October Workday Report

During yesterday's community workday at the Panhandle, neighbors split into two separate groups to take on projects at the east end and at the center of the park.

Panorama of the redwoods at the east end

In the eastern end near Baker Street, we spread a large mound of woodchips as mulch around the redwood trees, to protect the shallow roots, prevent soil compaction and conserve water. This beautiful grove of trees is ours to enjoy, so if you want to beat today's heat, take a walk beneath the canopy of the redwoods around the McKinley Monument.

Jogging under the redwoods

 

The other group tackled end-of-summer maintenance of the flowers and perennials that grow around the playground and in our rain garden, near Ashbury. The spent blooms were removed to make room for fresh starts that will come with the rains this fall and winter.

After promoting the Panhandle Park workdays for nearly six years, I feel very happy to have increasing support from the neighbors who take part in our community workdays - one time, dozens of times, or somewhere in between. Having sufficient numbers to split into two groups and take on a variety of projects in cooperation with the Rec and Park staff is also a huge mark of success.

As the drought continues,  portions of the park are growing increasingly bare of grass. However, big portions of our meadows remain green and welcoming. Meanwhile, the elms have sprouted abundant new leaves in the last month, despite my worries that the changing climate was having severe effects on them. The timing is a little odd, since we are also beginning to see fall color foliage on other trees.

Elms

Early fall color

Barer and barer

May workday report

At the community workday on May 9, volunteers planted a bunch of new plants provided by Rec and Park for both the rain garden and the plots surrounding the children's playground. Two years after initial planting, our rain garden appears more filled in as the plants mature and we continue to bring new plants in. 

Guillermo organized a special snack for us at breaktime: organic fruit and juice smoothies blended by bicycle. Delicious, and healthy, with second servings for all! 

Rain garden filling in

Anna and Guillermo at work on our snack

Conversations at the park often turn to California's extreme drought, and how to manage parklands to reduce water use. As watering is cutback further, some sections of the park have turned dry. To protect the soil from drying out completely and blowing away, one tool in the toolbox is to amend the soil and spread woodchips. Piles of compost fines and wood chips, sourced from the compost yard in Golden Gate Park, were situated around the Panhandle, and Guillermo explained that he would have help from the sixth graders of San Francisco Day School during the coming week to spread the material around the trees of the Panhandle. The timing is excellent, since a couple hundred thousand of runners, walkers, and partyers will be out in the Panhandle for Bay to Breakers on Sunday, May 17. The park always gets wear and tear from this event, and spreading woodchips will help protect the turf around mature trees, which can be a sensitive spot. 

Many of the park meadows are resilient and are still green, due in part to our late spring rains. The horse-chestnuts (near Shrader) and the cherry trees at the eastern edge (by Baker) are also in bloom. Get out to the park to enjoy them this month.  

March workday pictures from the Panhandle park

Kicking up some dust beneath the big trees

 At our March workday, volunteers made a big effort in the first half to remove eucalyptus leaves and gumnuts, and bring in a thick layer of compost fines, for an area near Fell @ Masonic.  With the healthy soil imported from the compost yard of Golden Gate Park, the grass will have a chance to resprout. Just nearby, right at the pathway, the work by the city is almost completed.

The curbcut at Masonic is complete and some work still remains to be completed by the corner

The group of volunteers was reinforced this month by families from the San Francisco Day School and had the support of Joel, the area gardening supervisor for the eastern end of Golden Gate Park. We also worked on our planted beds around the playground, spreading a thick layer of woodchips. There was also a lot of raking around some of the big eucalypus near Ashbury, and some brand new plants for the rain garden (ceanothus, mugwort, & bee plant). Guillermo wrapped up our morning with some recognition of the younger volunteers to express his appreciation for the support from the community.

At work with the heavy rakes 

 Closing circle

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. 

#vscocam @SF311 tree fell over on Panhandle bike path near Cole Street. About 40 minutes ago. pic.twitter.com/QiispaBh9j
— Fix Masonic (@Fix_Masonic) February 15, 2015

Photos from January workday

A large group from the neighborhood and families from the SF Day School were part of our community workday last weekend, the first of 20150. Working with some our gardener and also some extra support from Rec and Park, our major project was to spread healthy soil in the meadow between Lyon and Central. We also amended the soil beneath the laurel trees in the meadow between Masonic and Central. And a group of our regular volunteers took care of the plants in our rain garden by removing weeds and eucalyptus leaves.

We had a huge pile of soil from the city's compost yard to work with

Working together to spread a thin layer of soil in the bare spots.  

The grass in the meadow between Lyon and Central will resprout through the soil. 

Saturday's accomplishments

Thanks to all who turned out for our Saturday volunteer work day at the Panhandle! Here's a quick look at the people who showed up and the projects that Guillermo had ready for us.  

The "four corners" eucalyptus trees just east of Masonic received a blanket of compost and mulch to keep them comfortable for the coming winter rains. We had a big group, bolstered by families from the Kindergarten class of the Day School, so some played in the meadow while other folks dug into the pile of compost, which released steam into the cool morning air. 

Nearby, we spread compost and removed weeds from several trees located south of the pathway.

The trees in this area make up the Panhandle's cluster of olive trees. Despite growing beneath towering eucalyptus, they have a decent southern exposure from the Oak Street side to feed them solar energy. 

