Weed-end fun: Help Prospect Park kill ENORMOUS INVASIVE WEEDS

After all the fun times Prospect Park has given you, isn’t it only fair to give back a little?

Fight the Phrag, a new initiative from The Prospect Park Alliance aims to remove phragmites, an invasive species of wetland grass, from Brooklyn’s only lake, part of a larger project to revitalize Prospect Park’s woodlands and natural areas. What’s that mean for you? You can spend a weekend or two fighting 18-foot high weeds!

The invasive weed enemy, phragmites, grow up to a height of 18 feet (like two and a half basketball players or three runway models), so removing them isn’t as simple as pouching a dandelion. The Alliance doesn’t expect you to be an expert horticulturalist to help with these massive plants, though. Instead, you’ll be helping the Alliance’s Landscape Management use black plastic landscaping fabric to “tamp down the tall grass” which denies it sunlight, and basically suffocates the plant until landscapers can fully remove it and replace the area with native plants.

If saving the shoreline or giving back to the park that’s done so much for you doesn’t entice you, think of the epic Instagrams with those huge plants… Volunteer with the Weekend Woodland Corps on Saturday August 16 or 23 to help restore the park!