeysuckle, among other woody plants.
To Learn More
See the links below for more information about bittersweet and bindweed. In addition, the invasive plants Steward’s Guide on the HIPP resources page provides information on more invasive plants that warrant particular attention for Harpswell lands.
- Bittersweet Information Sheet (HIPP website)
- Bindweed Information Sheet (DACF website)