Along a bank of aloe plants, we raked leaf litter, amended soil, and put some small plants from the Rec & Park nursery in the ground. I'm not sure what they are, so hope that some grow large enough to help us identify them.

May work day wrap-up

Neighbors worked together with park staff in the Panhandle this morning. In the shade of a group of pittosporum near Oak and Clayton, we spread compost fines to enrich the soil and protect the roots. We also spread soil around two of the redwoods near Fell and Clayton, and in that area we tracked some bumble bees to a nearby hole in the ground. Bumble bees make their nests underground, and we wondered how many bees might be down there. Wikipedia says a mature nest might have 50 bumble bees. 

Meanwhile, Fif and Nancy got to work cutting back the sod encroaching on the cross-over path. By the end of the work, we were amazed at just how much path we had brought back. 

 

When we finished our work and walked back to the playground, we found a bunch of new plants in the ground. The Kevin Collins Children's Garden provided dozens of colorful, decorative plants to fill the new bed at the southeast corner of the playground.   

April workday: Beautiful day in the park

A big group of volunteers enjoyed this morning's workday under sunny skies. After getting an orientation to the day's work and checking out examples of one of the park's weeds, rumex crispus, we organized into two groups. While some folks began a clean up of the children's playground, the bigger part of the group walked east to a worksite near Baker Street. We passed by the pittosporum crassifolium that toppled over during the high winds this week. It was sad to see the end of this old tree, but fortunately there are several other Karos nearby in the park.

We started out by filling wheelbarrows, and then spread them around the young cherry trees near Baker Street.

The soil also went around the big redwoods on the north side of the park. 

Closer to Lyon Street @ Fell, the enormous eucalyptus trees got a layer of mulch. 

Thanks to all of our volunteers, and especially to the seventh grade (and some other students) from SFDS! 

March work day - wrap up

A garden is a work in progress, forever changing and, as a managed landscape, it needs routine upkeep and inputs. In the Panhandle, one of the inputs that we routinely bring in is healthy soil, so on this March work day, that's just what we did in the park's largest grove of redwoods, located just east of the McKinley monument. We last spread new soil in these redwoods at a community workday in January 2010. 

Volunteers also worked to clean up the playground, and to bury cardboard - i.e., sheet mulching an area just outside the fence, so that we can have a bed that will be ready to plant into this spring. 

Workers in that area also scooped up weeds and tossed them into wheelbarrows. Yeah! 

Thanks to SF Rec and Park workers for organizing the work, and to our partners, the San Francisco Day School and Asian American Recovery Services, for bringing out volunteers and working so hard. 

February Work day wrap-up

With huge participation, great planning and organization, and heavenly weather, the February Panhandle work day was a success this morning. Here are a few pictures that capture some of the fun and accomplishments.

We began at 9 for introductions and a rundown of the day's plans from Guillermo, Gloria, Zack and Charlie (department staff). 

Working with some of our regular volunteers from the neighborhood, students  from SF Day School worked to bring healthy soil into the children's garden around the perimeter of the playground. 

A small, hard-working group spread cardboard to suppress weeds, and then added soil to an area at the southeast corner of the playground. We'll get to plant this area soon! 

Students worked in small groups at a table in the playground making Shasta Daisy seed balls with clay, soil,  and water. 

 Wielding shovels, volunteers spread out and edged the mud and grass off of pretty much all the pathways in the center of the park. Compared to the muddy conditions of last spring, this is pretty miraculous.  Let's hope that the rains coming next week don't return the mud to the walkways.

Another group traveled east of Masonic with wheelbarrows, pitchforks and rakes to spread mulch under the big cherry laurel (one of my favorite trees in the park - seen below during one of last year's big picnic days). Considering the tree's huge canopy, that's a bigger job than it sounds like. Looking at past workdays, we spread wood chips on that tree in February 2010. How cyclical!

Thanks everyone!

New work protects the Panhandle's trees and improves its soil

The ongoing efforts to protect and enhance the Panhandle Park have included promoting healthier soil, and this has been accomplished in part by adding fresh materials to the area below our mature trees. The result is - to me, anyway - an upgrade in the attractiveness of the park. Starting from the park's east end near Baker, the work, conducted by both second-Saturday volunteers and staff gardeners, has improved the appearance of the redwood groves, and also - below - around the two mature Brisbane Box trees:

Moving in this material (which has included both mulch and composted material) has taken quite an effort, and there are other reasons for this work besides adding to the beauty of the park. The benefits to the trees, as I understand it, are primarily to provide a layer of protection from feet, paws, and anything else that can poke or gouge the tree's roots (obviously, with roots near the surface being the most vulnerable). In addition, the fresh soil brings nutrients and, compared to a carpet of grass, helps the roots to breathe. Lastly, since mulch suppresses weeds and grass, there's no need for the lawnmowers to ride right up to (and occasionally scar) the tree trunks.  

Building these rings to the circumference of the tree's branches leaves plenty of room for people looking for a picnic on the grass, and hopefully will lead to fewer uprooted trees, such as these two which crashed down (or, to look at it another way, sprang up) in February 2010. One of my goals this year is to find a way to support the effort to improve soil quality across the entire park, including grassy areas. Not only would that make a better looking park with healthier plants, but it has the potential to reduce the demand for irrigation, a major drain on the city's budget.

 

One online source confirms that mulching around trees is "good horticultural practice" and lists an additional benefit I had overlooked: it "absorbs dog piddle."