September Outings and First Day of October

We are now into October. It rained the last night of September but the first day of October was beautiful, with sunshine and clear air. Venturing in the park as part of the usual threesome, I forgot my hat and my phone. So there are no photos from October 1. But we went back to the Southern Forest to tackle bindweed. I pulled out several small black locusts and plenty of herb Robert as well. Jim worked on the other side of the downed locust, where I took a photo of  the bindweed the preceding week (last photo in this post). Gary did his usual snipping.

Here's what we accomplished in September:

9/3/17: We watered our plantings and pulled weeds (primarily bindweed) in Southern Forest--the area in front of the downed locust. Back at Jobox to end the day, we noticed a segment of garry oak had dried up. Also, a nearby 3-needle pine. We've spent a lot of time talking about the potential effects of this year's dry summer and past dry summers, as well as other possible reasons for dry trees. The garry oak situation appears to be unique, unrelated to drought conditions. I then walked home through the park and encountered the rabbit.

The garry oak.

The pine.

The rabbit. Jim claims it's one of two.

9/10/17: Gary and I started the task of extending our planing area by cutting back blackberry. We talked about the two large dead birch trees, which are dropping branches. Gary thought they are about 55 to 80 feet high and that perhaps they died due to past dry seasons. We watched an aerial show by a sharp-shinned hawk, crows and flickers. I tried to get a video of this but didn't succeed.

9/17/17: We grubbed the area where Gary and I clipped the week before. Found lots of junk along with the root balls. 

9/24/17: We continued to grub out roots in our extended planting area. We then walked over to the Southern Forest. The area beyond the downed locust is now a sea of bindweed!

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A Dry August

We are at the end of August and it is sprinkling as I write. But it's been mostly dry all month and we have been concerned about drought stress. We also tend to hover over our plantings to make sure they'll succeed. This post summarizes our outings on the four Sundays of this month.

On August 8, we watered our plantings. Jim said he had 70 gallons. More branches off of the dead birch fell in the area and Gary decided to chop enough of it for easier access to remove blackberry sprouts and new bindweed. Directly in front of him is our bad luck vine maple--that poor thing has suffered multiple direct hits from falling branches. It has been topped at least once. We then staked it and another falling branch took down the stake. However, you can see green in the photo so it is, remarkably, still living.

We then walked over to arboretum. The soccer field was all torn up, due to the turf replacement project. When we got next to the Community Garden, Gary and I got distracted by the ripe blackberry west of the bridge (see below) and stopped to pick and eat. We then followed Jim into the Arboretum Annex and discussed whether trees are drought stressed, yanking morning glory off while we looked. Is this tree drying out or is it normal shedding of leaves? As for the soil, we noted some areas were still wet; but a few yards away, the soil was bone dry as I dug in and kicked it loose with my shoe. It's a strange area. It's all wetland or wetland buffer but some of the buffer area is elevated and the soil appears to dry out.

We went back to the Arboretum Annex on August 13th. It rained! On the other hand, the area was a mess. Lots of bindweed on blackberry. We basically focused on removing bindweed off of trees. Gary also cut back the knotweed. No one has worked on the knotweed since John.

On August 20th, Jim brought more water in his truck and we watered along the Trail of Cedars. We dashed through the Southern Forest and I had Gary stand by the cottonwood shoots--they are getting super high! We also went to the Arboretum to water there, stringing the hoses Kirk gave us way back when, from the garden faucets. I don't know how or when it happened but there is now a dead Douglas fir (or I think that was a Doug fir), clearly visible from the lawn in front of the Arboretum. Jim also helped me water the WNPS project site (Zone 6-2), where the willow and pine had been drying out. We put down 120 gallons of water there.

This last Sunday (August 27), we watered again down the trail and for good measure, in the Arboretum, too. We also found what appeared to us as a rabbit cage. Jim sent an email to Tony about it.

Jim also met with Tony last week. Parks has something that holds 200 gallons of water that could be placed in Jim's pickup. We would like to test drive this (so to speak) some time in September. If it works well (or is easier than the present system of Jim bringing water in tubs and garbage cans), we could then use it in future dry summers.

July Outings

I was out on the Meridian side on July 2nd, 9th, 23rd and 30th. Jim and Gary were there on those days, too, and also on the 16th.

On the 2nd, we noted signs of human activity near the Southern Forest. Whether it was "camping" or not was hard to tell. Really, not much to do about it but toss out the stuff.

Just litter, if you ask me!

More litter...

Jim started to worry that we'd have a repeat of the 2015 drought so we wheelbarrowed water down to the Southern Forest. Also, he knew someone digging oxalis out of their yard so he brought that with him and we planted most of it in the Southern Forest and a bit below the fence by our most recent planting. I'm a little worried that it's the wrong season to be doing this but given that it was free and it would have been thrown away anyway, it seemed worth the gamble.

On the 9th, after more watering, we worked along the trail and near our Jobox, pulling morning glory off of natives. Here's one Indian plum that was a little taller by the time I yanked off most of the bindweed.

