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March 28, 2024

“A Little Dab’ll do Ya!”

At the Carl T. Johnson Nature Preserve

If you remember the Brylcreem advertising jingle from the 1950’s, you remember a little dab of hair cream was all men needed to look so debonair!

In our case, a tiny little dab is all that was needed to kill the roots of autumn olive that had infiltrated the Carl T. Johnson Nature Preserve. Years ago autumn olive plants were introduced on the Preserve. The plant then took over so aggressively that other plant species didn’t have a chance to thrive.  Our cost-share partner, the Wexford County Conservation District, developed a plan that called for eradicating the autumn olive.

 

The process required one volunteer cut down the autumn olive bush with a pole saw  blade. The next volunteer used a covered container of weed killer and within seconds dabbed it on the exposed stub. Therefore only a little dab of herbicide was needed.

 

 

 

This fall a group of Cadillac Area Land Conservancy (CALC) volunteers took over the task. It took four visits to get the job done: many thanks to Cherry Grove Township residents and our own CALC volunteers for chipping in many hours of labor!