March is in Bloom!
A busy month of uncovering ferns, debris removal, and thorny thistles.
Restoration Projects
Volunteer efforts in March shifted towards removing one of our seasonal invasive plants, Italian Thistle, continuing our fire-prone Eucalyptus debris removal, and continuing our work on removing English Ivy from Fern Glade. We had three work days this month, our two regular ones and a special Claremont Club & Spa sponsored one! Stewards were able to remove over 21 bags of debris for the month! This really helps us get prepared for the fire season to come!
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| Volunteers from Claremont Club & Spa are weeding thistles in the clearing near our Garber Oak site. |
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| After a hard day of work all the volunteers were awarded with oven-fired pizza at the Claremont Hotel. |
March 4th was our first workday and Garber Park welcomed volunteers from Claremont Club & Spa in a restoration weekend. One group, led by members of the Claremont Canyon Conservancy, focused on clearing debris and weed management from Evergreen footpath - amounting to about 13 bags of debris which was later collected by the city of Oakland. In Garber, another group tackled a prickly thistle patch and helped remove some of the Himalayan Blackberry growing abundantly over miner's lettuce, (native) blackberry, and other native plants! Claremont volunteers managed to collect about six bags of debris and ended the day by being rewarded for their hard work with oven-fired pizza!
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| Volunteers are continuing the rewarding work of uncovering ferns and other natives from under the sea of English Ivy. |
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| Over 15 bags of Eucalyptus litter and thistles were collected and taken out of the park by the dedicated volunteers. |
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| One of the many bags of Eucalyptus debris collected by volunteers to help protect the park from any risk of fire. |
On March 5th volunteers from lambda Theta Nu Sorority and our regular volunteers worked to build on the work of the Claremont Hotel volunteers, and continue clearing thistles and blackberry, which we were able to clear most of the area. We then shifted to removing Eucalyptus litter to get ahead of the fire season, which resulted in over 15 bags of debris taken out of the park! To end off the day volunteers worked on a continuous relaxing project of pulling English ivy from under the canopy of Fern Glade and allow the ferns to grow abundantly.
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| Ruby--one of our volunteer coordinators for Garber Park--is revisiting and clearing out new ivy. |
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| Some of our returning volunteers work to expand a cleared area and provide the native plants space to grow and expand. |
March 19th saw a quieter volunteer day in which we continued the important work of uncovering ferns in Fern Glade. The first steps are identifying and flagging the ferns and other natives under the ivy, and then pulling the ivy that is directly on top of and around the plant. We then create a buffer of about 4ft-6ft around the plant to give them room to grow and spread its rhizomes and seeds! We have seen some major success with this method of passive restoration, and it's both satisfying for both newcomers and returning volunteers as they can see the difference right away or come back after a month and start to see the native plants fill back in!
Our amazing volunteers and guests from the Claremont Hotel joined the work in Garber Park with zest, and didn't mind pulling out the prickly thistles or the thorny blackberry! Amazing progress was made! Without your help, Garber Park wouldn't be as rich and full of like as it continues to be.
As spring is here, Garber Park is starting to transform with some of our native plants starting to come out of their "dormancy" period. If you're interested in some of these plants, please check out our Plant Highlights Page!
There's still so much we can do. Come join us on our upcoming Volunteer Days on the 1st and 3rd Saturday of the month as we continue restoring areas of Garber Park to be better suited for native species, and in doing so, creating a more fire safe park for everyone.
If you'd like to volunteer with us visit our Volunteer Opportunities page for more info and if you'd like to join our mailing list please email Wyllie at gpstewards@gmail.com.
