The simple truth behind every "Save A Tree" Day is that you can do an awful lot of good in a very short time just by cutting one oriental bittersweet vine. This one small act will prevent thousands of seeds from developing and spreading the severe infestation that is destroying trees around Glastonbury.
By bringing together many volunteers we can cut hundreds of vines in a day and reduce infestation potential by hundreds of thousands of berries.
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| The vines causing this infestation were cut during our November 2013 SAT Day. Too late for the tree, sadly, which was part of the ecologically important riparian zone along the Connecticut River. |
The Process:
"Save A Tree" (SAT) Days are relatively unstructured, unpublicized work days that bring together experienced, vetted bittersweet battlers (known as the "Gold Level Team").
Events are organized with the support of the Town of Glastonbury. Event sites are on Town of Glastonbury property, typically parks and conservation areas.
SAT Day scheduling targets short term opportunities during chillier months to get the team into a site during a known weather window (typically during winter, early spring and late fall) when target sites are clear of foliage. This makes a huge difference in accessibility. Because the events are weather-dependent they are typically on short notice. We try to grab the few good days, whether on weekends or weekdays.
The goal of SAT Days is to have quick, simple events that require minimal effort to organize, while producing maximum hands-on eradication results. The goal is usually to cut vines thereby eliminating the following season's crop of berries.
In most cases no special site access prep will be done by the Town so SAT Days are for "heavy hitter" experienced people only.
