Nature Park Cleanups - Spring/Summer 2018

Park work days are usually scheduled for the third Saturday of the month. Dates, however, are tentative, please confirm on Facebook or email Friends of So Pas Nature Park.

We are planning to hold our regular park cleanups on the following Saturdays (9am - noon):

• May 19
• Jun 16
• NO OFFICIAL WORKDAYS UNTIL SEPTEMBER

We will weed, apply mulch, water, and care for the park.

Nature Park volunteers should:

• Wear sunscreen, hat, sunglasses
• Bring plenty of water
• Bring gardening gloves and tools (weeders, trowels, whatever you use in your own garden), there are extra tools and gloves for those who need them.
• Wear comfortable work clothes, including work shoes (sneakers or boots) and long pants
• Bring binoculars for birdwatching (optional)

Children must be under adult supervision at all times. There is poison oak in the park that we will point out before starting.

The plant of the month is globe gilia, Gilia capitata. This is one of the many wildflowers that we have sown in the park. Others include California poppies, tansy-leafed phacelia, owl's clover, bird's-eye gilia, desert blue bells, chick lupines, arroyo lupines, tidy-tips, elegant clarkia, and more. (Don't you just love their common names!) Anyway, as you can see – if you look super carefully –  the bee on the top of the flower informs us that this is a great pollinator plant. Its flowers range in color from lighter blue to this lovely rich color, and it looks wonderful with poppies. We will collect seeds in a few weeks to save for next year, though it is doing a fine job of reseeding itself without our help! According to Sandra Strike (Ethnobotany of the California Indians, 1994) the seeds were eaten by Native Americans. If you look carefully in the park you will find many lovely native wildflowers.

In other news, I will be giving a talk at the California Native Plant Society - San Gabriel Mts. Chapter program meeting on our work in the nature park on May 24. I will discuss our successes, challenges, and what we have learned in over a decade of efforts. CNPS-SGM events are free to the public and I hope you will come by.

For more info on the park:

* South Pasadena - Arroyo Seco Woodland & Wildlife Park
* Nature Park (Weeding Wild Suburbia)