COMMENT ON A COMMENT

“An Opportunity for Refreshment of Body and Mind”

Recently, we were asked: “I am a little unclear as to who actually owns the park. Is the land owned by EBPRD and is part of Claremont Canyon preserve?”

On the face of it, there is a simple answer—the land is owned by the City of Oakland and John Garber Park is an Oakland City park. Garber Park is NOT “part of” East Bay Regional Park District’s Claremont Canyon Preserve but it IS “part of” Claremont Canyon.

A brief chronology of the land and the park starts with a prominent family of the old Claremont District, Judge and Mrs. John Garber, who in 1888, built a spacious mansion close to the site of the current Claremont Hotel on grounds that came to be known as the Bellrose Tract. (The mansion on Tanglewood Road was later demolished to build the Hotel.)

The heirs of the Garber estate acting through Frank D. Stringham, husband of Garber’s daughter Juliet, and later, Mayor of Berkeley, offered the eastern segment of the Bellrose Tract—basically the mansion’s backyard—to the Berkeley City Council at the half-value of $2,500 on the condition that the land be maintained as a park with the name John Garber Park. The deed including the conditions was recorded March 4, 1920.

The January 25, 1920 San Francisco Chronicle article links the sale and the conditions to a public conversation then-current on the topic of urban open space: “The spot is certain to become a popular resort and demonstrate its community value as the other parks and playgrounds of the City are doing every day. Every piece of ground thus added to the open spaces of Berkeley should be an occasion of public rejoicing on account of what it means both to those now living and to future generations who will find here in a city much more congested than at present, an opportunity for refreshment of body and mind.”

In early 1952 John Garber Park along with another remnant of the Bellrose Tract were deeded from the City of Berkeley to the City of Oakland, which in turn became bound by the covenants of use and name. It appears that this transfer formalized the fact that Berkeley’s John Garber Park was in fact and long had been within the boundaries of the City of Oakland.

In the early 1970s, in response to intensive upland residential development, Berkeley’s Claremont Elmwood Neighborhood Association promoted the creation of a Claremont Canyon Preserve which included Garber Park, thus reflecting the geologic and biologic unity of the canyon for which Garber Park and its environs are the lower riparian mouth. This proposal resulted in mid-canyon acquisitions by the East Bay Regional Park District that became the Claremont Canyon Preserve, but Garber Park remained within the City of Oakland and is in fact cut off from the Preserve by intervening private property, developed and undeveloped.

Throughout this century of jurisdictional succession, John Garber Park has experienced several cycles of use, decline, and repair, but has managed to retain its unique wildland character. Now standing at the 21^st century threshold of comprehensive restoration, Oakland’s John Garber Park still offers an outstanding “opportunity for refreshment of body and mind.”

Mary Millman

Friend of Garber 2

Impromptu Workday, Saturday, Feb. 5

Lynn decided the best way to free the branches was to
sit down and carefully cut the blackberry.

The Himalayan blackberries had another bad day in Garber Park today - our Blackberry Bashing Crew was back.  Today's success story - freeing a beautiful willow that is ready to leaf out into a green canopy.  Not only does Lynn receive credit for suggesting a stewardship session today, but, at the end of the day when I thanked her, she responded with, "Thank YOU for letting me come and work in Garber Park."  Gotta love that enthusiasm.  

The Restoration Site received some TLC as well today, moving us one step closer to Restoration Planting Day on Feb. 19.  See the sidebar on the right for details, contact info, and directions.  In the meantime do come and enjoy the park.

 

John and Bob decided to remain standing, and managed
to free a big, beautiful willow.  

The Day of the Buckeyes

John, Tim, and Mary clearing the Restoration Site
for native planting of the understory on Feb. 19.

A good time was had by all on our regular 1st Tuesday of the month morning workday (Feb1) as we raked and shoved the last of the eucalyptus duff down the hillside and into Fireplace Plaza.   We had to be careful, though, because we wanted to also expose and nurture any natives that might be surviving under the duff.  To our surprise, we found at least seven small Buckeyes scattered across the hillside.  The champion of finding the these new Buckeyes, which we quickly flagged and photographed, was John.

Native California Buckeye Bud ready to burst
into bloom.

Looking up the hillside from Fireplace Plaza, with the sun shining through the oaks and maples, we saw a hill free of eucalyptus debris, a slope with bee plants, native blackberry, and many “baby” buckeyes emerging.  We were tired, but felt a great satisfaction, and we are definitely looking forward to our Restoration Planting Day.  We hope you can join us.

February Volunteer Events in Garber Park

Friday, February 18, 1-3pm.  Join us, even for a short time, as we do final preparations for planting day on Saturday.  Activities range from challenging (crawling up the hillside) to helping catalogue the plants.

