Category Archives: Focus Service Projects

Demonstration Native Plant Garden for Shady Backyards

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By Kathy Landis and Joanne Hutton

On Sunday May 6, 2012, Potomac Overlook Regional Park (PORP) held a dedication ceremony that marked the official opening of the new demonstration native plant garden for shady backyards.

The garden is adjacent to the Master Gardeners’ demonstration vegetable garden, across the driveway from the Native American garden. Next time you are at the park for a hike or to work on a volunteer project, please stop by to visit the garden.

Demonstration garden at Potomac Overlook Regional Park. Golden Ragwort blooming in mid-April.  Photo by K. Landis.

The Garden

The garden space inherited by the design team comprised both native plants such as American holly, dogwoods, spicebush, snowberry and sweetshrub and exotic plants such as thorny pyracantha, heavenly bamboo, boxwood, azaleas, and varieties of weeds. A lot of thought went into which plants to preserve and the decisions help make the point that it is possible to incorporate native plants into all gardens.

Azaleas, for example, were retained because they define the space well and are likely to be found in many of our shady backyards. A few other herbaceous exotics such as hellebores, lungworts, toadlilies also remain in the garden because they seem to be deer resistant and add interest to the design. Continue reading →

Barcroft Park Habitat Restoration May Work Party

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By Marion Jordan

Join us for the next Barcroft Park Habitat Restoration Work Party on Saturday May 19th at 9:30 am. This event is sponsored by the Arlington Regional Master Naturalists. The work party will be followed by a walk led by Jim Hurley to view the natives that have come up in areas that we cleared over the past year. We will also look for the champion trees that are in the park. This is a great opportunity for those who have worked with us in the past year to see the results of your hard work.

We will not hold work parties over the summer and the next one will be on Sept 15th.  So please join us on Saturday May 19th as we finish this season in Barcroft Park.

We will meet at the picnic pavilion in Barcroft Park. If you park in the Barcroft recreational area parking lot, walk past the soccer fields, bear right and then cross the stream on the wood and steel bridge. Wear long pants and long sleeves. Bring gloves and any favorite weeding tools, especially pruning tools and shovels if you have them. We will also supply gloves and tools.

This project needs you! Every pair of hands makes a difference for this valuable ecological site. Enjoy the satisfaction of clearing invasive plants to encourage growth of native plants which provide habitat for birds and other wildlife.

If you have questions, please contact Marion Jordan at mcjordn@verizon.net.

Native Plants Demonstration Garden Dedication

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By Joanne Hutton

Variety of ground covers, ferns at the Demonstration Garden, Potomac Overlook Park.
Photo by K. Landis.

We look forward to seeing as many of you who can come to the dedication of our new demonstration garden showing off native plants suitable for backyards on Sunday, May 6th, at the annual May Day Fair at Potomac Overlook Regional Park.  The dedication will take place tentatively at 2:30 p.m. with Mary Hynes, Chair of the Arlington County Board, in attendance and doing honors.  We hope to have a tree planting as part of the ceremony and celebration of our new ARMN focus project.

To prepare the area for this high-profile event, please come out on Friday morning, May 4th, 9:30 – noon or as long as you can, for a work party and training about the plants we’ve included in the design.  We have invasives to remove, mulching, and raking to do.  When we’re done, I will show off the box of informational materials on invasive and native plants developed for Meet Me on a Sunday, and we’ll talk about how to interpret the garden or host a short tour even if you don’t consider yourself an “expert.”  This will be especially appropriate for any of you folks in training as Audubon at Home Ambassadors. Continue reading →

Barcroft Park Earth Day Work Party

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By Marion Jordan

Celebrate Earth Day by joining us for the next Barcroft Park Habitat Restoration Work Party on Saturday April 21 at 9:30 am. This event is sponsored by the Arlington Regional Master Naturalists. The work party will be followed by a natural history program on Freshwater Stream Ecology presented by Arlington Regional Master Naturalist Michelle Ryan.

We will meet at the picnic pavilion in Barcroft Park. If you park in the Barcroft recreational area parking lot, walk past the soccer fields, bear right and then cross the stream on the wood and steel bridge. Wear long pants and long sleeves. Bring gloves and any favorite weeding tools, especially pruning tools and shovels if you have them. We will also supply gloves and tools.

This project needs you! Every pair of hands makes a difference for this valuable ecological site. Enjoy the satisfaction of clearing invasive plants to encourage growth of native plants which provide habitat for birds and other wildlife.

If you have questions, please contact Marion Jordan at mcjordn@verizon.net.

