SEED COLLECTION AND DISPERSAL - Our Next Step in Restoration

Today was a special day for the Garber Park Stewards. We spend so much of our time in Garber seeking out invasives to evict from the park,  but today we had a slow, purposeful walk along the trail identifying, collecting, and disbursing seeds at our 2^nd restoration site along Harwood Creek. Plus, a rare heat wave in the Bay Area made it a perfect day to be in Garber's shady riparian woodland.

Our Workshop on Passive Restoration and Seed Collection on June 21 was lead by Lech Naumovich, Founding Director of Golden Hour Restoration Institute. He began the workshop with a discussion of the principles and methods of seed collection. We then headed out along the lower loop trail. We were rewarded with a rich variety of native plants – from Giant Vetch, fields of Cow Parsnip, snowberry, creambush, thimbleberry and more – each in a different stage of development, which provided Lech with the opportunity to demonstrate how to compare immature and mature seeds. Squeezing a seed pod that appeared to our untrained eyes as mature produced a white “doughy” substance – mature seed pods are hard and when opened – have seeds.

Continuing our walk we find mature seeds – Cow Parsnip and GiantVetch – which we carefully collected and placed in envelopes labeled with the name and location of the plant (easy with iphone GPS app). Arriving at Restoration Site #2 at Harwood Creek (fondly called Bob's Place after the guy who lead the successful effort to eradicate the Himalayan blackberries) we walked up the hillside along the creek disbursing the seeds. Unlike our first Restoration Site at the Evergreen Lane entrance, Bob's Place will be a study in Passive Restoration.

And what is Passive Restoration? From Lech's handout “It is using existing resources (seeds, vegetation, debris, organic matter) to improve habitat conditions for target native plants. Passive restoration is seeded in the assumption that the site has rich native resources that simply need to be encouraged. Utilizing the on-site seed resources is central to passive restoration.” Although we will have to wait till next spring to see the results of today's effort, removing the Himalayan blackberry has already shown its rewards – native ferns, willows, and other natives are beginning to emerge.

Read Lech's workshop hand-out and his description of the workshop to learn more about seed collection.  The Garber Park Stewards hope it will inspire you to join us on one of our Stewardship Days.   While we mostly do ongoing invasive weed removal we have now added Seed Collection and Dispersal to our Summer Stewardship activities.  Can't make it to a workday but want to learn more about seed collection?  Contact Shelagh at GarberParkStewards@gmail.com.  She will gladly arrange a time for a guided walk through the park.

Below is a participant's summary of the day:
Lech was incredible - sorry I could not stay.  I was able to contribute by gathering quite a few seeds on the uppermost part of the trail from the Vicia nigricans gigantea.  Your groups work and the planting project are outstanding and I like Lech's very locavore emphasis.

I had never been to Garber Park.  I was excited to see Acer negundo, Fraxinus, Alnus rhombifolia, lots of invading Epipactus helleborine and tons of Ash - Fraxinus along with cream bush Holodiscus, lots of fairy bells-Disporum hookeri, Drypteris, Elymus, bromes and Juncus - not to mention 2 kinds of Solanume-blue witch and a white flowered solanum.

I think Garber Park has fascinating diversity.  I admire your fight against the dreaded Himalayan blackberry and you and your group have done an incredible job on the park.  AS

GARBER PARK SPECIAL EVENT

GARBER PARK SPECIAL EVENT--TUESDAY JUNE 21 -  10 AM to 1 PM

The Garber Park Stewards are pleased to present the first of what we hope will be many onsite workshops that explore and advance the overall project of wildland restoration at the urban/wildland interface.  We invite you to attend!

Seed Collection and Passive Restoration Workshop

Instructor: Lech Naumovich, Golden Hour Restoration Institute

Seed collection and identification techniques will be the focus of this workshop including plants of bay-oak woodland and big-leaf maple forest vegetation types. Workshop is appropriate for people of all botanical and restoration inclinations and skill levels.

This workshop will highlight the ongoing restoration efforts in Garber Park with an emphasis on "assisted dispersal", a technique that moves seed from native plants located in one portion of the worksite to another area where the plants historically occurred. 

Meet at the Evergreen entrance.  Expect this workshop to run 3-4 hours so bring snacks, water, and workboots to help the restoration effort.

