Ford Park Restoration

The city is teaming up with Tree Trust and Lakewinds Food Co-op for a tree planting event on Thursday, May 1, in celebration of Arbor Month. The event will take place on a 2-acre park site previously overrun with invasive species. Ahead of the event, the area was seeded with native shortgrass prairie plants and treated with herbicide to control invasive brome grass. Volunteers will plant a mix of climate-resilient trees and shrubs suited to an oak-hickory savanna, enhancing habitat, biodiversity, and the park’s natural beauty.

Herbicide treatment was applied on all buckthorn over the seven acre wooded space area of the park. Treating this aggressive invasive species will open up light and space to assist in the establishment of the 10,000 seedlings we planted. Even further, we have had great success over the summer with nearby seed sources naturally seeding in on the site (natural regeneration).

Upcoming work: We lost several more oak trees due to drought stress and twolined chestnut borer in the park over the summer of 2024. We will be removing multiple dead oak trees that pose a future risk to our trail.

Otherwise, staff will mostly be taking a step back on management outside of one annual herbicide treatment of buckthorn in the fall for the foreseeable future.

Interesting note: about 90% of the seedlings we planted in the spring have survived the summer and are in good condition. This was very exciting for us to see, given we were anticipating a survival rate of about 50%.

The city's Natural Resources Division spot treated for garlic mustard, burdock, and common motherwort with herbicide. Treating these invasive species early will prevent them from establishing and overtaking desired native species on the forest floor.

The Minnetonka forestry staff led a team of volunteers on a daylong event where they planted 10,000 seedlings across the forest floor. Many team members were local Cargill employees interested in activities that connect back to the earth. Volunteers planted a variety of 52 trees and shrub seedlings with assistance from Hennepin County Forestry which provided thousands of tree seedlings. While it will take several years for a renewed forest to flourish, Assistant City Forester Josh Obermeyer expects to see positive results year by year.

Small scale buckthorn removal has been ongoing since January. Teams will bring in the forestry mower in the coming weeks to mow down and mulch buckthorn. A large scale planting event is anticipated in May