Victoria Evergreen

Website
www.mtkaparks.org/victoriaevergreen

Contact the Friends of Victoria Evergreen

Park Address 3801 Victoria Street

Upcoming Volunteer Opportunities

September 19th from 4-6 pm
October 8th from 4-6 pm
October 22nd from 4-6 pm
November 5th from 4-6 pm

Current Restoration Project

2023
We focused our efforts around the kame known as Skunk Hill for the past 2 years. The purple area was completed in 2022, and the green area was completed last year (2023). In 2024 we are going to work on the yellow area. The total volunteer hours for 2023 was 98.5 hours. Many of those hours were spent eliminating invasive plants that had re-sprouted in the previously restored areas. We did not do any seeding this year because the ‘oak savanna’ seed mix would not work in the shady areas that we cleared.

2022
Fourteen people attended the September 28th buckthorn blitz event; several were neighbors. The focus of the session was on releasing the bur oaks (young and old) that were surrounded by honeysuckle, buckthorn, box elder and prickly ash. There was quite a bit of black knot on the chokecherry which we removed and isolated it from the main pile of slash.

Now, over a dozen released bur oaks can be seen right from the trail!

2021
August to November: The Friends of Victoria Evergreen Park cleared a thick “buckthorn wall” around fourteen red and bur oaks on the east side of Skunk Hill. A project to remove box elder trees around the large oaks was shelved after only two days.

Before Buckthorn Removal

After Buckthorn Removal

November: The Friends of Victoria Evergreen Park donated 180 Ginseng seeds and four seedlings that were planted around the park by a joint Friends & Natural Resources staff event. This is important because Ginseng was extirpated by European settlers in the 1870s. It has not been established in Minnetonka forests for 150 years.

2022
We would like to continue clearing buckthorn around large oaks on skunk hill, and negotiate with the city to clear box elder trees that are in the drip line of oaks too.

City Natural Resources Staff Plant Ginseng in the Deer Exclosure

Cultural History

In 1901, most of today’s Victoria Evergreen Park was owned land by C.J. Alger and G.B. Stephens. The abutting parcel to the east was called Williston Park, a neatly planned out subdivision with windy streets. It was one of the early areas that was subdivided and heavily marketed to Minneapolis folks looking for home lots. At the time, Minnetonka was mostly farms.

A 1937 aerial photo (right) shows that the Victoria Evergreen land was not being farmed. The eastern portion with rolling topography was dominated by open grown bur and white oak forming an oak savanna.

In 1959, Victoria Evergreen land (19.9 acres) was owned by Aretz Realty Company. This is the same year that Minnetonka established its first park—Gro-Tonka.

1937 Historical Aerial Photo

Natural History

GEOLOGIC FEATURE
Skunk Hill at the east end of the park is a geologic feature called a kame. The kame was formed when sand and gravel accumulate in a depression in a glacier. As the glacier melted over 10,000 years ago, it left this knob-like landform. This kame is dominated by oak trees.

View looking up Skunk Hill (kame).

Skunk Hill

Mysteries of Victoria Evergreen!

Do you and your family really want to get to know Victoria Evergreen Park?

Put on your “nature detective eyes” and see if you can find some of the mysteries in our park.

Download the file on the right and bring it to the park with you!
File courtesy of The Old Naturalist