Maintenance Plan

Here's the city's maintenance map for the Reach, divided into the upper portion and lower portion. The red and black striped area denotes mowing of a 4 foot perimeter. The orange stripes are paths mown 3-4 feet wide. Click on the images below to enlarge.

Cleaning Up the Butterfly Garden

Neighbors gathered yesterday to weed and spruce up the butterfly garden. All sorts of plants are blooming in the garden this month: zexminia, lantana, prickly pear, antelope horns, rock rose and nightshade.

The monarch caterpillars - probably over 20 of them! - have completely devoured the two antelope horn milkweed plants.

Here's a chrysalis hanging on the cactus.

It's important to have pupating places and sunning places for butterflies in a butterfly garden. This is exactly why we put the cactus there!

An American lady sunning on the shrubby boneset.

invasives: AYW Removes Ligustrum and Chinaberry

Austin Youth Works was out yesterday at the Reach helping to further an invasive plant removal project that we began in December at our workday. They cut down a number of ligustrum trees and seedlines, some chinaberry and others, including pyracantha (I think).

We will always be dealing with these non-native invasive species, but removing them now provides a good opportunity to replace them with similar natives. Cherry laurel, for example, is a good native alternative to ligustrum, since it provides winter berries for birds and its evergreen nature is good habitat.

So, you'll see some piles of plants that were cut down until they are removed by the City, and perhaps that the Reach looks a bit different without those evergreens dotting the banks...for now, that is...

Workday Photos

We had a fantastic turnout for the workday on Saturday, and accomplished many of the goals, from mulching trees and trails to removal of invasive species. Special thanks to all of those who came to lend a hand, including the I-CERV youth group and Keep Austin Beautiful (for lending us tools).

Neighbor Dolly snapped some great photos of the event:

The Reach in 1997

At last week's meeting with the city, we were shown photos of what the Reach looked like in 1997. Oh wow, it looked awful - almost like a scar.

Now, it's a lush wildlife wonderland, and that's thanks in every part to the hard work and dedication of vocal neighbors who have advocated for the Reach over the last decade or so. THANK you to all!

What's happened is that the banks are now filled with willows, sycamores, cottonwoods, mulberries and tons of other plants (native and non), because neighbors advocated for the city to stop mowing and chopping them down. Those branches and roots are now providing habitat for wildlife and holding the banks together to prevent further erosion.

Mowed Again: Before and After

Before and after photos of the Reach, which was just mowed down again by the Watershed Department. One of these years, we're going to figure this maintenance thing out and have healthy wildflower meadows...

Fenced In

As the Austin Water Utility begins its job replacing water lines on Sycamore and Cherrywood this week, they were kind enough to fence off the butterfly garden. Hopefully that will protect it from any roving trucks and workers.

The butterflies won't mind at all - you can't fence them in! Unfortunately, it will make viewing and watering plants challenging. Too bad, because this Spring the butterfly garden is finally blooming away!

More details on the AWU project:

Butterfly Plants Planted

We had beautiful weather this past Saturday for our first garden planting at the reach! Thanks to all who came out and lent a hand--it was a big weekend for Cherrywood. Mike Damal and volunteers were planting trees, garden geeks were trading plants at the Cherrywood Plant Swap, we planted the butterfly garden, and Burners Without Borders fixed up the Cherrywood Green. Sweet!

Lepidoptera Lounge Takes Shape

We had a wonderful workday this past weekend, with many neighbors and friends coming out to help (including volunteers from Westlake and Steiner Ranch!). Everything went very smoothly. We now have a trail (which is also a mowing buffer) and a well-mulched bed just begging for butterfly flowers. Plans are still to plant on October 13, so come out and join the fun. In the meantime, here are a few photos from the day...

Thanks to everyone for all of their hard work!!

Workday this Saturday 9/29!!

It's time to prepare the neighborhood's new butterfly garden!

When: Sept. 29, Saturday, 8am – 4pm
What we'll do: till the soil, lay edging, fill the beds with compost and mulch, and fill the trail with crushed granite.
What to bring: work gloves, hat, sunscreen, water, bug spray (extra wheelbarrows, shovels, and rakes may also come in handy)
Where: Corner of Cherrywood and Sycamore Roads (about one block north of 38.5)

This garden is made possible by CHULA (http://www.chulaleague.org/) and Keep Austin Beautiful.

Native Butterfly Garden Plan

The plan ya'll!:

Click here to view a larger version.

