Learn more about, contact, and join BPFP and its partner groups
UC Professor of Entomology Gordon Frankie speaks on native bees and other pollinators and how to create habitat for them in your garden, at noon this Saturday, July 9, at Peralta Comunity Garden, 1400 Peralta Ave., Berkeley. Enjoy bee-related refreshments and this beautiful community garden, too! An added bonus for making your yard a haven for native bees: they don’t sting!
Free, all welcome. More information on native bees at http://nature.berkeley.edu/urbanbeegardens/.
On June 25, Friends of Five Creeks volunteers removed invasives and trash at the mouth of Schoolhouse Creek, Eastshore State Park, and then joined “Hands across the Sand” as part of an international demonstraton for clean energy. The beach, sparkling with glass weathered out of the pre-World War II garbage landfill, is a symbol of how nature can heal itself if we let it!
More information on Friends of Five Creeks at www.fivecreeks.org or f5creeks@aol.com.
On Saturday, May 28, fans of Green Day helped Friends of Five Creeks restore Codornices Creek, just two blocks from The Gilman all-ages night spot, where the East Bay punk-rock group got its first big break. They went on to sell 65 million records, win four grammies, and write a rock musical now on its way from Broadway to national tour. Fans declared May 28 Green Day Across the World, with environmental volunteering from Chile to Thailand and more.
Saturday, June 4, 10 AM – 12:30 PM, Friends of Five Creeks and Codornices Creek Watershed Council will again welcome volunteers, meeting at Codornices Creek and Eighth Street (1100 Eighth), two blocks north of Gilman, on the south edge of University Village. For National Trails Day, we’ll do light weeding to heavy pruning along the creekside trail. All welcome — tools, gloves, and snacks provided; work party will end with an interpretive walk along the creek. Information at 510 848 9358, f5creeks@aol.com, www.fivecreeks.org.
Congratulations to BPFP partner groups East Bay Green Parks Association and Los Amigos de Codornices for a very successful April 30 work party — more than 20 volunteers cleared a vast amount of ivy and broom in Codornices Park. While East Bay GPA has worked wonders in restoring the Codornices Creek canyon in the park recently, this was Los Amigos first volunteer activity in 15 years! The workers even “unveiled” some of the natives planted by Los Amigos a generation ago, when the group was a pioneer in nature restoration in Berkeley.
Join them 10 AM – noon Saturday, May 21, for another weed-pulling work party. Information at www.codornices.org.
Sudden Oak Death, a fungus-like mold that is ravaging coastal California’s beautiful live oaks, is infecting trees in the hills from El Sobrante to Oakland, and has been found on the UC Berkeley campus and North Berkeley hills.
The disease is carried on many host plants. Its advance is fitful but inexorable, spurred by high winds or late-spring rains. The pathogen affects large oaks; most infected trees die quickly (hence the name). Sometimes, massive infestations of beetles and fungi that follow the disease cause trees to snap off at the base even before the leaves turn brown.
Loss of our coastal oaks means much more than loss of beauty or property values. Hundreds of native animal and plant species depend on oaks. Watershed and water cycling would change. Danger of fire and damage from falling limbs and trees would increase.
There is no cure, but some things can be done to slow the spread and protect high-value or high-risk trees — for example in parks or near homes. Most of these must be done before an area, or a tree, is infected.
Working with UC Berkeley’s Dr. Matteo Garbelotto and other community organizations, BPFP is sponsoring a “blitz†survey of infected host plants – mainly California bay laurels. Sign up here to:
Samples will be laboratory tested. Results will be posted on an online database and Google Earth. A community meeting will discuss results and what can be done.
For more information about the survey, or if a group is interested if your group is interested in surveying a specific park or neighborhood, please contact Friends of Five Creeks, f5creeks@aol.com or 510 848 8358.
If you think you have an infected oak on your property, check out the Garbelotto lab’s free treatment-training sessions .
If the April 30-May 1 blitz doesn’t work for you, but you have an I- phone and want to help add to knowledge of this plague, check out this I-phone app from Maggi Kelly’s lab, also at UC Berkeley.
For general information on sudden oak death, go to the California Oak Mortality Task Force web site.