Short Summary

Garber Park is a 13-acre wildland park owned by the City of Oakland located behind the Claremont Hotel in Claremont Canyon. Garber Park is home to significant stands of big-leaf maple, California buckeyes and regenerating coast live oak woodland and forest. The Garber Park Stewards vision is to safeguard the native wildland resources of Garber Park while reducing the risk of wildfire and improving the trail system.

Tuesday, March 20, 2018

Cape Ivy and Seedlings




Fern Glade.  Five years ago this beautiful area
in Garber was covered in ivy.  Today, it's a
a beautiful site of ferns, Big Leaf Maples,
and other native plants.
We had the  Luck of the Irish for our St. Patricks Day monthly habitat restoration workday in Garber.  NO RAIN, early Spring blooms popping up throughout the park, and the Trilliums are still blooming.  Thanks to Mark we continue to make progress on one of our most aggressive invasive weeds.  He can frequently be seen in the park near Harwood Creek and Horsetail Meadows carefully pulling Cape ivy off the plants.  THANK YOU Mark and all the volunteers who have chosen to work with Mark on this most important task.  Without you Horsetail Meadows would still be a blanket of Cape Ivy with the growth of the new Horsetails suppressed.

California Coast Live Oak.  We found many seedlings
throughout the park.  We have a caging program to save
the seedlings from being stomped on or eaten by the deer.









Our most exciting find was an abundance of seedlings from Big Leaf Maples to Coast Live Oak.   At the Claremont Ave. Entrance we found hundreds of tiny Big Leaf Maple seedlings.  After much discussion we decided to weed around the seedlings and cage the entire area off to try to save these seedlings from being stomped on.  With this abundance of  late Spring rain – and more to come – they have a chance at survival during our dry summer.  Even if only a few survive, this TLC to this beautiful California Native Tree will be worth it. 

If you missed the St. Patrick’s Day Workday you will have another chance  - Earth Week in Garber.  This year we decided to celebrate Earth Day all week long with several Habitat Restoration Days the week before Earth Day.  We hope you will be able to join us on one or more of these days.   We want to make an assault on the invasive weeds and get a head start on making Garber as Fire Safe as possible.  The schedule:  Wed, April 18 and Thurs, April 19 from 3:00pm-6:00pm.  Saturday, April 21 and Sunday, April 22 from 9:30-12:30.  Details to follow soon.  Contact Shelagh garberparkstewards@gmail.com.  We hope you can join us in celebrating Earth Week in Garber.