Friends of Ada Hayden Save Park from Invasive Thistle

If it weren't for Friends of Ada Hayden Heritage Park, views from the highest park trails would be overrun with patches of thorny purple.

The invasive but beautiful musk thistle could overtake the park in a single season. Each purple flowering bloom has the potential to produce 20,000 seeds that sprout wherever there is bare ground, said Erv Klaas, Friends of Ada Hayden Heritage Park Board of Directors president.

Recently, volunteers spent several days wading through tall grass to cut the heads off the thorny thistles. Heads were tossed into a bucket to be destroyed later. Then volunteers cut each plant down at its base.

“Next year we will do it again and eventually, the plant will give up,” Klaas said.

The musk thistle is one of many invasive species that could choke out natural plants.

Siberian elms have been a problem as has crown vetch, a flowering vine. The crown vetch was planted around the banks of the lakes, because it was thought to control erosion, but it does not, Klaas said.

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The city created the 437-acre park, a mix of green space, lakes and trails, after purchasing the land in 2001. The lakes were created by a former sand mining operation dating back to the 1950s. The park opened to its first visitors in 2004.

Klaas, a retired Iowa State University professor, and a group of interns documented 150 plants and 261 birds when Ames first purchased the land.

The friends group launched about four years ago hoping to enhance the park's natural environment, increase public awareness and protect it. And Klaas and the friends group have continued to document, birds, dragonflies and other species found at Ada Hayden. The group does some fundraising but mainly operates on a purely volunteer basis. Last year volunteers led nature walks through the park and the friends group hopes to bring the walks back this fall.

The natural area could be surrounded by homes in the future and surprisingly that could be a good thing, Klaas said.

Homes line the southern and western edges of the park and developers annexed agricultural land north of the park into Ames this past year. Klaas said that the residential development planned for the area would be better for the park than the farm land that borders it now.

The City of Ames created an overlay district around the park requiring developers to set aside 30 to 40 percent of the land for natural spaces like prairies, which would filter storm water runoff. Klaas said the city has been good about educating homeowners to use fertilizer that does not contain phosphorus, a harmful chemical than can lead to an accumulation of algae growth in water. Too much algae can rob water of oxygen and kill fish.

“The residential development … will be better than what they have now,” Klaas said.

Farmers who rent the land around the park have less interest in environmental protection, he said.

Looking toward the future, Klaas said he plans to ask the city to hire a full time employee to manage the city's natural areas.

Ames has a lot of natural spaces and Ada Hayden is one of the biggest, Klaas said.

Find more on Ada Hayden and the plants and animals found there at: http://adahaydenpark.blogspot.com or at www.adahaydenfriends.org and on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FriendsOfAdaHaydenHeritagePark