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.

Saturday, October 8, 2022

May 2022 Volunteers Days!

 

Traveling Back in Time to May 2013


Our blog is a time capsule! Taking a look back at our previous blogs, a special moment popped up.


Where it all started

Garber Park has been transforming into a beautiful wildland ecosystem with diverse plant and animal species! We owe it to Shelagh Brodersen for starting the Garber Park Stewards in 2010 in an effort to make Garber into an more accessible public park where people could experience the beauty of a healthy native plant ecosystem and build community around the park. So many volunteer hours have been dedicated towards building and maintaining a trail system, allowing native plant communities to grow and expand, and building an amazing network of volunteers! 

Looking back we see some familiar faces and we are very thankful to continue seeing our long-term and new incoming stewards as well! One of our highlighted moments is the restoration of Fern Glade, where there is a continual effort to free the ferns from the invasive English ivy and ehrharta grass (as they are some of our most invasive plant species in that area). If you're a long time volunteer, you know how these plants are a constant effort to remove. This work is also very rewarding as the results are visible right away! With that, here are some photos that were dug from our Archive and some details as to what was happening on this very special day. 

May 2013 : Fern Glen Workshop and Restoration - A Huge Success!! 


"Come to Garber, walk the Sylvan Trail, and peek into our Wildlife Habitat Pile to see what creatures have made a home!"
Garber Park Blogpost 2013


 "Establishing the Fern Glade Restoration Site by freeing the ferns and other natives of Hedera (Ivy)"
Garber Park Blogpost 2013

Time-lapse Video of Fern Glade Restoration in 2013

May 2022 : We are continuing this work today - Returning Volunteers and long-term dedicated stewards arrived at Garber Park to continue the efforts that started what now is Garber Park. 

May 7th - Volunteers are pulling ivy and non-native grasses in Fern Glade.

Our 1st volunteer workday in May was a success! We continued our work in Fern Glade uncovering various native ferns and trilliums from invasive plants. Fern Glade is a special place to those involved with Garber as it's a site that you can see immediate results in, especially when removing invasive ivy around ferns. One of the delightful things about Fern Glade is hearing people get excited about finding previously hidden ferns as the ivy comes out!

May 7th - Volunteers are pulling ivy and non-native grasses in Fern Glade.

May 21st - Volunteers are clearing Eucalyptus and other debris.

Our second volunteer day, we dedicated it to removing flammable debris from around the Fireplace area. With the fire season starting earlier, we try to keep on top of some of our more concerning areas, such as near Fireplace Plaza, in which lots of flammable Eucalyptus debris builds up - in some places it accumulated over 4 inches! May was a lot of fun and had a lot of success, from clearing over 10 bags of debris to limiting the spread of invasive grasses in Fern Glade. We thank all Garber Park volunteers whose dedicated time has allowed for so much work and transformation to be made! Thank you!

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 information and if you'd like to join our mailing list please email Wyllie at gpstewards@gmail.com.     

If you're interested in seeing what's in bloom through the seasons at Garber Park, please take a look at our Plant Highlights Page!


Take a look at our past events

Fun Snapshots of our Restoration Efforts at Garber Park 
MLK Day of Service: Seeds of Hope
Plant Highlights at Garber Park