Touring the Tamarack Nature Preserve—July 16th

Back before the houses and roads, the Babies”R”Us and the Gander Mountain, Woodbury was nothing but oak savanna, wetlands, and prairie. The first European settlers arrived in 1844, cutting timber, plowing prairie and draining swamps to create fertile farmland. Later, as the Twin Cities area continued to grow, houses began to spring up in place of farms. The first housing development, Woodbury Heights, was built in 1955, and in subsequent years thousands of people moved out to the area, lured by the open space, nearby lakes and rivers, and modern amenities. Today, with 63,000 residents, Woodbury is the largest city in Washington County and the 10th largest in the state.

Though many natural areas in Woodbury have given way to development, the city has placed a priority on preserving open space in recent years and is working hard to improve and protect local woods and wetlands. A prime example is the Tamarack Nature Preserve, which the Ramsey-Washington Metro Watershed District considers to be the crown jewel of the District’s wetlands. Unique not just to Woodbury, but to the Twin Cities metro as well, the Tamarack Nature Preserve is home to plants and trees that are normally found only in northern Minnesota.  

The preserve includes two miles of trails as well as a boardwalk that crosses a special kind of wetland known as a fen. Unlike most area wetlands that have muddy or mucky bottoms, the fen at the Tamarack Nature Preserve has layers of peat at least one foot thick, some of which are floating on top of wet areas, creating a quaking forest impossible to walk across. Like fossil fuels, peat holds large amounts of carbon dioxide; if the peat dries, it will release the gas into the atmosphere. The fen is also dotted with humps called hummocks that create a mosaic of colors and textures. Some of the notable plants growing in the preserve include swamp milkweed, marsh marigold, arrowhead, blue-joint grass, boneset, bottlebrush sedge, woolgrass, sensitive fern and cattails.

In 1999, the Watershed District installed two treatment systems to protect the fen at the Tamarack Preserve from sediment and other pollutants that were being washed into the wetland during rainstorms. The treatment systems are pond-like, with a brick bottom porous enough to allow some water to soak into the ground, but sturdy enough to allow access with machinery to periodically clear out sediment when it accumulates.   

If you are interested in getting an up-close look at this special place, join Woodbury and the Ramsey-Washington Metro Watershed District on Tuesday, July 16th from 6:30-8:30 pm for a free guided walking tour of the Tamarack Nature Preserve. Learn about the park’s history, geology, unique blend of ecosystems and diversity of plants. Then select a guided walk along the boardwalk at a fairly quick pace, observing and learning about the lore of some of the most unique bog flowers or participate in a more detailed study and identification of the flora along the boardwalk with the expert guidance of plant ecologist Jason Husveth. To join one of the tours, meet at the Tamarack Nature Preserve parking lot, 1825 Tower Drive, Woodbury.