The Townsend River Walk & Arboretum Picnic Area, Demonstration Rain Water Garden, Children's Wooden Play Train and More is scheduled to be completed in 2025 and is estimated to cost $ 7,000.   We are providing the volunteers but we need your generous donations for the materials.

GBU Life of Pittsburgh is matching the first $2000 in donations! 

Latest News from the Townsend River Walk and Arboretum

Final Large Scale Invasive Management at the TRWA

Details

grouppic900Nothing Says Community Like Invasive Management.
An Excellent Community Turnout for Our Last Large Scale Invasive Management at The Townsend River Walk & Arboretum.
Pictured are  members of: Tuckaleechee Garden Club, Blount County Master Gardeners, Keep Blount Beautiful,
 Little River Watershed Assoc., & Blount County Community Members at Large.

marthaandsharlotteCharlotte Miller (left) and Martha Frink have dedicated themselves to the TRWA for almost 20 years. They are finally breathing a sigh of relief with the invasive plants finally under control.On Saturday, February 26, 2022 we had over 20 volunteers from the following organizations: Tuckaleechee Garden Club, Blount County Master Gardeners, Keep Blount Beautiful, Little River Watershed Association, Girl Scouts and at large members of the Blount County Community joined us for this final Large Scale Invasive Management Day.   Everyone put in such a great effort and then were treated to a lunch after the workday.  We can't thank everyone enough for volunteering on this chilly Saturday morning and making this day special.

Almost 20 years ago the Townsend River Walk came into existence and from the beginning invasive management has been a priority.  This area along the Little River was covered with an over abundance of bush honeysuckle, privet, mimosa and more.  It had been growing unabated since the road bed (Old 73) was re-routed in the 1940's on what is now US 321.  Many years of hard labor was put into trying to tame these invasives, especially by the Tuckaleechee Garden Club, and we have finally succeeded to minimize the invasives.   This is not to say that the invasives are gone forever but the are now more controllable with minimum of time and effort.

Over the last four years a concentrated effort by the Tuckaleechee Garden Club in conjunction with the Blount County Master Gardeners and with the help of our community partners: Keep Blount Beautiful and the Little River Watershed Assoc. we have been able to make incredible progress in stabilizing the spread of these invasive plants.  During this time we utilized better methods of getting these invasives under control.   The main methods of invasive removal consist of: pulling the invasive by the roots, by hand or root puller, and cutting an daubing.  Cutting and daubing consists of: cutting the invasive with loppers or chainsaw then preciously applying a 30% - 40% solution of glyphosate using a sponge topped dauber (similar to a bingo dauber).  This method kills the root of the invasive, makes handling the glyphosate much safer and prevents excess use of glyphosate.  The results of using these methods have been nothing short of amazing.

I personally cannot express the appreciation and gratitude for all the community members that have made this day possible.  Having worked on the TRWA these last 6 years I never thought I would be able to say that invasives at the TRWA are under control.  What a special moment.

Take time to help support the TRWA with a small DONATION. A donation of any amount goes a long way to help these volunteers maintain this vital piece of Townsend. 
We have big plans and need all the support we can get.