TWiG Dig (and Pull) At Wales Park

Members of the Belfast Garden Club TWiG Committee met this morning in Wales Park. Afterwards, many stayed behind to pull and dig out the invasive Norway maple seedlings that proliferate beneath the trees. This area of Wales Park has been targeted by TWiG, the City of Belfast, and a group of eager high school students and their teacher to become a patch forest.

A patch forest is a wooded area, as small as 100 square feet, that is a complete biosphere, including understory or ground cover plants, perennials such as ferns, small trees and shrubs, and large shade trees, all working together with insects, birds and other wildlife to create an ecologically healthy environment. These same components compose a large forest.

Wales Park is an important part of Belfast’s natural resources because of the green space, a community garden, the pollinator garden, the play area and the take/leave vegetable table. It also has a potentially lovely small wooded area that can become a great example of how to create a forest in an urban area. At present it is overrun with Norway maples; including thousands of seedlings on the forest floor, that have crowded out native ferns, wildflowers and native shrubs.. 

The Belfast Garden Club ,and its Tree Working Group Committee (TWIG), has received a Maine Canopy Grant, with two major components: inventorying the city’s street trees and educating Belfast’s residents about the importance and function of trees. The Wales Park project is to serve as an educational component. 

Safety is also a component: By clearing the invading saplings and weeds, light will enter the forest, making it a safe place to explore and commune with nature.