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Feb 14, 2015

Happy Valentines from the Panhandle




A heavy storm can set back your plans, and the wind and rain storms last Friday and Sunday have meant a lot of clean up time for park workers. It's hard to overstate the amount of leaf, fruit, bark and twigs that fall from the big old trees in the park. And that not to mention the entire trees that were knocked over. The staging area for debris near the basketball courts is almost full!

At the community workday this morning, we lent a hand in the area on both sides of Central Ave, starting in the area where an elm tree fell last week. Fortunately, we didn't need to remove everything offsite, because you can use the leaf and bark to mulch around the big trees. It was still a lot of work for a small crew to move that much stuff. Now that the meadow is cleared of eucalyptus litter, crews during the coming week can spread compost fines in the meadow, replenishing the soil and helping resprout grass.


Then, this afternoon at about 4:45, I came upon another tree that had fallen directly across the bike path. It appears to be a pittosporum. Some picnickers nearby told me that it had just happened about a half hour before and that someone had nearly been hit but escaped without any injury. 

Feb 7, 2015

Park workers busy during break in the storm

Thank you Guillermo for clearing our pathways this morning during the break in the storm!


Yesterday's Pineapple Express storm brought San Francisco a couple inches of rain and a lot of wind, bringing down a mess of branches out of the mature trees in the Panhandle. Getting the branches off the paths helps everyone navigate more safely, a nice benefit given today's mild weather.

The winds also split an old elm tree located near Central Ave on the Oak Street side. The limbs have already been cut and removed, but removing the trunk will probably require another crew.

Split in the tree, tagged #259

Another view of the split tree

Park entrances at Oak & Ashbury: one rebuilt and one still in progress