Groups plant trees to help restore acreage

Groups plant trees to help restore acreage

BY JEFF B. FLINN Managing Editor

Terry Lashley confesses she didn’t even know the 13-acre section of city land behind the Patrick Heath Public Library even existed until the Boerne chapter of the Native Plant Society of Texas took its restoration on as a project.

“I think it’s a very worthwhile project to restore these 13 acres,” Lashley said Friday, as a group of 20 Texas Master Naturalists and Native Plant Society members met to plant 50 trees in the recently cleared area.

“I didn’t even know it existed and I’ve lived in Boerne since 1990,” she said. “I have a love for nature, and I think this is a beautiful project, to restore this.”

Group members met Thursday to dig holes and erect deer fencing for the trees, acquired with a grant from Apache Corporation, which Hill Country Texas Master Naturalist Rachel Thompson applied for in August.

“We applied in August for a grant from Apache, which has dispensed more than 100,000 trees each year for planting,” Thompson said. She received notification in early September the request had been granted.

The trees, she said, are “understory,” which means they grow beneath the larger trees, and help attract the birds. The trees include Flameleaf sumac, Yaupon holly, possumhaw, roughleaf dogwood, and Mexican plum, among others.

Midweek rains last week dampened the earth, providing for great planting soil. Trees were divided into 10 plots, five trees per plot, with species intermingled. No two species were put into the same plot.

'I love to get my hands dirty and dig in the Earth, and we have a wonderful group of volunteers who are so enthusiastic and give so much time to come out and help us,” Lashley said.

Thompson said Paul Barwick, Boerne director of special projects, asked the master naturalist group if it would be interested in helping restore the area – across the creek behind the library to a more natural state “where people can go birding, look for butterflies, or just take a stroll in the woods.”

Thompson’s group started in 2021 with several spring and fall workdays. Volunteers have included church groups, scout packs, and different city groups that have helped stack brush when it’s been cut, and the city comes and hauls it off.

Five-foot-fencing was erected Thursday around the areas where trees were put into the ground on Friday.

“We need the proper understory that’s good for all the native wildlife,” Lashley said. “We do bird surveys, we do herptile (amphibians and reptiles) surveys, those kind of things. We know we have a fox out here, we’ve caught him sleeping up in a tree, we have skunks and we have deer, which can be invasive, hence the cages.”

Thompson said the project has been a group effort among the master naturalists, plant society, the city of Boerne, and volunteers who have turned up to help clear, dig and plant.

“This has been off the radar, no one knows we’re doing this,” Thompson said. “We’ve been telling everyone we see, and they’re excited about it, so we need to get the word out.”

Lashley echoed Thompson’s sentiment.

“It’s great to see people biking and walking and running along the trails and they’ll holler down to us, ‘What are you guys doing?’” Lashley added.