Meet Me On A Sunday At Potomac Overlook Park

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By John Bernard

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Arlington Regional Master Naturalists (ARMN) partners with regional parks for great volunteer outreach opportunities.  One such weekly outreach is Meet Me on a Sunday at the Potomac Overlook Park in North Arlington run by the Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority.  Among numerous activities on this beautiful Easter Sunday, I joined fellow Master Naturalist Nancy Bagwell at the park from 1:30 – 3:30 to talk to visitors about a couple of subjects dear to our hearts.

First, Nancy shared her knowledge of hawks, owls, and other raptors and birds with guests using some great exhibits.  She generated a lot of interest from park visitors.  Second, not as jazzy, but just as important, I spoke to passing visitors regarding invasive plant species.  Continue reading →

ARMN First Anniversary of Barcroft Park Invasive Pull

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By Jim Hurley

Dedicated volunteers help monthly with Barcroft Park Invasive Pull, an important ARMN Focus Project. Photo by R. Ayres.

The March invasive pull was the first anniversary of the Arlington Regional Master Naturalist monthly focus work on Barcroft Park.  Having bought coffee and doughnuts (hint, hint), I arrived to the area of Barcoft Park we were going to work on an hour before start time to tag Multiflora Rose stems for clipping and digging.

But what was this?  Blue dye on the Rose?  And then in the same area, blue dye on Japanese Honeysuckle?

Up to twenty people were about to show up to work on the area.  And after that, another twenty members of the current Master Naturalist training class were scheduled to arrive for two more hours of work.  What were we to do? Continue reading →

ARMN Volunteers Contribute to Earth Sangha Seed Cleaning

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By Julie Speers

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On February 13, 2012, ARMN and Earth Sangha co-hosted a seed-cleaning activity at Long Branch Nature Center in Arlington.  Puffs of fluff and seed flew through the air as a group of ARMN volunteers threshed dried native-plants stems to release their seeds.  Lisa Bright, Director of Earth Sangha Wild Plant Nursery in Springfield, was endlessly patient Continue reading →

February Invasive Pull at Barcroft Park

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By Jim Hurley

Barcroft workgroup posed with ARMN banner

ARMN Volunteers at Barcroft Park. Photo by J. Hurley.

We had another strong turnout on February 18 in Barcroft Park, as 15 volunteers, including Tree Stewards, Americorps, Master Naturalists and Wingate residents answered the call of native plants needing to be rescued from exotic invaders.  As has become customary, we began and ended the work with coffee and donuts, and in between continued to work on the stretch of the park between the bikepath and drainage ditch, near the picnic shelter.  Again, we did more good damage to Multiflora Rose, cutting the canes back to a foot to get access to the root systems, Continue reading →

Native Plant Sales

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Spring is almost here which means it is the perfect time to enrich your garden and support the environment by planting some native plants in your garden!  There are many native plant sales in the region to check out:

Long Branch Nature Center Native Plant Sale
Saturday, April 21, 1-3pm (rain date Sunday, 4/22)
625 S. Carlin Springs Rd, Arlington, VA  22204

Earth Sangha Native Ecotype Plant Sale
Sunday, May 6, 10am-2pm
Earth Sangha Wild Plant Nursery, Franconia Park, Springfield, VA

Green Spring Gardens Plant Sale
Saturday, May 12
4603 Green Spring Rd, Alexandria, VA

ParkFairfax Native Plant Sale
Saturday, April 28, 9am-2pm
3601 Valley Dr., Alexandria, VA

1/12/12 Barcroft Sunny Workday Report

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By Jim Hurley

Last Thursday, January 12, Master Naturalist (and current ARMN Treasurer) Josh Schnell enticed some 15 of his USDA OLC (Office of Legal Counsel) colleagues to Barcroft Park for a couple of hours cutting and digging Multiflora Rose, English Ivy and Japanese Honeysuckle.  Five Americorps volunteers supported the effort, as well as four other MNs Workers in park(thanks Jim Clark!), and tools were supplied by Sarah Archer.  The day was sunny and a balmy 58 degrees, and with the ground wet from the previous day’s rain, the invasives were very vulnerable.  We took full advantage of the conditions, and massive R. multiflora clumps and root systems yielded to shovels and pickaxes.  We continued to clear the area between the bikepath and drainage ditch, exposing the Lesser Celandine that is the dominant invasive there.  There were large numbers of Ranunculus ficaria bulblets and tubers just below the ground surface, which, no longer protected by their cover of Rose and Ivy, are vulnerable to spraying in spring.  For more on Lesser Celandine, including a shoutout to our own Steve Young, see:  http://www.nps.gov/plants/alien/fact/rafi1.htm. Continue reading →