CREEK TO BAY DAY 2011 IN GARBER: FALL CHORES DONE

 This year's Creek to Bay Day event in Garber Park was very different from last year's.  One year ago we were clearing large areas and steep hillsides of decades of garbage and debris, but this year we were able to tend and advance the goal of restoration of the park's riparian woodland ecosystem.   We picked out three work areas and our great volunteers accomplished all our goals.  We were able to clear the entrance hillside of invasive Erharta grass so that the native seeds from our restoration beds would have a better chance of rooting when the rains come and the growing season begins.  Along those lines, the stalwart blackberry cadre took out a large stand of Poison Hemlock that had sprung up on the banks of Harwood Creek in the open areas that had been previously cleared.

        
 Lech Naumovich's CITIZEN SCIENCE WORKSHOP was able to establish and carry out the transect of Garber Park following Harwood Creek from top to bottom.  Lech, Bob, and Janet established the beginning point and measured, marked, and collected data for about 60 feet of the transect, leaving a good amount of work still to be done at future workshops.  On the way to photograph them, I was astonished to run into a substantial patch of Aster radulinus, a shy and very infrequent native that we have not seen in Garber to this point.


 Creek to Bay Day which is expertly organized by the City of Oakland is a great opportunity to get work done and to assess developments in the Park.  The Stewards are grateful for this program and look forward to next year's event.

CREEK TO BAY DAY IN GARBER PARK

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 9AM-NOON.  Wildland Volunteers, please join us in Garber Park for CREEK TO BAY DAY.  The Garber Park Stewards are offering three structured restoration activities each designed to advance the native riparian character of our oak woodland.  All levels of interest and capacity are welcome and invited.

1) ADVANCING THE EVERGREEN LANE ENTRANCE RESTORATION BEDS

At the Evergreen Entrance, there are five restoration beds now nearly one year old.  Extensive maintenance, native identification, documentary photography, boundary demarcation, and native seed collection will assist in the planned expansion of this very successful project.  The native restoration of the entire hillside is our goal.

2) FRENCH BROOM, CAPE IVY, AND POISON HEMLOCK REMOVAL FROM MIDDLE COURSE CREEK BANKS

Halfway around the Loop Trail, the removal of Himalayan blackberry which choked the creek has left a sunny expanse that has invited opportunistic weeds including French Broom, Cape Ivy, and a large stand of Poison Hemlock.  One good volunteer session will clear the area of these invaders making way for the slower resurgence of the native creekside flora.

3)MAPPING HARWOOD CREEK THE DIRTY WAY

Lech Naumovich of Golden Hour Restoration Institute will conduct a special CITIZEN SCIENCE workshop.  This will accomplish the first ever super transect of Garber Park, from the top of the park down to Claremont Avenue, following Harwood Creek.  Lech will utilize a scientific method (point intercept) to record vegetation and creek features every meter as we travel from top to bottom.  Data will be used to create a vegetation map of the current conditions of Harwood Creek.  Be ready for some hardcore science as well as some mud, as we travel from top to bottom.  Since this activity is optimal with only (12) twelve participants, please RSVP to Lech at lech@goldenhour.org  by September 15 if you are interested in this workshop.

MEET at the Evergreen Ln. Entrance at 9AM, sign in, enjoy some coffee and snacks, and then be ready for an enjoyable morning of restoration work.

MIMULUS AURANTIACUS--STICKY MONKEY FLOWER GARBER'S AUGUST 2011 FLOWER

Although the pervasive aridity of August in Garber Park dulls the expectation of encountering flowers, in fact from the vantage of the Loop Trail the cheerful multiplicity of golden blooms put forward by our native mimulus catches the eye of most visitors.  Properly a shrub, mimulus aurantiacus, known popularly as Bush or Sticky Monkey Flower, occurs in several spots in Garber and also occurs directly across the road on the much more exposed and dry north slope of Claremont Canyon in chaparral conditions.
Our riparian woodland Monkey Flower constituents do not exhibit the parched aspect of their canyonside neighbors, preferring to appear waxy and brightly colorful though they are not rooted in especially moist soil.  Calflora shows the distribution of aurantiacus in California as north to south, border to border, one or two counties deep along the Pacific coastline and also in the western Sierra foothills, mostly in the context of "northern oak woodland".  A number of variants of mimulus aurantiacus have been observed and reported in other limited areas in California, but none of these are apparently wide spread.
We do not have so many examples in Garber Park that they might be called common, but there are a small number of healthy, good sized shrubs--enough to feel certain that Sticky Monkey Flower is comfortable among the many floral varieties that grow beside it.  It is always a delight to find, wherever one runs across it.

