Invasive rose removal held at Clark Reservation

TOWN OF DEWITT – Rosarians and other volunteers with an interest in conservation brought out their loppers, shovels and pruners this month for an invasive species removal at Clark Reservation State Park.
The informational program devoted to reducing populations of multiflora rose was divided into two work sessions on Friday, Aug. 11, one that went from 9 a.m. to noon and another lasting from 1 to 4 p.m.
Working in teams of three or four, the volunteers that day made it their mission to locate and manually extract the invasive rose typically found along the edges of the Jamesville park’s main parking lot and picnic areas and down the stairs past the nature center. According to one of the helpers, SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF) senior Raquel Mennella, the rose can be identified by the hairy fringes of its stipules at the base of its leaf.
Mike Serviss, a biologist with New York State Parks who guided the work that morning and afternoon, said it was convenient that the rose in question has kept to the more developed parts of the park, but he warned that it has the potential to spread inward to the more natural environment where rare plants and sensitive habitats can be found.
“We’re getting it at a point where it’s not unmanageable,” Serviss said. “But there’s nothing keeping it in check also on a normal day. There’re no natural predators or herbivores that really keep it in its place, so it kind of has free rein to spread as it will.”
Native to eastern China, Japan and Korea and classified as a noxious or prohibited weed, multiflora rose is now widespread across the northeastern and central United States. Serviss said that though it could be considered an “attractive plant,” it tends to form dense thickets that overtake sections of wilderness and crowd out native species, while its rose hips, or berry-like fruit, provide less nutritional value than native roses or shrubs that could otherwise be growing in those spaces like the similarly arching, large-bushed Virginia or Carolina roses.
Sonia Kragh, who was the organizer of the event and serves as the chair of the sustainability and E.M. Mills Rose Garden committees for the Syracuse Rose Society, said the first step of each session was to remove signs of rose rosette disease, a contagious virus for roses that travels through the air on a wingless mite and quickly wipes out gardens.
Kragh, also a member of the DeWitt Advisory Conservation Commission, said the virus causes any rose it infects to look “abnormal” and “more striking” due to the resulting growth with extra prickles that eventually forms into fringier red foliage as part of a witch’s broom on top.
Additionally, the volunteers on Aug. 11 made sure to cut out common buckthorn, an invasive itself but not the focus of the day, in order to get to the multiflora rose.
The plants with the rose rosette virus were then bagged up and thrown in the trash to eliminate any risk of it spreading, while the rest of the multiflora rose that was spotted was brought to a brush pile to dry out with the sun exposure and die.
To be on the safer side, the volunteers dug out and removed the roots because they can propagate and start a new plant and the cane can come back down to the ground and reattach if left onsite.
Serviss said a positive of an event like the recent invasive species removal is the way people can bring their different expertise to the table, learn from each other and relate through their shared interests. Seeing as how the event had already been rescheduled from Monday, Aug. 7 due to rain, Serviss said it was a plus to have clear, sunny weather for the work sessions.
“The beautiful day helps keep spirits up because the roses have prickly thorns and it can be difficult to work with them when it hurts to remove them,” he said.
He added that some of the removed multiflora rose that day had by that point grown up to 20 feet tall and in other cases 15 feet wide. Some was also prevented from getting too close to a rare tree at Clark Reservation known as the rock elm or cork elm, which used to be abundant in places with rocky bluffs before its overharvesting for use in fence posts.