Cal Habitat Club members after a rainy day of climbing the muddy, steep slopes in Fern Glade. (Photo by Ruby J. Soto Cardona)
We’re having a very good year so far in Garber Park—even with a few canceled rainy Saturdays. In addition to our regular volunteer days, we’ve held additional stewardship events, including celebrating Martin Luther King, Jr., Day of Service in January and other events in partnership with the CAL Habitat Club from UC Berkeley.
The Habitat Club has also adopted Fern Glade as a long-term Adopt-a-Spot project within Garber Park. We are excited for this new program to help increase the number of volunteers out in the park. The Club is doing great work while learning about oak woodland habitat restoration and its diverse inhabitants.
With the extra help from these workers, plus our amazing regular volunteers, we have been able to mend trails, mulch a few trouble spots, cage oak saplings, and pull invasive weeds.
Last year we benefited from over 700 volunteer hours, resulting in over 150 bags of debris removed from the park and two large green waste dumpsters filled to the top. This year, we have already reached over 350 volunteer hours for the year 2024 and have at least a few more big events lined up over the next few months.
With all of this great effort from our volunteers we are seeing an expansion of existing native plant populations such as miner’s lettuce, horsetails, ferns, trilliums, and baby oaks. Our trails are more comfortable and Garber Park is becoming a more fire-safe park.
We hope you are all enjoying the trails and all the plants in bloom. Garber Park is full of small surprises everywhere you look, so please keep an eye out for our cute newts and banana slugs. You never know when one might be crossing your path!
