The Heritage Park May 13 workday was pleasant and cool. We weeded and tidied the Woodland Shade and Pavilion Gardens, located by the Nickajack Rd. parking lot. Volunteers also continued removing masses of non-native plants below the boardwalk at creekside, including very large Chinese privet “trees” as well as vines and roots of non-native wisteria. The photo above shows the creekside area today, while the photo below shows the same area in 2018, before we began intensive work in this area.
Native plants blooming at the time of the workday included: spiderwort, penstemon, rose wood-sorrel, and butterwort; and we saw yellow passionflower shoots in the Shade Garden. The weedy native catchstraw or bedstraw has gone to seed in the Pavilion Garden and its burs “hitched” a “ride” on any clothing or gloves that got near it. Volunteers enjoyed seeing and listening to the usual Heritage Park birds, including towhee, cardinal, Carolina wren, titmouse, common yellow-throat, great crested flycatcher, red-eyed vireo, and American crow. Other wildlife included a few chipmunks and a little ring-neck snake in the Shade Garden area.
Our next workday will be Saturday June 10.
Heritage Park creekside area in 2018.