Eco-Forest One Day

To help compensate for the tree cutting for the renovations, NOVA Parks hit upon the idea of a creating an entirely new eco-forest. As NOVA Parks puts it:

Perhaps the most exciting environmental innovation will be the creation of a native Oak/Hickory Forest Ecosystem. An open field left to nature will go through a series of stages as various forest types develop over time. The top of this forest succession in this area is the Oak/Hickory Forest. While most of Upton Hill is in forest, perhaps only 20% of the current Upton Hill forests are at the Oak/Hickory stage. NOVA Parks has worked with an arborist to plant a complete Oak/Hickory Forest on about an acre of land that is not currently in forest in the park. This plan includes 136 native trees and 60 native bushes. This project will greatly expand the habitat value of the park and provide a great learning opportunity about forest ecosystems.

While we quite agree that some new tree plantings would be good at Upton Hill, we are concerned that this new forest of young trees will not be maintained any better than the older parts of the forest. Unless maintained, the new trees will be overtaken by the invasives that are already taking over the park's forested areas. Like in the other parts of the existing forest, trash will begin to accumulate.

Almost as soon as the trees were planted in October-November 2018, trash was blowing in while older trash around the planting area was not cleaned up. Kind of spoils the sense of nature, but it is at least is a good learning opportunity about the need to pick-up trash around Upton Hill. By summer of 2019, a number of the trees had died.