South of South Avenue (SOSA)

In partnership with the Village of Glencoe and the Glencoe Park District, the Friends are now embarking on the next phase of restoration on the Green Bay Trail. “SOSA” is the area south of South Avenue to the Community Garden.

Removing Invasive Species

One of the primary goals of the Friends of the Green Bay Trail is to create a healthy natural habitat. This often means removing invasive species such as garlic mustard and common buckthorn that crowd out native forest and prairie plants.

Restoring Native Plants

Once we have removed invasive species, we aim to restore a more natural forest or prairie ecosystem. Restoring native plants from these ecosystems involves activities such as collecting seeds from nearby healthy stocks, sorting seeds, growing seedlings in a greenhouse, planting seedlings and trees, sowing seeds, watering, and weeding.

To view a pdf of our master plan for the Harbor to Scott section of the trail, click here. You may need to use the zoom function on your browser window to see the details.

Creating a Healthy Habitat

The goal of removing invasives and planting natives is to create healthy habitat along the trail. Because the soil, drainage, and amount of sun vary by location on the trail, this doesn’t mean the same thing everywhere we work. In general, however, we aim to create healthy, self-sustaining habitats that are attractive to native plants, insects, birds and other animals, and—of course—humans.

Above, an adult monarch butterfly rests on Butterfly Weed along the trail. Butterfly Weed is a type of Milkweed—the only host plant for monarch caterpillars. We are doing our part to help this iconic species.