You’ve heard us talk about the Quarry Rock Garden for a while, and we’ve been chipping away at its progress, even through another growing season. Now, we’re ready for The Next Thing. Join us here on Sunday, November 15th for a blowout Love Your Park volunteer workday, with an assist from our friends at Athletic Brewing. Please help us plan for the morning and register HERE.
The Quarry Rock Garden is the Cresheim Trail-adjacent project that is the centerpiece of the Friends Loop trail. With a Two for the Trails grant from Athletic, we’ve begun the restoration of the space that a century ago was — wait for it — a Wissahickon schist *quarry* and later a *rock garden* with landscaping services donated by the George Woodward Company.
For the last several decades, it’s been hidden by vegetation and buried under sedimentation, but starting with the Friends Loop in 2023, we’ve been slowly re-exposing it. This workday will move the needle and have something for everyone: a potentially amazing set of stone terraces to be scraped and cleaned; big rocks and big logs to be moved; a new walking path to be cut through the quarry; dead invasive plants to be removed; new native trees and shrubs to be planted; and of course plenty of attention on the stone staircase.
It’s all part of the Love Your Park fall festivities supported by Philadelphia Parks & Recreation and Fairmount Park Conservancy, and we’ll be joined by David Bower and the Friends of the Wissahickon Q-Team. Join us Sunday, November 15th, 9am at Mermaid Park in Chestnut Hill — where Chestnut Hill Community Association has a restoration project of their own. 🦋
#Ad Athletic Brewing Company LLC. Milford, CT and San Diego, CA. Near Beer. <0.5% alc/vol.