Report of our September workday

On Saturday, local residents got together at the Panhandle to help our gardening staff with the continuing effort to keep the Panhandle Park welcoming and beautiful.

Brian suggested that maintenance of the irrigation system for the rain garden was overdue. That involved opening up the control box, and giving everyone a tutorial on the controls inside. 

It also required an assessment of all of the sprinkler heads, cleaning or replacing those that were clogged or damaged, and in some cases, digging out and and re-positioning the fixture. It was the most thorough maintenance of the irrigation that volunteers have been involved in, and will be important to give the garden some watering during the warm months ahead.

Not all of the volunteers on Saturday were wrapped up in the irrigation system, others were busy raking out beds, deadheading the blooms and removing weeds from the mound, and trimming back the shrubs surrounding the playground. We wrapped up with some raking of the leaves near the basketball courts.

February workday with SF Day School

Our community workday last Saturday was bright and warm, in the middle of a very dry winter. We were greeted in the morning by Rec and Parks employees, who had placed more than a dozen new bunch grasses for planting into the mound. 

Once the grasses were planted, our attention turned to the rain garden, which needed a good weeding after a few months without attention - especially the northside, which gets inundated with annual grasses. 

A bunch of Douglas Iris and a couple of alum root were also brought out by the parks department for planting into the garden. This kind of iris has been very successful in the garden, producing some spectacular purple blooms.

Nearby, families from the SF Day School worked throughout the morning to clear fallen eucalyptus leaves and branches, with a break for cookies freshly baked by Brian, our friendly Rec and Park gardener.  

December workday report & the Panhandle gets its first signposts

Yesterday at the Panhandle, volunteers from the community joined with Rec and Park's gardening staff for the final community workday of 2017. Afterward, we gathered for our group picture below the new signposts, which, for the first time, proudly name our neighborhood park.

Perks of volunteering: holiday wreaths and homemade cookies

The morning's work centered around the plantings near the restroom. Starting at the mound, we planted approximately a dozen oenothera - evening primrose, the same variety that has done well nearby and produces yellow blooms on tall flower spikes, leaving behind lots of tasty seeds for the birds. The new primroses were placed in a bare spot on the mound, which otherwise has filled in well with coyote brush, ceanothus, yarrow, strawberry and other native plants since initial planting two years ago by park staff and volunteers.

For the rest of the morning, our crew of volunteers was busy with raking eucalyptus leaves from the grass, trimming the honeysuckle shrub bordering the playground, removing weeds from the rain garden, and doing some careful pruning of the dogwoods.

Summer bloom at the park

The planting near the Panhandle bulletin board - aka The Mound - has a great bloom this summer from a plant called Island snapdragon (previously Galvezia speciosa, now Gambelia speciosa, native to California's Channel Island).

August workday at the Panhandle

It was a cold Saturday morning, and as we walked through the Panhandle we could hear heavy drops of condensed fog falling from the tall trees. But there was work to do! A large eucalyptus branch had fallen near the south path. In the mound full of perennials, Bermuda Grass was sending its ropy underground shoots through and around our plantings. Weedy annual grasses had infiltrated the rain garden. Thousands of leaves and passels of bark strips lay scattered across the meadows. And the stumps of dead trees stuck up from the turf, like unfinished business. Was there any way for us to accomplish all of the work? Fortunately, our regular volunteers were in attendance, and our numbers were bolstered by the Bridgemen, a group for gay, bi and trans men who get together and give back to the community in service projects. 

By the end of the workday, the weather was still damp and chilly, but the group had persevered through the challenging project. The tally was seven tree stumps removed. The cart was full of the stubs of roots and the pickup truck had a full load of weeds and leaves. The traces of our work removing the stumps showed in several areas with a topping of fresh soil. With the work done by the end of the morning, the Panhandle was looking great, and was more ready for tree plantings that are anticipated this fall.

