Getting tough on weeds

Don't be fooled by his boyish, Olympic snowboarder look - Travis Wilson is a killer. And he's recruiting.

"They brought me in to have someone designated strictly for removing invasive plants," said the 32-year-old, who has been volunteering with park services for 10 years and has a professional background in pest control and lawn maintenance.

This is the first time Wilson has worked for the Florida Parks System, although his extensive volunteer work has included removing exotic plants and putting in fences in five different parks across the state, including Oscar Scherer State Park in Osprey, Boca Grade State Park in Englewood, and Lake Kissimmee State Park in Lake Wales where his wife, Kiersten, works as a park ranger.

Wilson said Highlands Hammock State Park is unique in that it contains certain invasive plant species found in no other Florida state parks.

His top nemesis: the dionella lily.

"There is very little you can do to get rid of them," said Wilson of the low plant with long yellow-green leaves that literally carpets parts of Highlands Hammock State Park, including the entryway.

"When we do our prescribed burning, the dionella lily holds a lot of moisture. It hinders the burns," he said. Wilson went on to say that as the other vegetation was burned away, the dionella lily used the opportunity to creep back in and take over.

Besides choking out native vegetation, dionella lily also presents a problem for local wildlife. Wilson noted that deer will eat the plant's berries, which have very little nutritional content, as opposed to their natural diet of healthier native foods like acorns.

How do you get rid of it? Wilson literally pulls it out of the ground with help from local volunteers, then applies an herbicide to keep it from sprouting.

"The Ridge Rangers cleared about 25,000 square feet," said Wilson, referring to the FWC sponsored conservation group based out of Royce Ranch in Lake Placid. He pulled his truck over to the campgrounds to show the cleared area which backed up to a literal sea of dionella lily interspersed here and there with a native tree.

On one of those native trees, a juvenile downy woodpecker tapped away at a branch, then flew off over the campers in the woodpeckers' telltale dipping style.

"That's what it's all about," said Wilson with a smile as he watched the bird fly away.

Wilson wants to rid the park of invasive plants like the dionella lily, air potato and coral ardisia so that the beauty of Florida's natural vegetation can be appreciated by visitors.

"I just took care of the last melaleucas that we had," said Wilson, referring to the papery-barked invasive tree brought in from Australia.

As for the rest of these strange plants, most came to this part of the world as a botanical garden project started by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in 1933-- part of President Roosevelt's New Deal.

Young men made a living establishing the park and garden, which would eventually become Highlands Hammock State Park.

However, when World War II ended the CCC's projects, the botanical gardens were left untended, and some of the exotic plants which had no natural checks and balances in the area, thrived.

Wilson, who spent two years in the Army himself, said he enjoyed being a part of the park system, which has a similar family type feel to being in the military. He also stressed how important volunteers are to a park system, another reason why he wants to get the community involved in invasive plant removal.

Starting Feb. 27, Wilson will be conducting work days at Highlands Hammock Park from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. where volunteers can pull and shovel out dionella lily and other exotics.

Volunteers will receive free park admission for that day and a drawing will be held for two native Florida plants.

"I hope the work day will bring some awareness to the community," said Wilson, who suggested volunteers bring gardening gloves, water, and a shovel if possible.

"People like to come to pull weeds and volunteer their time. It gives them something to do. They don't always know what to do."

This self-described "quiet type" also admitted he's a people person at heart. He enjoys working in the outdoors and teaching rather than being holed up in an office doing computer work, for example, something he also excels at.

"I don't like that solitude. I don't like being concealed in a confined area," said Wilson.

As a youth growing up outside of Philadelphia, he always enjoyed the outdoors, taking part in sports like mountain biking and rock climbing.

While there are no mountains to climb in Florida, Wilson is quick to point out that some of the state parks in North Florida have caverns and even waterfalls.

He and wife enjoy backpacking through the parks and plan to hike the Cracker Trail together-- 15,000 miles of trail used by cow hunters in the 1800s.

He also enjoys the unique cypress swamp boardwalk and scrub habitat found at Highlands Hammock.

"I think this is a lot prettier than that is," said Wilson, comparing scrub pines filtering an almost fluorescent blue winter sky to the sea of yellowy-green dionella grass. "Here you can see alligators, birds and different types of vegetation that you're really not going to see anywhere else."

He added that if the park personnel and volunteers weren't able to protect the natural ecosystem, those plants and animals might not be there for future park visitors to see.

For more information on volunteering at Highlands Hammock State park, call the Ranger Station at (863) 386-6094 or email Wilson at Travis.Wilson@dep.state.fl.us.