Friends of Dyke Marsh is a volunteer group dedicated to preserving, restoring and enhancing Dyke Marsh, a freshwater tidal marsh in Fairfax County on the Potomac River just south of Alexandria, Virginia. The Dyke Marsh Wildlife Preserve is administered by the National Park Service.

Friends of Dyke Marsh

The upland forest pictured here is part of the Dyke Marsh Wildlife Preserve, a 485-acre preserve composed of tidal wetland, swamp forest, upland forest and open water. This area has been the focus of a pilot native plant restoration project since 2018. Before the start of this project, the area was overrun with non-native plants which were outcompeting native plants, which contributes to a loss of diversity, not just of plants but of wildlife that has co-evolved with our native plants. In 2018, Friends of Dyke Marsh (FODM), in partnership with the National Park Service, Earth Sangha, and the Audubon Society of Northern Virginia, planted 4,000 native plants in the restoration area, a .65-acre plot on the west side of the Haul Road trail. Throughout the spring, summer, and fall of 2019, FODM had regular volunteer sessions to control non-native plants like mile-a-minute (Persicaria perfoliata) and Japanese stiltgrass (Microstegium vimineum). In October 2019, FODM volunteers and National Park Service staff put in 400 more native plants in the restoration area in Dyke Marsh, including riverbank wild rye (Elymus riparius), New York ironweed (Vernonia noveboracensis), wild rice (Zizania aquatica) and deer tongue (Dichanthelium clandestinum (syn. Panicum clandestinum)). Please use this photo station to help us document the changes in the forest as invasives continue to be removed and native vegetation comes back. To volunteer to remove non-native plants, or plant natives,  info@fodm.org and put native plant restoration in the subject box. For more info about Dyke Marsh and Friends of Dyke Marsh go to https://fodm.org/.


Native  Plant Restoration - Upland Forest

This is the view south from Haul Road just east of the bridge, after the dogleg.  It is part of the tidal wetlands of Dyke Marsh Wildlife Preserve, a 485-acre preserve also composed of swamp forest, upland forest and open water. Dyke Marsh is one of the largest, most significant temperate, climax, narrow-leafed cattail marshes in the national park system, a unit of the George Washington Memorial Parkway managed by the National Park Service.

In 1940, the wetlands Dyke Marsh Wildlife Preserve were around 180 acres in size. From 1940 to 1972, the wetlands were dredged for sand and gravel and almost half of the marsh was hauled away, destabilizing the entire system.  Yet, today, Dyke Marsh is one of the largest remaining, freshwater, tidal wetlands in the Washington metropolitan area, despite that the wetlands have diminished to under 50 acres.

A multi-phased restoration project was initiated in 2018, and phase 1, a breakwater replacing the natural promontory that was dredged was completed in February 2020. The breakwater is intended  to “redirect erosive flows in the marsh, particularly during strong storms and would re-establish hydrologic conditions that would encourage sediment accretion.” (NPS 2014 plan.) As more phases of the restoration continue, the question is, has enough been done in time to save Dyke Marsh. Besides halting the erosion accelerating erosion, how  will sea-level change impact the  marsh? How will the loss of formerly immense areas of Pumpkin Ash  (some seen to the left and right in this image) impact the wetland, and its inhabitants? Please use this photo station to help us document changes in Dyke Marsh.

To learn more about Dyke Marsh, and Friends of Dyke Marsh, and how you can get involved go to https://fodm.org/ or email  info@fodm.org and put volunteer in the subject box. 

Friends of Dyke Marsh

Virginia

2 chronologs managed by Friends of Dyke Marsh

Haul Road by the bridge

Native Plant Restoration - Upland Forest

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