Many thanks to the volunteers at our annual Fall 2023 Planting Day:  Ellen Briggs, Michelle Detwiler, Karen O’Neil and Ellen Reese.  With the help of the hardworking Lower Merion Parks Department crew (which helped us out with the heaviest part of the digging), we added 123 native perennials and shrubs to those beds this Fall.  These included the beautiful yellow-flowered shrub St. John’s Wort, asters, grasses, and golden groundsel.  As always, we also benefited from the efforts of a few members (especially Ellen Reese) who frequently do a bit of unofficial weeding when they visit the park with their dogs.

Many thanks to our 2022  annual Fall Planting Day volunteers Ellen Briggs, Michelle Detwiler, Karen Hinckley, Ellen Reese, Mark Wassmansdorf and Alan Wood.  These volunteers devoted 28 hours to planting around 350 beautiful native perennials in our new driveway entrance gardens.  The gardens were designed by one of our volunteers, Master Naturalist Michelle Detwiler of Wild About Native Plants.  As always, a few Friends of WMC Park members routinely do additional work weeding and maintaining our plantings throughout the park on an ad hoc basis during the gardening season.  They have not counted their hours but the benefits are there!

In 2021, another pandemic year, we held two work days.  Our thanks to Friends of West Mill Creek volunteers Judy Argon, Janet Bauman, Ellen Briggs, Michelle Detwiler, Karen Hinckley, Craig Oliner, Ellen Reese, and Mary Ann Sheldon for their stellar work weeding the Wildlife and Respite Garden and removing invasive plants in the main park area.

2020 was our first pandemic year–so due to Covid concerns, no volunteer events were advertised to our general membership.  But the Park did not go wholly without new plants!  On October 2, the Lower Merion Department of Parks & Recreation, together with Friends of West Mill Creek Park volunteers Ellen Briggs and our Master Naturalist Michelle Detwiler, worked on our annual Fall Planting day to plant 35 native trees, 19 shrubs, and 18 perennials.  Later that Fall, the Boys Scouts of Troop planted nearly 200 additional perennials.

In 2019 we held a total of 4 official work days – three dedicated to planting and maintenance, and 1 to cutting down our ever-persistent crop of invasive Japanese Knotweed.  Many, many thanks to our ten wonderful volunteers, Judy Argon, Yair Argon, Ellen Briggs, Chris Bushnell, Michelle Detwiler, Karen Hinckley, Craig Oliner, Leah Oliner, Linda Pitt, and Ellen Reese. who donated a total of 47 hours to our ongoing efforts to keep our park green and growing!  As always, we should also note that, in addition to our official work days, ad hoc volunteers donated many additional but uncounted hours to general upkeep and maintenance (mostly weeding and invasive removal).   An additional thank you to you unsung heroes!