July Workday

Our community workday on Saturday gave everyone the chance to catch up on neighborhood events will working with park staff on the planted areas around the playground. Some of our accomplishments were: pruning the honeysuckle along the playground fence; deadheading the yarrow and the juncus on the mound under the blazing hot sun; dividing clumps of Douglas Iris in the rain garden; clipping back geraniums in the small garden on the southeastern corner of the playground; and raking a mountain of eucalyptus leaves from the grass near the Oak & Ashbury.

May Workday Report

Park Stewards at the Panhandle on Saturday, May 13

Here's a late update about our stellar May Workday. Above all, it was a pleasure to be out in the park, on a warm and sunny spring morning. We focused our efforts in the central area of the Panhandle, near the restroom and playgrounds, with a focus on the mound (an area planted last year with a variety of drought tolerant native plants). In addition to weeding, we also spread a huge pile of wood chips around the mound to insulate the plants during the dry months ahead and make the area look its best.

We also added a few additional plants into our more established, diverse rain garden planting, and trimmed back a few of the rapidly growing plants. The May workday was also a chance to say thank you to Frankie, a Rec and Park employee, for his months of steady and friendly staffing of the community workday. We said hello and started getting to know Brian, a new staff person who will be assigned to work daily in the Panhandle and to support the community workday in the future. 

Woodchips making the mound look nice for the spring

Yarrow and sticky monkey in the mound setting up for a nice bloom

Noting that the dryer weather is allowing progress on the capital improvement work.

A fallen eucalyptus branch had been cut up and ready for removal. 

And the truck that was unlucky to be below said branch was awaiting removal and donation

October Workday at the Panhandle

At our workday Saturday, volunteers worked on an important project, the plantings on the mound next to the park restrooms. Adding another large group of blue-eyed grass from the park nursery helped make the planting on the mound fuller and more attractive.

Other projects for the morning were to remove a few weeds from the mound and from the nearby rain garden, while enjoying the terrific weather, chatting with friends, and checking out the progress on the capital improvement project that has started along the Panhandle's bike path.

The August workday at the Panhandle

At our workday on Saturday, August 13, volunteers from the community joined Rec and Park staff to help out with ongoing projects: tending to our rain garden full of diverse California native plants (planted about three and a half years ago) and to the nearby mound covered in a patchwork of drought tolerant perennials, planted just within the past year. There was a lot of weeding, raking, sweeping, pruning and deadheading, resulting in a truck full of trimmings heading to the park's compost yard. 

Report from the July workday at the Panhandle

At yesterday's Panhandle workday, volunteers from the community turned out to work with Rec and Park staff to take care of the park's gardens, focusing on the area near the playground.

A few of yesterday's accomplishments -

• Removing sand from the south pathway next to the playground 
• Tending the rain garden by removing trash, raking leaves, and pulling weeds, and
• Thoroughly removing weeds from the mound next to the restroom (planted this past winter, in part by volunteers in February and in part by city workers), and 
• Most impressively: installing a sturdier, and more attractive rope fence around the planting on the mound. 

See the pictures below for more - 

On the mound, clipping expired blooms from yarrow can result in new growth 

Installing the sturdy new posts required a stake pounder and a lot of work

The new fence was strung at the end of the morning

Since planting at the beginning of 2016, the sticky monkey, coyote brush, and other plants have grown and bloomed. Volunteers have fertilized the plants and also keep on top of the weeds that inevitably sprout. 

A large portion of the yarrow in the rain garden looked black and blighted. Yesterday's solution: remove to the ground level, watch for new growth, and replant the area if necessary. This coast buckwheat will enjoy the space to grow. 

The community volunteer program at the Panhandle continues on the second Saturday of each month, from 9 am - 12 noon. 

February Workday report

So our willow fence project was a no-go last weekend at the Panhandle workday, because not all of the necessary materials were ready. And it appears that it won't be until next year that the fence project can be initiated.

Anyway, the crew of volunteers last Saturday ready was ready to help out with a few projects including raking in the playground and trimming shrubs. The largest number of volunteers was busy planting a large number of new plants into the mound, an area next to the restroom that has been converted from grass to native perennial shrubs.

We also took time to admire a bit of new construction: a low retaining wall built with heavy lumber to surround a small patch of tree ferns and other plants that welcome families to the main gate of the children's playground.