P4P grants facilitate hands-on projects between local Garden Club of America clubs and land managers on federal, state, local and other significant public lands, and involve collaboration with a horticultural expert.

The AGC P4P project will restore native habitat at the Essex Quarry Nature Preserve in Essex. The limestone woodland that has become overgrown by aggressive invasives, including bittersweet, honeysuckle and buckthorn. The preserve is owned by Champlain Area Trails, a trail building organization and land trust based in Westport.

The grant proposal was shepherded for AGC by club member Nancy Budd. The AGC, along with community volunteers and CATS stewards, will remove invasive plant species from Essex Quarry this fall, and will propagate onsite plants and monitor native plant species in the spring of 2024. AGC will also monitor the preserve throughout the year and information about removal and treatment progress will be entered into the iMap Invasives database, where it can be shared with others, at www.nyimapinvasives.org. During the growing season, garden club members, along with members of the community, will work at the preserve for a half-day every two weeks.

For the project, the AGC is partnering with botanical consultant Steve Young, retired chief botanist for the New York Natural Heritage Program.

Young will train garden club and community volunteers in both removing invasives and planting native plant species.

Work at the Essex Quarry Nature Preserve began with a survey and an assessment by club members on June 23.

For more information on the Essex Quarry Nature Preserve, including how to volunteer, visit the AGC website at adirondackgardenclub.com.

The Adirondack Garden Club was founded in 1928. The club’s mission is to stimulate the knowledge and love of gardening, to aid in the protection of native plants and birds, and to encourage civic planting, and the conservation of our natural resources. Its purpose is the conservation of the plants, shrubs and trees native to the Adirondack region, and the making of both wild and cultivated gardens characteristic of the environment in which they are placed, the furthering of the cultivation of gardens throughout the Adirondack area, and the promotion of civic conservation and beautification. The Adirondack Garden Club is a nonprofit organization.