Volume 13 No.

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wrv.info@rhd.org
215.951.0330 ex. 2101
Spring 2009

The Volunteer
President’s Corner | 2009 Restoration Wrap Up | Philadelphia’s Parks Need You

President’s Corner
Rich Kurowski, President

Remember when we all felt some trepidation about Y2K at the turn of the new century? Now we’re closing in
on the end of the first decade of the 21st century with hope for environmental improvement.

We at WRV look back on a successful year of transition in our programs. We’ve seen an upgrading of our
staff, improvement of our website, ideological skirmishes involving the Wissahickon’s trail system, a foray
into a meadow, the beginnings of neighborhood stewardship, and WRV-sponsored Plant I. D. courses. Along
with a record-breaking Wissahickon Trail Classic, all these efforts together are having a positive effect in the
growth of our organization and our expanding reforestation program.

With our staff changes and website upgrade we are better able to inform and schedule volunteer groups.
Our staff (Field Director Amanda Hymansmith and Volunteer Coordinator Susannah Beckett) are focused
on building our membership base, and the user-friendly web site is more than accommodating in this effort.
We have some great interns on board who have been invaluable in making our office better organized and
more efficient. The staff also procured funding for a paid intern to help us use the Plant Stewardship Index for
improved plant selection in restoring our sites.

Our participation in the Sustainable Trails Initiative (see the story in our last newsletter) has been a little bit
of a bumpy ride initially, but all parties concerned are making strides to improve trails, not only for the bikers
but for all users of the trails. WRV is still on board to do our part to improve the trail system by helping with
invasive removal in conjunction with native plantings on the completed sections of the project.

WRV was somewhat over our head when presented

A pin oak seedling rescued from Emlen Meadow’s
‘mow-zone’. Photo by: Amanda Hymansmith
with the opportunity to restore the forested edge of
Emlen Meadow; this was our first meadow-restoration
project. However, working at Emlen has been a
blessing in disguise for us. We discovered hundreds of
native tree seedlings growing in the meadow, which we
have been able to rescue for plantings in reforestation
projects. Because of a fortunate delay in the mowing
schedule at the meadow, our volunteers rescued over
600 trees this year. Some of these were transplanted
directly into the park. Most were potted and stored in the
Fairmount Park nursery to grow for future use. Emlen
Meadow is a favorite work site for our volunteers.
We are recruiting neighbors of the Park to be part of our Neighborhood Stewardship Project, which has
the goal of linking groups of neighbors with specific WRV projects. If you are a Park user who lives along
Henry Ave. near Wise’s Mill Road, or near Roxborough Ave, we need your help. There are WRV projects
underway near your home, and we urge you to get involved in forest restoration.

Our steering committee members have started a series of courses on field ecology through the Mount Airy
Learning Tree, including courses on plant identification. We hope these courses will introduce volunteers to
the enjoyment of natural restoration.

I’d like to thank all those who volunteered with us this year for you extraordinary help and belief in restoration.
At the end of a work session it is satisfying to hear volunteers thank us for letting them work in the woods.
If the enjoyment of your walks in the Wissahickon is diminished by the invasion of exotic plants and other
disturbances, it is time to get involved!

See you in the woods.

Rich Kurowski

Volunteers rescue native seedlings from the Emlen Meadow site to be

replanted elsewhere in the Wissahickon. Photo by: Amanda Hymansmith

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2009 Restoration Wrap Up
Amanda Hymansmith, Field Director

In addition to the new initiatives undertaken by WRV staff and

volunteers in 2009, WRV continued the natural restoration work that
is at the core of the organization’s efforts.

In 2009, WRV worked in three sections of Pachella Field, our Bell’s

Mill Rd. Bamboo site (also called “Andorra Bamboo”), Kitchen’s
Lane, the Wise’s Mill Bamboo site, Wise’s Mill, the Monastery
Bowl, Cresheim Valley Rd. /Navajo St., East Livezey Lane, and
Daisy Field. Work at these sites included hundreds of hours of
invasive-exotic plant removal and native tree and shrub planting.

WRV also expanded its restoration efforts to an exciting new site

called Emlen Meadow. This site is not the typical forested project
area that WRV usually works in. Emlen Meadow is surrounded by
private residences on two sides, a street in the front, and woods in
the back. Due to the importance of meadows as ecological systems,
Fairmount Park seeded the meadow with native grasses and flowers,
and will continue to maintain the site by mowing once a year. WRV
has removed invasive-exotic plants from the perimeter of the site,
A volunteer prepares to plant in the
planted native shrubs, and as the first part of the Wissahickon Wissahickon. Photo by Amanda
Native Seed and Seedling Recovery Program, rescued over 500 Hymansmith
native seedlings from the mow zone, which will later be planted
in areas lacking understory and canopy coverage throughout the
Wissahickon.