So, here's my plan! I've filled our garden space up with native plants for attracting butterflies for both nectar and places to lay eggs for caterpillars. There are a few spaces for adding plants in the future and the lay-out is actually pretty flexible. We'll likely make some decisions the day of planting and beyond. Anyway, this will help us lay out the beds appropriately.

Comments welcome!

Butterfly Garden Schedule

The process has begun for installation of the new Native Butterfly Garden at the corner of Sycamore and Cherrywood! This weekend, I pulled more Johnson grass (it grows back darn fast) and lay down a piddly amount of black plastic to try and fry some of the grass and weeds. (This is more of a gesture than anything.)

Fall approacheth and that means it's time to plant plants!

There will be 2 workdays coming up, and I really hope that neighbors will come out and help. Here's the potential schedule for the butterfly garden prep and installation:

9/29 (all day); Saturday

• Rototill/scrape planting area (I'll try to get a Rototiller on loan from KAB)
• Install steel edging for beds and paths (I'll buy this the day before)
  
• Have soil, decomposed granite and mulch delivered (ordered the week before)
  
• Install the above trio
  

10/13 (half day); Saturday

• purchase plants at Wildflower Center fall plant sale (on Friday)
  
• install and water new plants!
• wait for the plants to grow and the butterflies to come forth....

I'm working up a planting plan, which I'll share ASAP. Until then, here are a few of the native perennials and etc. that I'm considering so far:

• lantana
• zexmenia
• blazing star/gayfeather (Liatris)
• butterfly weed (various species)
• purple coneflower
• mistflower
• blackfoot daisy
• indian blanket
• standing cypress
• verbena
• monarda (bee balm, lemon balm)
• rock rose
• purple prairie clover
• woolly ironweed
• mexican plum (tree, but host for Cercropia moths and the monarchs LOVE the flowers in spring)

Mowing Today

The mowers are right on schedule today...saw them starting the job this morning.

Johnson grass - tamed?

Thanks to all who came out and pulled, pulled and pulled the Johnson grass this past Saturday! We made great headway on the JG growing at the corner of Sycamore and Cherrywood, beginning to open up a space for the newly planned butterfly garden (to be installed this fall).

We didn't get it all, of course; that task is herculean in scope. But, the wet soil made it eas(ier) to pull it out and may help keep it at bay for longer. Just weakening a strong force, you know? This week's planned mowing by the city should help even more.

Here are some photos of the job:

Before:



During (Dave and Girard get some help from Boscoe):



After:

Next Mowing Day - Aug 2

The next mowing day is scheduled for August 2nd, if you are wondering when that Johnson grass jungle will meet its maker. The Easter Seals and Watershed schedule has been mightily thrown off by all of our rain...

Like a Bad Crew Cut

Yesterday, 06.05, was mowing day. The johnson grass and poison ivy will recede into the background (for a few weeks anyway).

Watershed and the Easter Seals, bless their hearts, tried to keep some patches of wildflowers un-mown. The effect is something akin to a kid who's given himself a buzz cut and missed a few sad patches of hair. At least one of the wildflower zones has some good diversity. It's large-ish and hiding amongst the indian blanket and mexican hat are some flowering antelope horns (a native milkweed). Some of the others leave a little to be desired. BUT, it's a good start and they tried.

Of course, they also completely destroyed the small oak tree that was planted by Mark and his daughter across from Joe's house, which was very visibly staked with a bright orange stake and waving fluorescent yellow ribbons at the top. How could anyone miss that? Also, the Seals mowed right up to most of the banks, leaving no tall grasses (even if they are invasive) to catch the nasty run-off. It's bad for the creeks to have a bunch of grass floating in them too--too much organic matter.

And, there are some people who are angry that they left any "weeds' (aka wildflowers) at all. It wouldn't surprise me if Watershed got some phone calls from both sides...

But, anyway, it's nice to walk around the reach now without having my pants soaked up to my knees (that would be the waist for some), and it's good that the johnson grass is largely removed. But beware, the ragweed is standing tall, ready and waiting to anoint us with its nasty pollen!

KAB: Creek Clean-up '07

Keep Austin Beautiful Clean Sweep comes to Willowbrook Reach Saturday at the Reach, 9-11 am. Go Dave!

Mowing Day

Today is a mowing day.

I saw the crew getting started as a peddled away to work. Goodbye sweet wildflowers. Many of them, including the bluebonnets, haven’t yet had an opportunity to set seed. (Mowing dates, times and places is something we seriously need to work out with the city.)

Without any flowers to gather nectar from, we can probably wave good-bye to the hawkmoths as well…