On April 18, 2026, 25 volunteers planted around 200 native plants in Dyke Marsh, a joint project of the Friends of Dyke Marsh and the Sierra Club Great Falls Group. The two organizations partnered and successfully received a grant from the national Sierra Club to fund the project.

          In less than two hours, the group planted five varieties of plants: common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca); New York ironweed (Vernonia noveboracensis); American germander (Teucrium canadense); purpletop grass (Tridens flavux); and early goldenrod (Solidago junca). 

Many upland areas of the preserve are overrun with non-native, invasive plants. The George Washington Memorial Parkway’s Resource Assessments for Management Strategies (RAMS) grades the parkway’s biotic integrity as degraded and core forest habitat as very degraded.

Why plant native plants? “Native plants are those that occur naturally a region in which they evolved. They are the ecological basis upon which life depends, including birds and people. Without them and the insects that co-evolved with them, local birds cannot survive,” says the National Audubon Society.  Native plants can help conserve water, stem erosion and provide habitat for insects, birds, small mammals and other wildlife. For more information, visit the Virginia Native Plant Society at https://vnps.org/conservation/faq/.