Friends of the Cresheim Trail’s November volunteer workday is always a good one: our annual fall planting! This year’s arrives Saturday, November 16th. SIGN UP HERE.
Each May and November, Philadelphia Parks & Recreation and Fairmount Park Conservancy team up to present Love Your Park, a week of stewardship activities across the city. Through this program, we receive a small donation of native trees and shrubs, plus a promotional boost that puts lots of new eyes on our corner of the world. Our board member and longtime crew leader Dan Mercer sourced tons of additional plants as part of the 10 Million Trees for PA program, so we’ll have lots of good stuff to put in the ground.
Our focus area over the last several years has been that from the Germantown Avenue trailhead to the Chestnut Hill West railroad bridge — which you’ve probably noticed from the caging and tubes around young plantings, put there to defend against deer grazing and critter consumption. These plantings have included pawpaw, red maple, bur oak, red osier dogwood, pussy willow, and more.
FOCT likewise puts lots of energy into mitigating aggressive non-native plants like english ivy, porcelain berry, multiflora rose, and japanese knotweed. Plant natives, remove invasives — that’s our ecological restoration strategy boiled down to its essence. But it requires constant effort and upkeep, which is why we devote so many volunteer days to it, in addition to trail building and improvement, while simultaneously working to expand the trail.
Join us Saturday, November 16th — we’ll meet at 9am at the Cresheim Valley Pergola (on the corner of Germantown Avenue & Cresheim Valley Drive). Please register HERE.
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Our final volunteer workday of the year will happen Saturday, December 7th when we team up with Mt Airy Trash Team and the Philadelphia Streets Department for a cleanup of Cresheim Valley Drive. Stay tuned for details.