SEED COLLECTION AND DISPERSAL WORKSHOP 2 - THE ROLE OF GRASSES

Blue Wild Rye - Elymus glaucus - in seed bed #4
at the Evergreen Ln. entrance.

On Saturday, August 20, Lech Naumovich, Golden Hour Restoration Institute led another fun, informative, and hands-on seed collection workshop in Garber Park. Our first seed collection event in June focussed on the "early" bloomers in Garber. The goal of this second seed collection workshop was to collect and disperse the later maturing seeds - especially the grasses. The workshop began with a discussion of the basics of native seed collection, followed by a short walk to the Garber Park Stewards first restoration site at the Evergreen Lane Entrance.

Joyce smiling at  finding a Cream Bush (Holodiscus Discolor).
Not yet in bloom this pretty white flower will be a fall
highlight.

The five beds at Restoration Site 1were all planted with a variety of native plants and grasses that grow naturally in other parts of Garber Park. We were excited about our first "harvest" - we planted this past February.We opened mature seed pods, collected them in paper envelopes, and spread them in a newly cleared area at the restoration site. We then walked along the Lower Loop Trail where signs of fall were everywhere, most evident by the crunching noise of fallen leaves beneath our feet as well as the few dried stalks of cow parsnip still standing. But we also found many plants still blooming - the sticky monkey flower (mimulus aurantiacus), bee plant (scrophularia californica), fairy bells (Prosartes Hookeri), and ocean spray or cream bush (Holodiscus discolor) - which means we'll have many more opportunities for seed collection throughout the fall.

A few of the highlights we learned on seed collecting:

• Never collect more than 10% of the seed of an established population. For newer sites, such as our Restoration Site 1 only collect 2-5%. We want to keep the site intact and healthy for future generations.
• Ascertain maturity of a seed by picking and checking before making a large collection.
• Always look for bugs. You don't want those seeds.
• Grasses - seeds on the head ripen progressively so at any one time both immature and mature seeds are present.
• Seeds need to be dry. Don't put in the fridge right away, let them dry out first. Store seeds in a paper bag or envelope.
• Label the envelope with the species common name (or Latin if you know it!), collection place (easy with phone with GPS app), and date.
• Seed viability: Annuals for the most part have low viability. Grasses viable for 3-5 years. Want to get the first seeds of the season for the best viability.
• Highest germination occurs the first year. Perrenials - 1st year seeds are the best seeds.
• Berries - we're competing with wildlife! We found this on thimbleberries which had no berries remaining.

• 

  Elymus glaucus,( blue wild rye) seed head.

  California Buckeyes are mostly mature trees in Garber. We are restoring the conditions to bring back the buckeye. Because the deer think the tender young leaves are so delicious we have placed cages around several young plants to give them a chance to mature. At Bob's Place there is an Oregon Ash that we need to cage as well.

And a couple of general restoration techniques:

• For many of the invasives, especially thistles, "mulch cut" (make several cuts at the same time starting at the top, cutting into small pieces working towards the ground) - the plant won't grow back.
• Direct rainfall on a hillside starts erosion. A good way to reduce sheet flow down the hill is to create "natural water bars." On our restoration site 1 we used logs to create irregularly shaped planting beds. What about Jute netting or cardboard? Except on large planting areas Lech prefers creating the Natural Water Bars.

Read more on seed collection techniques, including sections on Passive Restoration, Steps to a Successful Seed Collection Effort, and Site Preparation for Seeds in the hand-out Workshop on Passive Restoration and Seed Collection 11 - The Role of Grasses given to participants.