A volunteer removes a dense mat of English ivy from the

Wissahickon. Photo by Amanda Hymansmith
 Invasive-exotic plants that have been removed from our sites
throughout the Wissahickon Valley Park include:

Acer platanoides, Norway maple Pachysandra terminalis, pachysandra

Ailanthus altissima, tree of heaven
Alliaria petiolata, garlic mustard
Ampelopsis brevipedunculata, porcelainberry
Aralia elata, devil’s walking stick
Celastrus orbiculatus, oriental bittersweet
Euonymus alatus, burning bush
Euonymous fortunei, wintercreeper
Hedera helix, English ivy
Ligustrum species, common privet
Lonicera japonica, Japanese honeysuckle
Lonicera spp., bush honeysuckles
Microstegium vimineum, Japanese stiltgrass
Persicaria perfoliata, mile-a-minute
Phragmites australis, common reed
Phyllostachys, bamboo
Polygonum Cuspidatum, Japanese knotweed
Pueraria lobata, kudzu
Ranunculus ficaria, lesser celandine
Rosa floribunda, floribunda rose
Rosa multiflora, multi-flora rose
Rubus phoenicolasius, wineberry
Vinca minor, vinca
Vitis spp., grapevine

The 782 individual plants WRV installed in the Wissahickon this year include:
Acer saccharinum, silver maple
Acer saccharum, sugar maple
Amelanchier canadensis, serviceberry
Amelanchier laevis, Allegheny serviceberry
Betula nigra, river birch
Betula lenta, black birch
Carpinus caroliniana, hornbeam
Celtis occidentalis, hackberry
Cercis canadensis, red bud
Clethra alnifolia, sweet pepperbush
Cornus racemosa, gray dogwood
Corylus americana, hazelnut
Diospyros virginiana, persimmon
Hamamelis virginiana, witch hazel
Ilex verticillata, winterberry
Juniperus virginiana, eastern red cedar
Lirodendron tulipifera, tulip poplar
Magnolia virginiana, sweetbay magnolia
Nyssa sylvatica, black gum
Photinia pyrifolia, red chokeberry
Photinia melanocarpa, black chokeberry
Physocarpus opulifolius, common ninebark
Pinus strobus, eastern white pine
Platanus occidentalis, American sycamore
Ptelea trifoliata, common hoptree
Quercus alba, white oak
Quercus bicolor, swamp white oak
Quercus palustrius, pin oak
Quercus rubra, red oak
Quercus velutina, black oak
Rhododendron maximum, rosebay rhododendron
Rhododendron periclymenoides, pinxterbloom azalea
Sambucus canadensis, elderberry
Tilia americana, basswood
Viburnum dentatum, arrowwood
Viburnum prunifolium, black haw
Viburnum trilobum, cranberry bush

Background on all of these plants can be found at plants.usda.gov a fine source of information funded
by your federal tax dollars.
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Philadelphia’s Parks Need You
Arlicia Short, Volunteer

This fall, I had the great pleasure of working with

the Wissahickon Restoration Volunteers (WRV).
Along with several students from Community
College of Philadelphia (CCP), I volunteered for
about three hours in the Wissahickon Park, near
the Walnut Lane Golf Course. We pulled vines
and removed exotic invasive plants in preparation
for the planting of trees and shrubs the following
week.
Conservation students from Community College
The work of WRV, through its volunteers, is to
of Philadelphia pause by the creek.
restore the Wissahickon Park by repairing eroded
trail beds, eradicating invasive plants , removing
trash, and planting thousands of native trees and shrubs. As a volunteer, you should be prepared to
enjoy the beauty of the park, get your hands dirty, and have fun doing great work.

On that October day, I helped remove invasive species, cleaned up the area, and prepared for future
plantings of native species. Examples of invasive species we removed include Japanese knotweed,
privet, Asiatic bittersweet, wild grape, and Devil’s Walking Stick. Examples of native tree and shrub
species that will be planted are sugar maple and witch-hazel. “Invasive species” simply means
plants, trees, and shrubs that are not supposed to be in Wissahickon Park. They can and will choke
the life out of the native plants. Native species are the plants and trees that belong in this area;this
area is their home. Invasive species would be like those guests who show up one day at your home,
and a month later they’re still there. They just won’t leave, until you abruptly throw them out. I had the
pleasure of throwing out the unwanted pesky guests.

If you visit WRV’s website, you’ll see that they are “dedicated to the restoration of the natural areas
of the Wissahickon Valley Park in Philadelphia” and that they rely on volunteers to help them in their
efforts to remove invasive vines and vegetation, plant trees and shrubs, repair trails, and remove
trash. Because of WRV’s work over the years, “trees and shrubs have been planted, countless
amounts of exotic invasive plant species have been removed, and [our] work has only begun.” The
restoration efforts of WRV rely heavily upon membership and volunteers.

If you are a college student like me, you may be thinking: “Why should I volunteer? What’s in for me?
I have enough to do while attending college”. Well, don’t look at volunteering with the WRV as an
add-on to an existing college curriculum. Instead see it as a positive, meaningful, and real experience
to add to your life’s journey. You will find it as a way of enhancing skills associated with teamwork,
community involvement, and citizenship.

I would highly recommend volunteering your time and talent to WRV or a similar organization. If you
are interested in volunteering with WRV, you can contact them at 215-951-0330, ext. 2175. Their
website is wissahickonrestorationvolunteers.org.

Arlicia Short, a CCP student, can be reached at ashort1@ccp.edu

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