Saturday, February 19, 9am-12:30pm.  Restoration planting. Activities range from digging on the hillside, planting, to secretarial/photographic activities.  Followed by a light lunch.

Meet at the Evergreen Lane entrance to Garber Park. For directions and further information visit our blog www.garberparkstewards.blogspot.com, or contact Shelagh:  garberparkstewards@gmail.com

As always dress in layers and wear shoes or boots with good traction.

View from Fireplace Plaza

Tim Wallace, soon to be President of Claremont
Canyon Conservancy told us he "had a ball!"

John Kenny on his first visit to Garber Park
said his specialty was "raking downhill."

RESTORATION BEGINS

The next time you visit Garber Park at the Evergreen Lane entrance, you will notice about a hundred little flags planted on the steep hillside that descends into Fireplace Plaza. These flags mark the outlines of  five separate planting areas at our Restoration Site, which will be filled with groupings of local native plants.  They represent one of the final preparation tasks before our Restoration Planting Day scheduled for  Saturday, February 19.

Approximately one year ago the Garber Park stewards began remediation of the Evergreen Lane entrance hillside by removing a small but robust section of Cape ivy that blanketed the slope.  Once the hillside was temporarily free of invasives, we could see that it was a good candidate for a “restoration site”.   Throughout the year our volunteers, your neighbors and friends,  logged over 150 hours hauling debris and removing invasives, hoping to uncover and restore the native oak woodland understory that  many years of neglect had suppressed.   By December this hillside had been transformed into the palette for which the restoration plan was developed. This is well documented in pictures.

For the details of the restoration plan itself, Garber Park and the stewards are fortunate to have the professional  plan and hands on guidance of Lech Naumovich,  Restoration Ecologist, whose exemplary work in the East Bay is well known. The plan has the approval of the City of Oakland, and is being funded by the Claremont Canyon Conservancy’s special Garber Park Fund.  On January 27 the Stewards and Bryn Samuels, Environmental Resources Analyst, City of Oakland met with Lech to finalize the plans and to plant the flags that mark out the five planting areas.   

Our achievements over this past year could not have been accomplished without the energy and involvement of our volunteers.  We hope you will join us in our continued efforts to protect, preserve, and restore the beauty and natural open space of Garber Park.  In the days before our Planting Party we have two workdays (Tues, Feb. 1 and Friday, Feb. 18) in which we will continue clearing and preparing the hillside.  We especially need your help on Saturday, February 19 to ensure a successful Restoration Planting Day.  As always, there will be many different kinds of activities that volunteers can do on planting day -  not everyone needs to climb the hill or dig in the dirt.  

February volunteer events in Garber Park:

Tuesday, February 1, 10am- noon. We will continue preparation of the restoration site for planting.  Other activities include attacking Himalayan blackberry and Cape ivy at designated spots along the Loop Trail.  Following the stewardship, join us for a discussion of restoration activities in the park.

Friday, February 18, 1:00-3:00.   Please join us, even for a short time, as we do final preparations for planting day on Saturday.

Saturday, February 19, 9am- 12:30pm.  Restoration planting.  Followed by a light lunch. 

As always dress in layers and wear shoes or boots with good traction.

Meet at the Evergreen Lane entrance to Garber Park. For directions and further information visit our blog  www.garberparkstewards.blogspot.com, or contact Shelagh at garberparkstewards@gmail.com.

Creeks are the Children of Watersheds

Harwood Creek in Garber Park

Creeks are the children of watersheds; watersheds are the parents of creeks. With concern for our newly discovered springs and recently sunlighted Harwood Creek, the Garber Park Stewards devoted a good part of this past week to making acquaintance with the complex world of East Bay ridge watershed and creek organizations. First impression: there are lots of them and their numbers are growing. These organizations may represent differing aspects of their watershed, their creeks may embody varying stages of health and restoration, and their constituents may share a wide or narrow range of goals, but resource conservation, however defined, and restoration in the broadest sense are the twin heartbeats of this familial group.
We started by attending the members meeting of Friends of Sausal Creek, an exemplary pioneering creek and watershed organization to which the Garber Park Stewards are already deeply indebted. We went there, however, to hear about the work of one of their “sister” organizations, the Friends of San Leandro Creek. We learned that San Leandro Creek flows westward out of Lake Chabot and, partly above ground and partly culverted, makes its way to what is now the Oakland Airport where the creek creates the marsh that you traverse as you drive in. The Friends of San Leandro Creek have worked with the community for a number of years to promote and monitor water quality and to carry out extensive watershed education through carefully and professionally designed programs specifically crafted to fit the grade level of the local students.
We also learned of the upcoming meeting of the Alameda County Watershed Forum. The Alameda County Watershed Forum (http://www.alamedacountywatersheds.org/) functions as a facilitator of communication among county creek and watershed groups and between these groups and larger or higher conservation organizations such as the U S Dept. of Agriculture’s Alameda County Resource Conservation District and its Watershed Council (http://www.acrcd.org/).
At the Forum meeting, conducted at Oakland’s Peralta Hacienda Historical Park which includes a substantial section of old Peralta Creek, we were interested to hear the advice and experience of various restoration experts on the topic of “Remediated Creek and Habitat Site Maintenance”. This is an important topic for Garber Park which has the opportunity to build maintenance into its restoration plans. Not all past creek remediation has been able to do this, often with unhappy results.
Though networking takes time away from field work, in this instance the benefits are timely and valuable to us. In spite of years of neglect, in this decade and in times to come, Garber Park with its many resources is not alone. Moreover, there is a growing body of creek and watershed experience specific to the East Bay ridge lands and available to anyone for whom wildland preservation and restoration is a priority. In recounting these events, we have spared you and ourselves the alphabet soup that goes along with agency awareness. Speaking for the Stewards, we are ready to get our hands in the dirt again.
Restoration of our entrance hillside begins next week!