For more on the workshop from Lech

Lech opening a seed pod to test maturity. 

SUMMER'S END/HINTS OF FALL

Bob's Place, once covered with an 8ft.
tall hillside of Himalayan
blackberry is recovering nicely.

False Solomon's Seal
(smilacina Stellata) from Planting
Bed 3

August's Tuesday  work session was full of subtle indications that seasonal change is once again at our doorstep. We continued the clearing at Bob's Place, but also took advantage of the beautiful summer light to document our hillside restoration beds at the Evergreen entrance.  We noticed among the litter, the first brown and crumpled leaves from the Big Leaf Maples up the hill.  We also noticed that a very few of our plantings apparently did not survive this period of dessication.  But the outstanding feature of all the beds was the health and vigor of every native grass that we planted and the abundance of seeds that each of these plants has produced.  From Bed 3, just above the beginning of the loop trail, we even found one lingering ripe red berry on the False Solomon's Seal which is doing well in the upper corner. 

Silhouette of grasses above
Fireplace Plaza

Bed 4 which lies just below the Loop Trail is perhaps the easiest to observe, so it is especially obliging this time of year in the amount of native grasses and grass seed that it has nourished. At planting time the hope was that by planting clumps or little communities of different native grasses, proximity might encourage their growth.  Bed 4 appears to have benefited from this practice; all the communities are strong and established.   The seed is plentiful and hopefully headed beyond the boundaries of the bed.  Bed 5 below did not have the same predominance of grasses, but what was put there is healthy and strong. 

Toward the end of our work session, we looked up and noticed that this time of year the only spot of bright sunlight on the hillside fortuitously falls on our "control" bed, the area which we scraped clean in February, and then hoped to see what would naturally grow there.  The control bed is carpeted with invasive Ehrharta grass, forgetmenots, rebounding Himalayan blackberry, and appears to contain no native plant. Compared to our native beds, the control bed is a riot of weeds.  

     It will be interesting to see what the return of the rains produces on the Evergreen Entrance hillside.

A REWARDING DAY AT BOB'S PLACE

My Blog Post last week summarized the flurry of restoration activities in Garber throughout July, but

the dedicated crew restoring Bob's Place along Harwood Creek just wouldn't let July end without ONE MORE IMPROMPTU WORKDAY!  Today's surprise - exposing a large two-foot diameter metal pipe in the middle of the creek.  Kathleen, excited to find out if she could get to the bottom of the pipe, grabbed a shovel and began digging in the mud. What was the original purpose of the pipe? Our best guess is that it was used as a watering hole for livestock back when John Garber owned the land. Discovering the pipe is turning out to be one more in a long list of intriguing mysteries to solve in Garber. 

Click here for more pictures of the exciting discoveries during July in Garber Park.   

JULY FLOWER - THIMBLEBERRY (Rubus Parviflorus)

Thimbleberry (Rubus Parviflorus) 

Although in July in Garber Park we are as likely to see the berry as the flower, we wanted to call attention in mid-summer to one of the delightful berry blossoms that may be found in the wetlands on the lower portion of the loop trail.  Thimblerry (Rubus parviflorus) occurs in many spots in the East Bay ridge lands, but has not been reported elsewhere in the bay counties.  Garber Park's Thimbleberries are dense thickets where the ground is seeping water from the springs upslope. Some commentators suggest that the first habitat in which to expect Thimbleberries is a Coast Redwood Forest, especially Muir Woods, but it seems that many riparian wetlands attract them.

The bright red berry of the Thimbleberry.  We hope to collect
these seeds and disperse them at Bob's Place at our
Seed Collection Workshop on August 20.

Thimbleberry is a good shrub for wildlife providing cover in thickets and food for birds and mammals.  The flower provides nectar for hummingbirds.

And, for those Ethnobotany fans indigenous cultures had many uses for Thimbleberry, from making soap to lining baskets,  and even as a remedy to bring down swelling.  For more on the Thimbleberry and its many uses click here.

Next time you walk the entire loop, look for Thimbleberry.  When you find it you will be looking back in time and forward across the ridges of the East Bay.