Once again, we request the honor of your company at our Spring Weeding Day! We will cut down invasive plants and weed the driveway entry gardens. Please wear suitable gardening clothes and bring work gloves and your favorite weeding tool (if you have one). If not, we have extra gloves and tools. No experience is necessary, and light refreshments, camaraderie and the glow of doing a good deed are free!
NOTES:
- In case of iffy weather, please check the website. Any cancellation will be announced on our events page, otherwise we’re on.
- If you don’t see anyone in the entry gardens when you arrive, we may be weeding elsewhere in the park, Call or text 267-265-1202 and we’ll let you know where we are.
Please join us at our annual Fall Planting Day. Over the years this event has brought much beauty and many ecological benefits to our beloved park. Friends of WMC Park volunteers will work alongside our volunteer Master Naturalist, Michelle Detwiler, and the Lower Merion Parks & Rec crew to weed out invasives and plant native trees and perennials. The capable township crew will do the heavy digging and planting work, while volunteers plant the perennials and do some weeding. Come and go as you please, and do bring gardening gloves and your favorite weeding tool if you have them. Extras will be on hand if you don’t. Long pants, long sleeves, and sturdy shoes are advised, and light refreshments will be available. We hope to see you there!
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.
