NEW GROVE, 2010

BEFORE THE PLANTING, DECEMBER 2009

More than 6000 trees and shrubs will be planted here by volunteers in 2010, beginning in spring. Longtime nearby residents and stable owners Bill and Roberta Robertson say that as late as the 1970s it was covered in spring wildflowers, such as California Goldfields, brilliant yellow carpets of them.

People also went to this field to gather mushrooms. However, the big 1977 Dust Storm stripped the ground nearly bare.

Eventually, the land regained some vegetation after the big dust storm, but mainly in the form of noxious plants such as rip gut, foxtail, mustard, and tumbleweed. These are all invasive plants that thrive in disturbed ground.

However, since there were good rains in the winter of 2009-2010, there was a very good spring display of native fiddlenecks (right).

This remnant tree stump (left) indicates that the area once supported large trees and was part of the riparian habitat that today hugs the river. The goal of the current revegetation project is to restore that larger habitat.

THANKS!! to all the volunteers who have gathered seeds, made cuttings, filled nursery pots to put them in, built the native plant nursery, watered, planted, weed-whacked, mowed, picked up trash and generally made themselves useful.

PHOTO GALLERY

In January and February, 2010, volunteers fanned out through the Preserve to gather cuttings of California native plants which still grow on less distrubed parts of the Preserve. This will further our goal of restoring Preserve vegetation to a semblance of what it once was.

Cuttings were taken of the following: cottonwoods, California sycamores, bladderpod, mulefat (baccharis) , black willow, red willow, sandbar willow, arroyo willow, California rose, and native blackberry.

Volunteers then potted the cuttings so that they will be healthy and ready to plant in March and April, 2010. They are being sheltered under shade cloth in the Preserve's new native plant nursery, designed and built by volunteers Bill Cooper, Phil Shepard, Rich O'Neil, and Andy Honig.