Mary Millman

Friend of Garber 2

Trail Improvements

One of the activities that the Garber Park Stewards has carried out over the past year is the amendment and improvement of the one-mile Loop Trail that traverses most of the forests and ecosystems that make up the Park. We have replaced deteriorating steps at the Evergreen Lane entrance and cut “steps” in the most steep sections.  We have also tried to channel away water runoff, level sloping walkways, widen eroded spots, and buttress trail boundaries. Recently we put some wire mesh on the Upper Loop bridge to try to improve traction.

Even with these measures, however, care must be taken when hiking in Garber Park because the trail is still rugged and quite steep in places. At the Evergreen Lane entrance there are some walking sticks; please use them and return them for the next walkers. If you walk down the stairs to Fireplace Plaza and along the Lower Loop trail you can also avoid the steep switchbacks on the Upper Loop Trail. The entire trail is easier to walk if you begin at the Fireplace Plaza and walk the lower section first.

The Stewards always appreciate feedback and information about specific points or conditions on the Loop Trail. We will continue working to improve it and to explore alternative routes. This is always a collaborative effort. We especially want to thank the many volunteers who have helped make the trails just a little bit safer.  

January 15 Stewardship Day

Thanks to all who came to spend one of our first warm sunny days in 2011 to Garber Park to attack invasive weeds.  Himalayan blackberry and Cape ivy, two of the most invasive weeds in Garber Park, had an especially bad day.

Lynn, Jon, and Bob at the end
of a successful day in the blackberry thickets.
 Said Lynn, "Enjoyed making headway clearing the
willow from that blackberry."

The Blackberry Bashers (as we’ve come to call them) put on their thick gloves and heavy clothes and headed out to Lower Harwood Bridge to cut back Himalayan blackberries around the willow trees.  It was interesting to find that these trees, which were deep inside the blackberry patch, had been pruned sometime in the past, clearly before the blackberries took over.

A large part of Garber is flat with
a good trail and a gentle walk in
from Rispin Lane.

Then there was the group that began removing Cape ivy near the Springs on the upper Loop Trail.  Five bags of Cape ivy were filled and hauled to the Evergreen Lane entrance. This crew also pulled some poison hemlock and forget-me-nots near the trail, which can be left on site since they won’t resprout.  This crew had the pleasure of working around a beautiful native Red Alder whose delicate catkins are just beginning to form.   Cape ivy is such a vigorous grower that the stewards will need to continually return to this site until it is finally eradicated.

Cheryl and Ann with their load
of cape ivy.    

 A third group continued preparing the area around Fireplace Plaza for our Restoration planting on Saturday, February 19.  While no new stone artifacts were discovered (see blog entry from Jan. 4) we did make progress in defining the perimeter of the plaza by creating a berm with the eucalyptus duff.

At the end of the day Cheryl commented that it was "a beautiful week-end to be out in nature - and helping it along."  We all agreed.





Next Stewardship dates:  Tuesday, February 1 from 10AM-Noon.  Activities:  Our main focus will be preparing our Restoration Site for planting, invasive weed removal, and trail maintenance.  Saturday,  February 19 - we hope to begin our Restoration Planting.  Details to follow. We hope you can join us.
 

Alnus Rubra (Common name, Red Alder)
You can find more beautiful pictures of
natives at Kay Loughman's website,
"Wildlife in theNorth Hills"
(under links to the right).

We were pleased to have Janet Gawthrop
from the California Native Plant Society
join us and give us insight into the
relationship of the invasives and
the natives.