Victory Creek Park in Seattle is right behind the Northgate QFC, and it's a small park with a stream connecting to Thornton Creek. You can see it on a map here. This is within my precinct, SEA 46-2324, and I've worked in the park before. A few years ago, I saw that someone had done some significant work in it, building a new trail and bridge. This was part of a senior project for Alika, who received the help of his father Eric.
A few weeks ago, I noticed that the ivy on the trees was growing, and I remembered a guide from Earthcorps saying that one good way to fight invasive ivy is to simply cut it off at the ground and at about eye level. Here are some pictures of the trees after Shea and I did that taken a few days later: (not in 2016, that camera is in a time-warp..)
Good show of how we cut the ivy around this big tree.
This is higher up in the trees than we could reach, and I could see the ivy starting to dry up.
Another picture of the trees with the ivy dying.
Not fantastic photos, but the first one gives a good indication of what we did. I also started working on the blackberry brambles under those trees, and I saw something. It was a grocery cart, and something else I couldn't identify. But it was too deep in there and it was getting late, so we stopped.
Today I decided to go back and see what I could do. I'd bought a new pair of clippers from Ace Hardware, and they worked really well. The cart was surrounded by metal pieces that turned out to be from a geodesic half-dome that had been in a neighbors yard about 20 years ago. There's still a lot of blackberries in there, but I feel good about it. One of the employees at QFC said that they would get a friend to come haul it away. Here are some pictures:
Grocery cart and play-dome pieces
Another view of the scrap
This is the hole I cut into the brambles to get the metal out
And this is me for a size comparison
I'm going to go back over the summer and continue working on the park. There are still a lot of blackberries and it's a good workout.
5 comments:
Thank you, Chad, for all your care of this natural area. The flora and fauna there thank you too!
Thanks, Ruth! Here's a link to that Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/Thornton.Creek.Alliance
Hi Chad and Folks,
First of all, thanks for doing that Chad. Alika and I were (or have been) creek stewards there at that site for 5 years. However, I noticed that the area of the wetland you worked in was the north part of the wetland (north of the north (unimproved) trail. That portion of the wetland is not actually Seattle Parks, but actually the Seattle Department of Transportation, and that is why we have never gotten permission to make improvements there. Also, when we had volunteers, we were discouraged from having them work there...Therefore that small area in the north end has been untouched, and any improvement is very much appreciated. I am mostly concerned about the improving the quality of the wetland and the water of Victory Creek, which is a significant tributary to the S. Fork of the Thornton Creek, and therefore to Lake Washington and even the Puget Sound. So thanks again for doing that.
Interesting. According to the King County Assessor, that parcel is under the control of Seattle Parks and Recreation, and it doesn't seem to be broken up in any way. Why is that small piece under the Transportation Department?
Eric, we're still working on it. You should come by to see what we've been able to do.
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