Winedale Pollinator Garden Maintenance (4th Friday)

Volunteer Opportunity: VMS Category: Winedale Landscape Project

Our POLLINATOR GARDEN at Winedale is coming on strong. Perennials are racing to bush out and herald Spring with their blooms. (Weeds are also enjoying the warmer weather and will need regular pulling to eradicate. A good dose of “Round up” on the paths will probably be the best way to control those weeds….a large container is in the Office with sprayer. As nutsedge begins to appear Ginny will treat with “Image”.

A mix of sunflowers and other flowers have germinated in the grass outside the far bed. We have decided to leave them there. And, if they spread all over the grassy area, it is welcomed by Winedale and us, so, DO NOT PULL, please.

We will add some mulch to the beds in May to maintain a close-to-constant soil temperature during the upcoming heat of the summer months. We will add Mexican Sunflower plants and anything else that is appropriate when they are ready at the Greenhouse.

The NATURE TRAIL across the road is getting underway now. We have begun clearing out greenvine, trash and understory trees from the copse of trees directly to the left to the left of the trail entry, across from the Gideon Lincecum Monument. It has opened up the trail to be seen from the field across the road leading to the McGregor House, and conversely, has opened up the vista from the Nature Trail to that beautiful meadow. The real “gift” is it has uncovered some magnificent old oak trees and made a fabulous area for picnic tables.It has been a major project, but with the help of Dave Redden‘s skid steer with an amazing “contraption” on front, the majority has been cleared out, and just some pruning up of exposed trees and spraying of remaining greenvine on the ground needs to be done.

The bed behind and on either side of the Monument needs to be created in readiness for native grasses and Pollinator plants to be installed next month before it gets too hot. Betsy will be the lead on that part of the project.

You will need, as always, good protective gloves, weed extractors, hand pruners for any dead or broken stems from winds in the Pollinator Garden beds. Brooms for sweeping  up debris left after weeding. Trash bags will be on site for trash removal. Loppers will be handy for trimming up branches on smaller trees by Nature Trail, and, if any of you wield a small chainsaw, and can help again, (Dave Mason, Jim Rivera, Charlie Winker, etc.) there are some branches on the big trees that would like to be removed at the point where they branch from the next largest branch, so as to leave no “stubs”. There will be black spray paint at the Office to seal the cuts.

Bring water and a hat to protect from the sun!