My mind wanders off sometimes. I had just freed a vine maple of some morning glory and started to remove bindweed off of what I thought was a bracken fern. The fronds of bracken fern are easily knocked down so I was careful to snip off some of the bindweed and unwind others off the frond. I was doing this mindlessly when all of the sudden I realized I was removing bindweed not off of a bracken fern but poison hemlock. Oops. This is in the area close to Meridian and our Jobox. I didn't realize the hemlock was in that spot and with so much overgrowth I had only seen a frond sticking out. Too much stuff all around it so I didn't bother digging it out.

On the 23rd, we watered a few things on the north side of the main trail. We also took a good look at the area. I was not happy to see that a western hemlock very near the main trail entrance had been pruned. Also, there was a mangled salmonberry. A cedar on the other side of the trail was also pruned and the branches tossed aside. I emailed Kirk about this.

North of the trail, there is a five-needle pine that appeared to have the rust disease.

I spotted a young horse chestnut in the area and got Gary to saw it down. I also talked Gary into yanking out a small English hawthorne. That took longer since we hadn't brought a shovel or even a trowel. But we got rid of two invasive trees that day.

The 30th was a short work day for me. Discovered another large branch had fallen off of the dead birch tree, smashing into an ocean spray we had planted and the already damaged vine maple, which we had staked. It's as if we planted the vine maple in a bad luck spot since it had suffered previously from a branch falling on it. After staking, it had produced a new leader but the latest blow was another setback. Ideally, all the branches on the birch that will fall on it have done so. The culprit is on the right below.

Later in the day, I was on the 1st NE side. Someone bent back a branch on a witch hazel in the Arboretum. Perhaps it annoyed someone because the branch stuck out too much over the lawn.

Clematis Vitalba: Traveler's Joy; Old Man's Beard

Yesterday, John Dixon instigated the removal of traveler's joy on a pine John planted in the arboretum.

What happened was that last month, I got John to give a tour of the arboretum to my fellow team members in the project sponsored by the Washington Native Plant Society. He noticed that traveler's joy was growing on the eastern white pine (Pinus strobus "Winter Gold"). John decided this had to be tackled. By the time he had dug out the roots earlier this week, the plant had already flowered in the tree and was starting to go to seed. So, he enlisted my help and Jim's in an effort to contain the flowering plant and seeds.

King County has a pretty good website on clematis vitalba. John's primary aim in getting rid of the plant off the pine was to stop, to the extent possible, the seeds from getting dispersed by the wind. Here are the photos I took:

The first tactic was to try to yank the vines off the tree from the ground. Note the knotweed behind the guys. Said John: "Don't get distracted."

Next tactic: John climbed into the tree and then tried yanking on the vines.

Here's an image of the flowers and a bit of the younger vines, which eventually become quite woody.

Jim managed to climb higher into the pine.

John with a load of clematis vines, leaves and flowers. My job was to get all this off site.

Hard to see, but there is a pole in this photo, parallel to the  second large branch from the top. Jim had taped a gardening fork on the end of it and he was grabbing the vines and twisting the vines around the fork like spaghetti. He would then drop bundles of the stuff to the ground.

The end. 

In a little over three hours, most of the clematis was off the pine. I would estimate Jim got 95% or more, with a few young vines still visible from the ground at the end. Of course, some of the seeds were raining down as the guys tried to get it off the pine and some of that will surely germinate so John said the matter needs to be monitored. I will also return to dig out the the small patches of knotweed in this area. John pulled out one at the end to show me what the root looks like. They are not particularly deep in the ground.

June: Maintenance Month

Gary, Jim and I were at the park on all four Sundays this month. We were joined by Robby on the 11th. All this month, we have basically looked after our planting. In particular, to make sure the bindweed is kept at bay from our plants. We've also pulled up young blackberry shoots along with lots of Herb Robert.

It is impossible to remove all the morning glory so we've not done much outside our planting areas. Below on the left, you can see it climbing around the columbine. On the right, note the blooming honeysuckle in the back along with one ripening salmonberry. These were taken on June 4, as was the photo of the mock orange that we just planted in April. We were happy to see it bloom already!

On June 11, I dug out quite a root so I had to take a photo it. This goes to show you why bindweed is everywhere--the roots are going in all directions!

We took a break from this to walk to the main trail where the leaning Norway spruce finally fell. This is right by Meridian Creek and the South Pond. I couldn't resist taking a photo of the babies in the pond, too. The last photo was taken from the other end of the fall. Since it was obstructing the trail, I emailed Parks with couple of photos. When I got home, I learned from neighbors the tree had fallen on Thursday, June 8. I don't know if it had already been reported. The path was cleared couple of days later.

On June 18, I noticed the ocean spray we planted in the fall of 2015 had begun to flower:

On June 18, Jim figured out that the seeds on our clothes are aven seeds, I broke open a head (ovary?) and all these little seeds fell out. Since I've been picking off these sticky little seeds as much as I could off of my clothing, I guess I've been spreading avens here and there.

 Parks (most likely Tony) did a nice job clearing the downed tree. Also, there's now a log across the creek.

Today was hot, 90 by late afternoon perhaps. I think we only picked one bag of morning glory between us since Jim spent most of the time tackling black locust shoots. I took a photo of the cottonwood shoots in the Southern Forest. They are starting to crowd into the path but we decided we liked their shade value.