Successional Change at Fraser Preserve with Margaret Chatham
Date/Time
Thursday, March 11, 2021
7:30 pm - 9:00 pm
Categories
For the past 23 years, Margaret Chatham has been watching the plants at Fraser Preserve, a 220-acre Nature Conservancy Property on the Potomac River upstream of Riverbend.
In this program she shares some of the changes she has observed, and speculates on causes — natural succession; deer pressure; exotic species invading; wind, drought and flood disturbance; and putting her thumb on the scales by leading invasive plant removal workdays. The forest at Fraser is working its way toward looking like old-growth, with delightful surprises as well as tangles of dead wood.
Margaret Chatham is a devoted Fraser Preserve Volunteer Visitation Committee Member who removes invasive barberry shrubs in winter and wavyleaf grass in summer and knows the preserve intimately. She is also editor of the VNPS Potowmack News newsletter, a volunteer at the VNPS propagation beds at Green Spring Gardens in Alexandria, and an Arlington Regional Master Naturalist.
Watch the Video Recording
Fraser Preserve Photo © Alltrails.com used with permission
