Morning Glory AKA Bindweed

Last Sunday (10/23/16), Jim, Gordon and I worked in the area of the spring planting. Gary joined us later but he went snipping elsewhere. I wound up pulling up as much morning glory roots as I could on the north side of the trail. Actually, in this small area, we had planted two oceansprays a year ago. They are doing fine, as long as they are not covered by morning glory. Morning glory roots are white tuber-ish strings. In the photo, you can see that above the tool, on the left.

In the draft vegetation management plan, Nelson of EarthCorp had a section on best practices for tackling certain invasives. He covered ivy, holly, laurel and the Himalayan blackberry. In commenting on the draft, I said we needed written guidelines for what to do with morning glory. It turns out best practices have yet to be established for dealing with morning glory. Nelson actually suggested we experiment. Taking multiple areas, we should try different methods of ridding the morning glory and note the time, labor and efficacy of each. This was an intriguing suggestion. I do know exactly where I worked on Sunday so I will see how this area fares in the future. I would say what I did was probably the most time-consuming--digging out and following the roots. It's not really hard labor, though. It just takes a lot of time.

The Non-Storm

A week ago, we were supposed to have had a big storm--the news was filled with forecast of a mega-storm leading up to Saturday, October 15. So, Jim cancelled the work party for October 16 but invited anyone interested to walk around the park to survey the expected storm damage.

We walked around most of the park. The recent weather really had little to no effect. Probably a few branches came down on Thursday when it was windy. We did notice some spectacular fungi growing on the poplar logs, along the western loop trail around the ponds.

Yesterday morning, I took another walk to admire the fall colors. Here's a view of the north pond from the isthmus.

Our Fall Planting Party will be November 6--End of Daylight Savings Time

A week ago, Jim cancelled the Oct 9 session due to weather but went to the park anyway, in case someone showed up. I did because the morning was actually quite decent. One outcome of our meeting was that we decided to hold the fall planting party on November 6th.

We walked around the Meridian side. We found this sign below, proclaiming the area as a restoration project by the Stewards of Twin Ponds Park. At one time, it was visible from the street.

It is now behind all of this:

This is the area north of the Trail of Cedars, along Meridian. At our meeting with Nelson of EarthCorps, he mentioned getting rid of the blackberry on the south side of the trail, along the street. We will definitely consider doing that! We do need to be careful not to bare the ground too much while the natives have the time to grow.

On the Meridian Side

Jim and I started out today by pulling out some of the remaining yellow archangel just east of our chip pile along Meridian. The area has really been taken over by creeping buttercup. You can see the buttercup and the yellow archangel below. Also an aven peeking out among the invasives.

Later, I followed Gary into the area between the trail by the Jobox and the Trail of Cedars. Found a very sweet spot where some false Solomon seal is starting to become established near a sword fern, Oregon grape, thimbleberry and vine maple:

Also in the vicinity Gary found a geocache. I covered it up with some twigs.