Several people have asked me to provide an update on the wetland restoration project I posted about last November.  At that time, we’d just completed our second (last?) phase of the dirtwork to convert sand pit lakes to a stream channel and shallow wetlands.  I wrote that we were trying to figure out what to do with a lot of sludge that had floated up from the bottom of the sand pit we’d filled in.  

Beggarticks (Bidens sp.) flowers accent a wetland swale that was part of the first phase of the restoration project back in 2001. The 2011 restoration project surrounds that initial phase.  This photo was taken last week.

Well, let’s see…  Since November, the wetland has been very interesting to watch.  We’ve seeded the site a couple times.  Most of the non-sludge-covered area was seeded during the winter and then again in the summer, after many of the smaller wetland channels and pockets off of the main stream channel – that allowed us to get seed into areas previously under water.  We’re starting to see a few plants come in as a result of those seedings, although the dominant vegetation in the most recently-restored portions of the wetland is still mainly annual plants that colonized on their own. 

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