Buckthorn with berries
As the leaves are falling off of the beautiful oak and maple trees we can easily spot a plant that causes us a big problem. Buckthorn! Buckthorn is a shrub or tree that keeps green leaves longer than any other plant. As you drive around town this fall look for green leaves, this will lead you to Buckthorn. Other identifying features are spines or thorns where the branches fork, the female trees have small round dark berries and the leaves are rounded and smooth, often with black spots or patches on the green leaves.
We are working
Winter Buckthorn
very hard to control it in Riverside Park and we need your help. If you have buckthorn growing in your yard please remove it. The birds will eat the berries and deposit the seeds back in our natural areas. We have been fortunate to get help from the National Park Service and the National Park Foundation to start the restoration of Riverside Park so our grandchildren will also know the beauty of an oak woods.
You can stop the spread of buckthorn by removing it from your property. If you are not sure you have buckthorn you can look it up
Common Buckthorn
on the internet or bring a sample to the public works building and we can verify it for you. To eradicate it, cut it as low to the ground as possible and apply herbicide to the stump. The fall is the best time to control buckthorn since it is easy to identify. Also, the plants energy is going down to the roots not up to the leaves so the herbicide is very effective. We will help too! There will be no charge for you to dispose of buckthorn at our compost area. Thank you for helping us restore and protect Riverside Park!