For Question or more information contact Shelagh at garberparkstewards@gmail.com

MAY WORK DAY--CLEANING UP FOR A DRY SUMMER IN GARBER PARK

Before & After














Close Work in Bed One


The May 21st agenda for Garber Park Stewards' work day concentrated almost entirely on preparing the Evergreen entrance restoration beds for the approaching conditions of summer. Since everything that we planted in February is thriving, the apparent challenge was to rid the beds of invasives while they were small and easily removed. Just beyond the boundaries of the beds, a lot of weeds and invasives are springing up; our main charge however is to maintain an environment within the boundaries in which our natives can freely establish themselves.
Looking at the problem this way, the outstanding intruder was Ehrharta grass. If this energetic plant were allowed to mature within the beds, it would overwhelm our natives and limit or destroy their progress toward natural reproduction.
Removing hundreds of tiny shoots is close and tedious work. Our great volunteers, more accustomed to the rigors of blackberry hacking, nevertheless threw themselves into the task at hand, even on the 80% slope of Bed 1 at the top of the hillside.
As the before and after photos of our wood fern in Bed 3 demonstrate, we cleaned out the beds. Of course, we will have to return to this task probably in the fall. A few repetitions will curtail the invasion of Ehrharta grass.
We even had a little time left over to enjoy the special triumphs of mid-May, in particular, our native strawberries in Bed 4 below the path. If you look closely at the photo below, you will see that the berries are just beginning to ripen.


Mary Millman
Friend of Garber 2

Spring Photo Tour

Take a slideshow tour of Garber Park to experience the beauty of the park in Spring. It’s now mid-May and the rains have abated and it’s beginning to feel like Summer. The only order and structure to the pictures is that we tried to present them from early Spring when the buds on the Big Leaf Maples and California Buckeyes were just beginning to emerge to late Spring where Garber and all its greenery is on full display.

We hope the pictures will entice you into Garber Park before the green grass begins to change to brown and the Spring flowers go to seed.

The Garber Park Stewards

May Flower - Cow Parsnip

The so-called "Common" Cowparsnip (Heracleum maximum)--anything but

common--is Garber Park's Flower of the Month for May.  Anyone who

walks in the Park has come upon this energetic late spring perennial

herb with mild astonishment because of its unique stature.  It comes to mind that this plant might have been a giraffe in a previous life.

Native to California, documented in almost every county, occurring in

many other locations across the United States, when Common Cowparsnip

is racing to bloom--in Garber, late April and May--it steals the show

from any other botanic rivals. Deep green

leaves, elongated stalk, and alluring white flowers, shortly to be

seeds, distinguish it from all others.

You will find Common Cowparsnip in many spots on the Loop Trail and on

the several spurs, especially the one that leads to Rispin Lane.  May

is the month to meet it in its best form. 

For more pictures of Cow Parsnip in Garber Park Click Here

A New Feature - Flower of the Month

With April's "Flower of the Month"--Giant Vetch--we are presenting the first of a series of feature articles that look a little closer at Garber Park and its many wildland treasures.  We will select a native flower that is prominent in a particular month, that you might easily see from the Loop Trail, and that has ecologic significance both for Garber Park and for wildland on the East Bay ridge in general. 

In creating this feature we acknowledge and build upon Kay Loughman's pioneering website, Wildlife in the North Hills, http://www.nhwildlife.net/, where a beautiful catalog of carefully identified wildland species may be found.  Kay's work is both inspiration and archive for our new feature, in which we hope to present the individual or community, the species, the context, the range where we know it, and the overall health of the plant. 

In considering these several aspects, we wish to explore what we often discover in Garber Park--Garber is vitally related to the larger biologic unity of the remaining wildland in the East Bay.  Our task as Stewards is to promote the preservation of the entire expanse by understanding and protecting our local communities.

The Garber Park Stewards

Giant Vetch, Garber's April Flower

Giant Vetch [Vicia gigantea]--native to California and thriving in Garber Park--is our "Flower of the Month" for April.

 Although it is a perennial herb, recognizable at all times by its foliage, this month the showy red blossoms of Giant Vetch command the attention of even casual passers by and distinguish it from the several other vetches (both native and exotic) that grow in the East Bay. 

   

In Garber Park, about midway on the loop trail,  a large community of Giant Vetch shares "Horsetail Meadow" with the ancientEquisetum (interestingly also called Giant Horsetail) that cover the slope by the springs.  As you approach the meadow you might think that you are viewing a Horsetail monoculture.  Look closer and you will see hundreds of Giant Vetch blossoms. 
 In about a month, this robust community will provide a good harvest of native seed. 

Giant Vetch may be found at other locations on the East Bay ridge and beyond, including Chabot, Beaconsfield, Clayton Ranch, El Cerrito, San Pablo Ridge, Las Trampas, Point Richmond, and Tilden/Wildcat.  The large community in Garber is one of many wildland treasures in our Park.