Author Archives: Ellen Briggs

Report on May 24-25 Work Days

In spite of the short notice and the holiday weekend, 10 brave volunteers donated 28 hours of hard labor in our soon-to-be Wildlife and Respite Garden.  Most of the work consisted in:

  • digging out the roots of an invasive alien vine, Porcelain Berry, with pickaxes and shovels.  (That’s Ampelopsis brevipedunculata  for all you botanical Latin fans.)
  • sifting parking lot gravel out of the soil and returning same to the parking lot
  • removing rocks and hunks of asphalt from the garden 

We are proud to report that we have 13 large black contractor bags filled with weeds (mostly porcelain berry roots) waiting to be picked up as trash.

In addition, we signed up 6 new members bringing our total membership to 94 people, and collected $18 in cash donations.

These 2 official work days were preceded by several unofficial work days at which additional volunteers donated their time and expertise transplanting daffodils, unstaking trees in the riparian buffer, and beginning the very challenging weeding process in the garden area.

THANKS A MILLION to all our volunteers, you are the greatest!!

First Work Days

As you may have noticed, the Harriton day of service was cancelled due to heavy rains on their scheduled work day–so we really need our volunteers!  Here are our currently planned work days–and please note you can come and go as you please, no need to stay for the entire session.

Saturday, May 24, 2:00-5:00———–weeding, removal of vine roots and unwanted stones/gravel

Sunday, May 25, 2:00-5:00————-weeding, removal of vine roots and unwanted stones/gravel

Thursday, May 29, 2:00-5:00———-planting, laying down cardboard & mulch

Sunday, June 1, 2:00-5:00————–planting if not finished on Thursday, laying down cardboard & mulch

Please bring water, a shady garden hat, and work gloves.  Also, we will have some extra tools on hand, but we will NOT have access to the Township’s tools so please bring your own tools if you can.  For the two initial weeding days, spades, shovels, pick axes for the vine roots, loppers, and pruning saws should all be helpful.  You may want to put your name on your tools to ensure you get them back at the end of the day.

 

Change of Plan–We have help from Harriton students for our Wildlife Garden

We’re in luck!  Students serving in a Harriton High School Day of Service will lay out the cardboard and newspapers many have donated, and also mulch that will be provided free by the township, in our Wildlife and Respite Garden on May 16, 2014.  To prepare for the students’ work on May 16, we will weed and mark out the garden path.  The students will be supervised by someone from Harriton and also by a representative of L.M. Township.  After the mulch is laid down, we will begin planting shrubs.   We will plan to start planting around May 22, but stay tuned for more details.  Anyone interested in gardening is invited to help plant, water and weed on an ongoing basis.

What’s going on in the fenced area?

While we await the Township’s planned site preparation so we can begin our organic weed suppressant project (laying down newspaper and cardboard and then putting mulch over that), we are transplanting the emerging snowdrops and daffodils from the fenced area to the steep bank adjacent. This will brighten up that bank in future and save those plants from being smothered along with the garlic mustard and bishop’s weed that has taken over in there.

For the gardeners among you, the Ellens (that’s Ellen Reese and I) are planning on working on this project for an half an hour or so every day at around 4:00 til it’s done. If anyone wants to help, please let us know before you begin. You need to sign off on a Township waiver form before beginning work, and also bring your own spade or shovel and work gloves.

Ellen Briggs

 

Link

We will have to reschedule our March 22 work day. Preliminary site preparation of the fenced garden area we are going to work on has been delayed due to the winter weather to date; also, the Lower Merion Conservancy has an event scheduled for the same date and as you know parking is limited. We will let everyone know our new date as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, we are asking everyone to please avoid running your dogs off leash at the park between the hours of 9:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. on March 22. During these hours, the StreamWatchers will be working on an invertebrate census in the stream at our park, and loose dogs may hamper their efforts. Thank you in advance for your courtesy!

Also, FYI the Lower Merion Conservancy cordially invites all Friends of WMC to participate in the StreamWatch census on March 22–here is the information:

20th Annual StreamWatch Census, March 22, 2014 – 9:00 am – 1:00 pm,bWest Mill Creek Park

Discover the invertebrate life of Mill Creek while becoming a citizen scientist in our most important ongoing study. Each year, volunteers help us understand the creek’s health by collecting samples of its aquatic life—crayfish and crane flies, mosquitoes and midges, water pennies and worms, all of which are indicators of the water’s quality. This census provides us with the critical scientific data we use in the Mill Creek Report. Meet in the parking lot of West Mill Creek Park. Dress warmly and pack a simple lunch.

For further information, here’s the link to the website:

http://lmconservancy.org/ai1ec_event/20th-annual-streamwatch-census/?instance_id=769

 

Report on First Annual Members Meeting

Our First Annual Members Meeting on February 24, 2014, was a great success! On a cold winter night, 28 stalwart Friends of WMC convened in the cozy “Living Room” area at Beth David for a Friends of WMC Park status report and for a talk by Patrick Gardner of the Lower Merion Conservancy. Patrick’s talk was a fascinating window into the history of the park along with information about wildlife that frequents the park and about the ecological challenges faced by West Mill Creek due to excessive stormwater runoff. In addition to the talk, we enjoyed delicious fruit, homemade cookies, brownies and cheese courtesy of Elaine Stern, Events Committee Co-chair, and volunteer member Marilyn Steiner.

We also presented the site plan for our Wildlife and Respite garden to be planted in the Park’s fenced area next to the parking lot. We encouraged all who are interested to help us with donations for plants and landscape rocks for that project, as well as for permanent seating down in the beach area. We have had an excellent response to that appeal—we currently have a total of $1,605 in donations, and all the trees offered for special sponsorship were claimed. We are well on our way to reaching our 2014 fundraising goal of $2,500!

The donation form with all the necessary instructions is attached in case any of you who were not able to attend would like to contribute and help us reach our goal. As it states on the form, anyone who donates this year will be listed as a Founding Member on our website, together with the name of any person or dog you wish to honor or memorialize. The Founding Member list also will be included in our next Annual News Report in early 2015.

We hope to see you at our first work day on Saturday, March 22, 10 to 2 pm. We will be laying a wood chip path with a log border and/or laying down newspaper and cardboard and covering it with mulch as an organic weed suppressant. (By the way, we need more logs, about 6” in diameter and 6 feet long, for the path. And if anyone knows of a Boy Scout troop or other organization willing to construct the log path for us as a public service, please let us know!)

We also need to make a simple compost bin, so if you are handy and would like to donate your talents for this task, please let anyone on the Steering Committee know,