Mother Nature smiles at Camp Eden Wood

John LeBlanc carries a handful of rooted garlic mustard plants as he directs the Central Middle School bus to park on a shady loop. Science teacher Jackie Campbell and her eighth graders disembark into a woodsy, rustic retreat from another era.

Their end-of-school-year field trip would help restore native habitat along a nature trail at Camp Eden Wood in north-central Eden Prairie. It would also contribute to the sweat equity terms of a $21,500 Natural Resources Grant from Hennepin County. Some 20 Central Middle School students would pull garlic mustard from areas that had been cleared of common buckthorn.

Garlic mustard was introduced to North America by European settlers as a cooking and medicinal herb. Years later, common buckthorn was also brought from Europe to form hedges. Both now threaten native woodlands and are on the noxious weed lists of Minnesota and other northern states. They are illegal to import, sell or transport.

The City of Eden Prairie owns Eden Wood, but True Friends, a nonprofit company, leases the 7.5-acre site. The camp serves kids with high care needs and the community whole as a retreat, meeting and team building site. True Friends operates similar camps near Itasca State Park, Annandale and Maple Lake.

LeBlanc, the True Friends president and CEO, leads the students up a sloped, gravel driveway to meet Eden Wood’s Abigail Hubbell. Cabins and a high rope course are tucked in among the oaks, maples and a few pines.

Students arc in front of Hubbell. She tells some about the True Friends mission and some of Eden Wood’s story. From 1925 to 1950, the portion of it overlooking Birch Island Lake was Glen Lake Children’s Camp. The summer retreat was built for kids recovering from tuberculosis, a severe lung disease caused by bacteria. Sunlight, fresh air, and tranquil, natural settings were the go-to remedies for TB before the discovery of penicillin.

The middle schoolers learn from LeBlanc that they are part of Eden Wood’s ongoing project to restore native plants, wildflowers and trees. LeBlanc is brief. He knows his audience. It is Friday, June 2. Summer vacation begins after classes in six days.

The students pick up and open tall leaf bags and regroup along the nature trail in an area that had been a buckthorn thicket. It has been colonized by hundreds of garlic mustard plants ready to release their seeds.

LeBlanc percolates enthusiasm as he demonstrates how to identify and pull the weed. He grabs a cluster of stems from a single plant near the ground. “If you slowly pull, you’ll feel (the garlic mustard) coming up.”

He explains why bagging and hauling garlic mustard off to a site where its seeds won’t spread is necessary: a single, vigorous plant can release thousands of seeds. The students form platoons and begin pulling in assigned areas.

The back story

The current phase of Eden Wood’s habitat initiative involves collaboration between True Friends, Eden Prairie Parks and Recreation Department, Nine Mile Creek Watershed District, Minnesota Native Landscapes (MNL), Eden Prairie Schools and the Hennepin County office that issues environmental grants.

With more than 2,500 acres of public open space to manage, including pristine bluff lands and big woods, and decades of overseeing volunteer buckthorn and garlic mustard pulls, the city’s Parks and Natural Resources staff knows a thing or two. Within its boundaries, the Watershed District reviews and then approves or denies proposed projects near lakes and wetlands. In this phase, MNL would do the planting guided by its horticultural savvy with variable soils. The Eden Prairie School District would be among the organizations invited to recruit volunteers for the pulls.

LeBlanc, the city and MNL were involved in planning the makeover. City workers had already removed infected ash trees and planted a variety of replacement trees. But LeBlanc has become the camp’s chief buckthorn buster and mustard musher.

“John is the one who really goes after it,” says Curt Meyer. “Usually he is by himself … and sometimes he goes in there (with his saws and uprooting tools) until it gets dark.”

Curt and Carol Meyer volunteer in the camp’s kitchen, dining and conference hall and do maintenance work. They are Friends of Birch Island Woods veterans who, two decades ago, pulled buckthorn and picked up trash in the new, neighboring conservation area.

Carol notes that their boss, with all his buck-pulling, is getting in great physical shape. LeBlanc appreciates the couple’s can-do spirit and quips, “Curt has been kind of my coach and my lawnmower repair guy.”

From plan to action

This year’s phase of Eden Wood’s long-term plan was put into action by MNL crews in early April. They planted 50 saplings and 100 shrubs, protecting them from deer, rabbits and other pests with either tree tubes or cages.

Two woodland management areas, with five small “clump” zones for plum, hazelnut, red osier dogwood, nannyberry, and chokecherry shrubs, were planted. A dry soil clump zone became the crib for black cherry and butternut hickory tree saplings. Sugar maple and basswood were plugged into heavily shaded areas; red maple, basswood, hackberry, and paper birch were placed into wetland soils.

The project is financed with a $21,542 Natural Resources Good Steward Grant from Hennepin County. It was awarded in late March. True Friends was the applicant. In February, LeBlanc confessed that he had never applied or filled out the forms for any kind of natural resources grant before. “How do you talk about tree species,” he said.

But it worked. Camp Eden Wood was one of seven Good Steward Grant recipients this year. Other grants went to projects for rain gardens, pollinator habitat, shoreline stabilization, prairie and woodland restoration, erosion repair and stormwater management. The latter, near George Floyd Square in Minneapolis, will install a rain garden and permeable pavement to infiltrate heavy runoff before it reaches a storm sewer.

Note: For information about Hennepin County Natural Resources grants and City of Eden Prairie buckthorn and garlic mustard projects, see the sidebar at the end of the story.

LeBlanc says that the project’s collaborative and educational aspects were important to winning the grant. Hennepin County’s Ellen Sones added that long-term commitment to improving and maintaining native habitats within an ecologically significant area with an established tree canopy was also a key factor.

While pulling garlic mustard, Jackie Campbell’s students were contributing to an ongoing Eden Wood project that will ultimately plant more than 2,000 wildflowers, shrubs and trees. The mission will improve outdoor activity areas and overnight campsites for youth with special needs. They will be with caregivers.

While birds and chatty teens provided happy background music during the pull, Campbell shared a thought with Eden Prairie Local News (EPLN): “The kids have just been awesome, super eager to be here and participate. They’re excited about getting away from school and getting to do something hands-on and helping out.”

In a decade or two, Camp Eden Wood’s setting will mirror what it once looked like for children recovering from tuberculosis. With Birch Island Lake, Park and Conservation Area, it will also evoke what was familiar to Indigenous Dakota families.

Note: Writer Jeff Strate took the photos in this article.

Editors note: When he was President of Friends of Birch Island Woods, Jeff Strate organized many buckthorn and garlic pulls in the woods and workshops at Eden Wood. Jeff is also a founding board member of EPLN.

Facts and links

The Glen Lake Children’s Camp was part of the Glen Lake Tuberculosis Sanatorium due north of the summer retreat. “The San” was internationally admired for its care of patients and its lung disease research. The camp is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The sanitorium was demolished and replaced by the Glen Lake Golf Course in the early 1990s. For more information, click here. For a video, click here.

True Friends/Camp Eden Wood, click here.

Hennepin County: “Green” programs and funding for individuals, organizations and units of government within the county.

• Green Partner program and grants: Click here

• Natural Resources, Good Steward and Opportunity programs and grants: Click here

• Healthy Tree Canopy programs and grants: Click here

Eden Prairie: Information and applications for garlic mustard and buckthorn pulls in city parks and conservation areas: Click here