Brown conical mushrooms sprout yesterday in the park under a cherry laurel

The large cherry laurel just east of Masonic is a real survivor. Our park has quite a few laurels, but none like this. From time to time, people leave trash in there and cut into or gouge the trunk with metal and glass. When I visited the park yesterday, I saw that one of its large branches was pulled down to the ground and the branch was cracked. That was hard to see. 

It cheered me up to turn around and find mushrooms sprouting from wood chips we spread around the tree in February. 

Panhandle Project Selected for Implementation

Ready for change?

Great news yesterday: Our proposal for capital improvements in the area between the playground and basketball courts has been selected for implementation!

The plan repairs a key area in our big neighborhood park while leaving the current design intact. It will fix broken pathways between the playground and basketball courts, replace degraded turf while modernizing irrigation and drainage, and place small-stature, moisture-loving native plants in a small area. It will also build a seating wall positioned close to the basketball courts, and installs bike racks. To protect the area from harmful impact of heavy vehicles, it re-routes service vehicles to get them in and out of the park more sensibly. And it builds a walkable wood-chip path to improve access to the Kevin Collins Children's Garden surrounding the playground.

Project overview. Drawing by Holly Kuljian

SF Rec and Park Department will get this work underway soon - hopefully in the first months of 2011. We have an immediate opportunity to ensure the project is fully realized -

- park outreach to let even more park users know about the project

- visit neighborhood associations and tell them about the project

- become acquainted with the work team and document the project through photos and videos

- organize the day when neighbors will take part in planting as part of our volunteer match

- learn more about the plants chosen and lead tours of the project

- organize a park celebration - before and after project

- propose creative reuses for any materials being removed from the park

- make a financial contribution to help us reach our match

We'll need lots of help to make these things happen. Looking forward to working with you on this in 2011!

Park reflections

The Panhandle isn't supposed to have a reflecting pool, but today between rain showers, the puddles at Panhandle central offered a way to view the tall trees looking down instead of up. A long standing maintenance problem, the poor drainage in the vicinity of the playground would finally be addressed if our proposal is selected for implementation. Stay tuned for news soon -- and tune in to the Dec 2 meeting of the Rec and Park Commission.

November Work Day wrap up

At yesterday's Panhandle work day, regular volunteers joined with students and parents from SF Day School to take care of our neighborhood park. 

I was happy to have many volunteers, because the weather was awesome and it was our last work day of the year. We had an enormous pile of compost soil to spread out in the redwoods at the southeast corner of the park.  It was definitely not manure, and smelled like fresh ground cypress. This project in the redwoods followed up last month's work day, when we cut back the young redwood shoots growing thickly from the burls of the large redwood trunks. By spreading nourishing soil in this area, we were giving the redwoods the nourishment they might not otherwise get from the sandy soil found throughout the park. 

Shoveling is hard work, but we enjoyed working in the shade of the trees, and getting some fresh air and exercise to begin the weekend. 

Other work that we got to do was removal of mud and weeds from  the crossover path connecting Lyon St, and some trash pickup behind the McKinley Monument. I heard that several socks were found. 

We found conclusively that fifth graders are big enough to maneuver a wheelbarrow across the lawn. Thanks everyone!