Edgehill Mt Description
Edgehill Mt is a small, hidden gem in our park system. Local neighborhood activists began advocacy efforts in the early 1990s which ultimately led to acquisition of the property with Open Space Fund money. For the past eight years this project has been officially part of the Natural Areas Program.
The park contains mature Monterey pine and cypress trees along with plenty of invasive blue gum eucalyptus. The primary challenges here include English ivy, cape ivy, blackberry, and ehrharta grass. Remarkably, as we remove the carpets of invasives, we’ve found a strong resurgence of native scrub species from retained seed banks in the soil. We also have planted many native grasses and forbs. Indeed, the grasses have been particularly successful — so much so that Edgehill Mt was the location of the first-ever Poapalooza beginning native bunchgrass workshops held in San Francisco.
Here is the management plan.
In 2003 we placed a couple of wooden benches at the favorite view spot in remembrance of Joan Kingery, one of the key early forces behind the creation of Edgehill Mt Park.
Edgehill Mt currently has 132 volunteers who have subscribed to our regular email newsletters and work at this site. They have posted 31 photos and 12 posts to their blog.
Regular Workparty Schedule
- 2nd Saturday of each month from 13:00 to 15:00
Regular Meeting Location
- The Joan Benches -- [Map and Details]
Blog Posts
Here are blog posts about the Edgehill Mt project — presented 2 at a time in reverse chronological order. Browse to earlier or later posts via the pagination controls below.
July 2008
Sun, 13 Jul 2008, 10:19am, Tinman said:
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Ehrharta erecta is probably the most pernicious invasive we deal with at Edgehill. It is a perennial bunch grass that flowers and produces seed all year ‘round, unlike our native bunch grasses that only seed once per year. Ehrharta likes it wet, so in exposed areas (such as the eastern flank of Mt D), you don’t find it. However, the fog drip on Edgehill is sufficient that ehrharta is aggressive and exuberant.
The drought this year has really handicapped the ehrharta compared to the natives. In fact, our band of volunteers and staff have managed to keep the ehrharta quite well controlled in our principal work areas. This month’s workparty in fact pretty much eradicated all the ehrharta that was up, and things now look quite good:
Of course, the seed bank is lurking there and waiting for more wet in order to sprout away. Ehrharta will never be eradicated, just controlled. So we will always have motivation to return and pull again on another day.
This photo does reveal another of our major management headaches, though: the leaf litter from the blue gum eucalyptus. These trees shed high volumes of slowly-degrading leaves that cover up everything on the ground. Small seedlings of other plants are simply smothered by this leaf litter. This is one of the reasons why eucalyptus trees are rightly described as the biggest weeds in California. These particular trees were planted by Adolph Sutro over 100 years ago and are nearing the end of their expected lifetimes. Once they finally die and fall, well, good riddance.
This photo also shows (in the background) another problem found everywhere in San Francisco’s tree plantations that most people mistake for “forests”. Note the thick cylinders of ivy that encase the trunks of the trees. The ivy grows this way because of the fog drip from the trees. Eventually the ivy smothers the tree and its weight helps pull the tree over in the high winds we routinely get here. However, this is really a just end to the problem, as without these planted trees, the conditions that create these weedy monocultures wouldn’t exist. So in fact, this is merely an appropriate natural negative feedback loop that limits the damage inflicted by misguided human actions like Adolph Sutro’s those many years ago.
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June 2008: The Mad Sprayer Strikes Again
Mon, 23 Jun 2008, 6:01pm, Tinman said:
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The ehrharta grass has been remarkably under control this season, perhaps due in part to the aridity of the past few months. The native bunch grasses are doing very well indeed, though, despite the drought.
What was most striking this month was the extensive obliteration of all plant life on the upper slope above the fence:
We first observed this last year, and we’d hoped that this wouldn’t reoccur…but it has. Clearly someone is spraying herbicide over this area, and expending a large amount of time, effort, and money in doing so.
The various potential suspects living at the top of the hill have all denied any involvement, though not everyone has been contacted. It’s hard to see who else might have any reason at all to bother with the area, particularly given how steep and crumbly the slope is. It is quite a challenge just to walk up there, much less lug around heavy spray equipment.
So what’s the harm of spraying there since the upper slope is mostly weeds? Well, there were some native plants (mostly melic grass, but also some wildflowers) that are now dead. And the slope is such a great erosion hazard that denuding it is very bad thing.
The good news is that the Mad Sprayer has consistently stayed above the fence and out of the long-standing park areas where we’ve been working lo these many years. The bad news is that we have no real likelihood of detecting, much less stopping, him. Damn.
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