On Monday, September 16, Stuart Country Day School’s seventh grade class joined Friends of Princeton Open Space for an ecological restoration project at Mountain Lakes Preserve. They spent the morning planting a diversity of beneficial wildflowers in area once dominated by invasive plants.
Last month, FOPOS and Princeton cleared thousands of invasive plants from a section of degraded forest in Mountain Lakes Preserve (project detailed here). FOPOS staff and volunteers returned to the site this week with a group of 38 Stuart School students, armed and ready with gloves, shovels, and hundreds of native plants. They worked along the sunny edge of the restoration area, replanting it with a diversity of beneficial wildflowers. By the morning’s end, the students had successfully planted, mulched, and watered over 230 individual plants, including cutleaf coneflowers, wild bergamots, tall meadow rues, and several other species. These native wildflowers will create a beautiful border of yellow, white, and purple blooms, and provide critical habitat to important pollinators and bird populations.
A big thank you to all of the Stuart School volunteers! They’re hard work is creating a lasting impact on Mountain Lakes Preserve’s forest communities.