Where has all the water gone?
Many thanks to neighbors, without whom this garden project would not succeed!
Where has all the water gone? That’s the question we’ve kept asking ourselves as we searched the sky for rain clouds during this torrid, parched July. Thankfully, there’s more than one way to get water!
We don’t know how we could have kept the new plants along Vermont Avenue alive without the access to water supplied by generous neighbors. Chuck and Peggy Kosak, who live at the corner of Vermont and Massachusetts, let us regularly drag a long hose from their house to water the thirsty young trees and shrubs across the street. Lisa Watson Bennett and Ted Bennett, at the corner of Vermont and Park, supply all the water used in the irrigation system in what we call the Garden portion of the site, the big treeless expanse we’ve transformed into a pollinator garden. Without this help, many of the young, new, and expensive plants would have died.
Thank you!
While we’re expressing gratitude, Paula Sullivan deserves a big hat tip for her donation of the dozens of ferns now growing in what we call Fern Valley. These showy native Ostrich Ferns spread rapidly when they’re happy, and with the addition of more ferns from Paula this fall, we expect over the next few years to fill the small, wooded ravine just north of Massachusetts with a spectacular display.
Fern Valley, under tree cover just north of Massachusetts Avenue and south of the pollinator garden.
This is just the beginning…
In the spring, we began work on the other (east) side of Old Dominion, along the below-grade footpath leading to Chesterbrook Shopping Center. Workers from Operation Stream Sheild, a Fairfax County program that employs homeless people, chopped hundreds of tree-strangling invasives, and we collected piles of debris that had accumulated through years of neglect. Federal Realty, which manages the shopping center, stepped up to haul the piles away. It’s another example of how invaluable contributions have made the seemingly impossible possible. (This project has been paused until late fall, when the poison ivy on the site dies back.)
Finally, thanks to the hearty volunteers who turned out on a humid Saturday earlier this month to help weed the Garden portion of the Vermont Avenue site. This work isn’t just about making the Garden look pretty. Pulling weeds now, before they go to seed, means fewer weeds next year to compete with our growing native plants. And that reminds us, it’s time for all of you to begin pulling any Japanese stiltgrass on your property before it goes to seed!
Stay tuned for more developments. This fall, more trees and other plants are coming, and we’ll need all the help we can get to continue peeling back the invasives that still prevail in portions of the Vermont Avenue strip.
Our next Community Day at Vermont Avenue will be on August 10 at 10 a.m. Contact: steve.lagerfeld@gmail.com. We’ll work at Franklin Woods Park this Saturday, July 27, also at 10 a.m. Contact: modie1@gmx.com; we gather at the garden where Birch and Lorraine meet. And every Monday at 9 (summer hours) invasives are cleared at Chesterbrook Swim and Tennis Club. Contact: sweeneyfam@me.com. If there’s even a chance you might make it to one of these events, it’s very helpful if you can drop us an email at any of the above addresses.
A small sample of Franklin Park’s very own volunteers. Just a couple of hours makes a HUGE difference!
Thank you!!