Creation Care

Creation Care

The Creation Care Ministry at the Church of the Holy Comforter is called to:

Restore habitat to provide homes, shelter, food, and water for our fellow creatures whose lives and very existence depend on the church’s grounds

Provide education and resources to help the congregation replicate healthy habitats in their own gardens

Establish a pleasing, meditative, and restorative landscape

Sustain a sylvan sanctuary in which people can experience the presence of the Divine

Update: February 2025

It is almost springtime, and now seems like a good time to consider what we have accomplished during the past year, and what we anticipate in the year to come.

Most of our effort and energy is going into the Seven Acre Wood—the forest on Holy Comforter property. Much of the problem here is with invasive plants. They grow easily, but do not provide food or shelter for our local wildlife. They also tend to be evergreen, which is one of the ways they crowd out our native deciduous plants. This time last year, when we looked into the forest, we saw a lot of green! This year there are far fewer invasive plants. The forest is far more brown now—the color it should be in winter.

As we have been learning how to take care of our forest, we have discovered a couple of things about removing invasive plants. One is that, like a fire, they need to be contained. We therefore have begun our clearing efforts at the edge of the forest, and we’re moving inward. Another thing we learned is that, unlike fire, invasive plants tend to spread downhill as water washes the seeds that way. Therefore, we have begun at the top of the slope, and are moving steadily downhill.

Plants tend to live through cycles. The challenge with invasive plants is to catch them when they are most vulnerable, and get rid of them at that time. We have a chart noting which plants to target each month. We’ve been through the whole year once, and we are waiting to see how effective we have been.

One of the troubles with invasive shrubs is that they don’t disappear when they’re dead. We have put a lot of energy into dragging the brush out of the woods, ready for the Town of Vienna to pick up. There is a lot more to do.

We also spend a lot of time picking up trash. We held a Great Trash Removal Event last February, and hauled out 3 1/2 tons of trash! But there is a lot more—bits of plastic, glass bottles, cans, covid masks… We found a whole patch of broken glass which members of our Youth Group and their families helped to remove.

With all this, the native vegetation is starting to recover. The first to come up in the spring is always the skunk cabbage, which, despite being a plant, is able to generate enough heat to melt the snow. We are eager to see what will be next.

Now that we have cleared some space, we are stepping up our tree planting program. But that’s a story for next time.