Join us for a Fall walk through West Mill Creek Park with Pennsylvania Master Naturalist volunteer, Michelle Detwiler. Learn about the plants in our beautiful park starting at the new native gardens in the parking lot. Other stops on the tour will include the wildlife garden, the Welcome garden, a new rain garden, and the recent stream bank restoration areas. Join us for a celebration of the plant life that sustains this unique public space, and learn about new projects sponsored by the Friends of West Mill Creek Park.
We will meet at 2:00 pm in the parking lot. Please consider carpooling as the lot can fill up fast. All ages are welcome!
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!
We would especially like to thank Jamie Markizon and his company Strategic Marketing LLC for providing our website domain, hosting and tech support pro bono continuously since Friends of West Mill Creek Park was founded in 2013.
We also thank the Lower Merion Township Department of Parks & Recreation, especially Director Donna Heller, Parks Supervisor Dave DeAngelis, and Dave’s crew for their responsiveness to our requests and for their wise and expert advice on many park issues ever since our group was founded..
Most recently, we thank the Pennsylvania Master Naturalist Program and Master Naturalist Michelle Detwiler for the hours of pro bono expertise and hands-on planting help that have added so much beauty and ecological function to our Park in recent years.
Last Fall, we planted a beautiful new garden in the new beds bordering the parking lot. We can’t let the weeds win now! Please join us and help control the invaders in this garden and elsewhere in the Park.
Our work day will run from 9:00 am to 100 pm on Saturday, April 27. Come and go as you like–no need to stay for the full 4 hours. Please dress for gardening, and bring work gloves and your favorite weeding tool, if you have one. (We will have extras available if needed.) Light refreshments, happy camaraderie, and the satisfaction of making our park more beautiful and ecologically beneficial are all free!
The Friends of West Mill Creek Park was founded in October 2013 with the twin mission of safeguarding and improving West Mill Creek’s use as a dog park, and working to improve the park as habitat for the wildlife that shares the park with us. Over the past ten years we have worked to enhance the beauty and biodiversity of the park by planting many hundreds of trees, shrubs, and perennials, and worked to combat invasive plants. We have also acted as liaison with the Township for problems identified by our members, and have researched and posted dog-related educational materials on our website with the goal of promoting a safe, happy experience for park users. We thank all our members for their encouragement, support, constructive criticism and great suggestions over the years. We also extend heartfelt thanks to Lower Merion Township – especially Donna Heller, Director of the Parks and Recreation Department, and Dave DeAngelis, Supervisor of the Parks division. For many years, they supported us with unfailing responsiveness, help, a can-do attitude, and good cheer. They and the Parks crew members have always been a delight to work with.
Shout-Out to the Pennsylvania Master Naturalist Program
Many of you have noted the progress of the beautiful garden beds that were planted this year as part of our newly redesigned parking lot. The design for these beds, plus many hours of maintenance work, were provided to our Park gratis as part of Pennsylvania’s successful Master Naturalist program. This program provides advanced ecological training to Pennsylvania residents with the requirement that those trained will provide 20 hours of pro bono ecological services to not-for-profit entities like us. We are lucky to have Michelle Detwiler, a locally well-known native plant expert and landscape designer, as our Master Naturalist. She has worked with us for the past several years to continue our mission to improve our Park’s beauty and ecological effectiveness. We are so grateful. Thank you, Michelle!
Fall Planting Day–2023
We held our annual Fall planting day on Wednesday, October 25. This year our focus was additional planting for the new garden beds around the recently reconfigured parking lot.
New Parking Lot Garden in October 2023
With the help of the hardworking Lower Merion Parks Department crew (which did all the heavy planting work), 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. The crew also dug out a large stand of invasive mugwort in the main park area, and mulched with wood chips to help slow up any regrowth. In addition, they planted four trees (two black gum and two river birch) in the main park area.
Mugwort removal and planting in main park areaParks crew digging out invasive mugwort by handParks Crew planting trees, removing invasive plants
While the Township crew worked, Friends of West Mill Creek Park volunteers Michelle Detwiler, Karen O’Neil, Ellen Reese, and Ellen Briggs weeded the parking lot beds that were planted last Spring.
Thanks to all those members who have made financial donations – your dollars paid for all these plants! Special kudos to our members who made contributions in 2022 and 2023, years in which we omitted our usual annual appeal for donations: James & Jen Sperry, Nora Engel & Gustavo Klurfan, David Mark, Heather Farrel & Daniel DiCriscio, Harriet Ruffin, Elizabeth Keech, and Peter & Ellen Briggs.
Engineering and Planting Work to Be Done at the Park
In our last newsletter (Spring of 2023) we alerted you to upcoming work regrading and replanting the stream bank at the Park to comply with Pennsylvania environmental regulations intended to reduce water pollution from stormwater runoff. The work, originally scheduled for this Fall, has been rescheduled to take place sometime this Winter. Sections of the park will be blocked off as the work progresses, but the Park will remain open.
Off-Leash Permits for 2024
As the year’s end approaches, don’t forget to obtain an off-leash permit for 2024. It’s easy to apply on the Lower Merion Township website. Getting the permit contributes to park safety and also is a great way to show our Township Commissioners your support for the off-leash program. The permit will give you off-leash privileges at both Rolling Hill and West Mill Creek parks.
Special note: in 2022 and 2023, we omitted our traditional annual request for donations. Those who contributed to Friends of WMC Park in these two years took the initiative to contribute totally unprompted by us. Thanks so much! Your donations, along with donations accumulated from previous years, subsidized the hundreds of new native trees, shrubs and perennials installed in the main park and parking lot planting beds during our Fall 2022, Spring 2023, and Fall 2023 Planting Days
Join us for a Fall walk through West Mill Creek Park with Pennsylvania Master Naturalist volunteer, Michelle Detwiler. Learn about the plants in our beautiful park starting at the new native gardens in the parking lot. Other stops on the tour will include the wildlife garden, the Welcome garden, a new rain garden, and the recent stream bank restoration areas. Join us for a celebration of the plant life that sustains this unique public space, and learn about new projects sponsored by the Friends of West Mill Creek Park.
