By Luna Sasche-Abresch, Restoration Technician
This spring, Restoring Lands accomplished a grand feat of planting over 22,000 trees!
This effort is a part of the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewage Districts ‘Reforestation and Wetland Restoration Program’. Their goal is to plant 6 million trees and restore 4,000 acres of wetlands over the next ten years, and we are honored to be a part of it. As water connects us all, we are grateful for our local partnerships, staff, and volunteers that put in the work to help prioritize sustainable water management solutions at watershed levels.
Let’s get into it! These large scale restorations are unfolding at our Huiras Lake and Kurtz Woods State Natural Areas, both located in Ozaukee county.
Kurtz Woods, located in the town of Grafton and the village of Saukeville, is an exemplary 45 acre southern mesic forest. It has been inducted into the ‘Old Growth Forest Network’ due to the maturity of trees relative to the region, making stewardship at Kurtz a priority to maintain the ecological integrity of such a remnant. On the eastern most edge of the forest lies a 2 acre oldfield situated in a depression. Last year, the Stew Crew planted 100 container trees here and this year we dreamt even bigger planting 2,000 trees and shrubs! We accomplished this feat using a technique called tractor planting, pictured below, as well as planting by hand. There’s also an area within the woods where invasive buckthorn has been removed and replaced with an enhancement planting of a variety of native shrubs and trees like nannyberry, witch hazel, serviceberry and more. This labor of love increases habitat connectivity by increasing future forest cover across the entirety of Kurtz Woods, reducing fragmentation. The over 18 species of trees planted are native to Wisconsin and provide reciprocal environmental gifts to those that are in relationship to it. An example would be that paper birch is a larval host to the Luna moth and the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail. Or that a serviceberry provides food to over 40 bird species, mammals, and native bees!
Tractor planting as demonstrated by Land Steward, Gabby Dahl. The tractor’s blade splits the earth open while the person on the back gently guides the tree into the right position before the back tires squeeze the slit shut.
At Huiras Lake the number grows tenfold! We planted 20,000 trees. That’s a tree for every resident of the town of Fredonia times ten more Fredonias, which is where Huiras Lake is located. This leveling up of our tree planting was aided by our contractor who also employed tractor planting. Prior to planting the Stew Crew brush cut any impediments to the machinery spanning the 20 acre project site. This former farm field is surely on its way to becoming reforested, providing a large ecological corridor all the way to Huiras’s immaculate conifer swamp wetlands. This planting will help manage rainfall where it lands, strengthen the connection of the uplands to the lowlands, and improve the water quality that runs through the entirety of the preserve and beyond. As farm fields are prone to run off and erosion, these trees will also help remediate the soil and anchor it to the beautiful sloping hillsides of Huiras Lake. Not to mention the respite of some tree cover on a hot day, which anyone can enjoy for free at our preserves!
The transformation of this 20 acre, former farm field is most evident from a birds eye view photo courtesy of Eddee Daniel.
As these trees grow, they help join the fallow fields to larger landscapes, protecting and improving their ecological functions all the way down stream. Once again, we are shown that we are more resilient when connected and stronger in numbers. Our ‘Great Spring Planting’ is all wrapped up but the restoration continues as we forge onward with the mission of not only protecting land into perpetuity, but also improving it one tree at a time.
The Stewardship and Restoration team giving our best American Gothic at Kurtz Woods.