Written by Davis Mullins, Wild Stew Field Crew Member
Summer has returned! Arizonans and adjacent western Americans were overjoyed this past week at the absolutely lovely temps that we were so graciously gifted by our good friend the heat dome. Summer is the time all true desert dwellers crave and wish for and it was truly a blessing to be able to experience the 100+ degrees as early as March. Even more fortunately we got to return to two old project sites: Queen Creek in Superior and Palo Verde Park off Broadway in Tucson.
We started our hitch in Queen Creek, where we were primarily retreating old Tree of Heaven stands and any other invasive species we saw, including African sumac, Mexican Palo Verde, and Canary Island Date Palms. Our method of treatment this time around was cut stump: following several rounds of previous treatment, we were now cutting the Tree of Heaven as low as we could and giving the stump a spray with an herbicide mix if the tree showed signs of being alive. The slash was then moved out of the floodplain and dispersed where it wouldn’t resprout or act as a ladder fuel for the riparian trees. It shouldn’t be long before these vegetative menaces stop terrorizing our beloved town of Superior.
By Friday we completed our work in the Creek and redirected our efforts to the big city. In Tucson we worked in two different areas: Palo Verde Park and Sunland Vista, both project sites via the Tucson Storm to Shade program. Our main goal was once again the removal of invasive species, though our enemies and methods of dealing with them differed. This project has placed bounties (dead only) on Stinknet, Cheeseweed, London Rocket and Mathiola, just to name a few. We spent the bulk of the last five days of our hitch hand pulling these outlaws. Aside from this, we removed metal cages protecting planted trees, picked up trash, cleared the streets of plants that were blocking clear views of turn areas, and of course supported local businesses by going out for lunch. Not too bad for our first summer hitch.
