Profiles: Love Gardening
The profile of Bob Huttar and Jutta Burger posted here on June 17 (“Weed Warriors“) inspired Nancy Nash and Lee Tempkin to join the effort to clear the invasive weeds that are choking some of the native plants established by Design Associates Working With Nature (DAWN) in the 1980s. Chavez Park Conservancy Volunteer Coordinator Bob Huttar joined them in the work. Lee writes:
Nancy and I are both retired K-8 school teachers who love gardening and have transformed our backyard in central Berkeley into a peaceful sanctum with fruit trees, perennials, seasonal vegetable gardens and more. We have sheltered in place with our daughter and her family including our two grandsons who love harvesting our garden’s bounty and look for ripe berries upon their arrival to our house from their Oakland home. Their regular presence has kept our lives full and joyful despite the pandemic. Besides our Zoom yoga and dance classes, we visit Cesar Chavez Park several times a week for our exercise and have become joyful birders this past winter and spring. We love seeing the videos and photos on your blog as well as making our own sightings as the birds migrate through Berkeley and visit the park. We especially enjoyed watching, through our own binoculars, the kite babies grow up this spring. When we heard of the need to help remove invasive plants from Cesar Chavez Park, it was a natural fit for us to volunteer. We look forward to more people stepping up to help. Together we can make a big difference!
I happened to wander by with my camera as they were working. They had done a really nice job on several upright Ceanothus bushes; you could now see the curvy trunks, previously invisible, and they were working on a Big Saltbush (Atriplex lentiformis). They made this little corner look like a park instead of like a weed patch. Want to join? Contact Bob Huttar, Volunteer Coordinator. Plenty more weeds to clear. It would be good, as Lee suggested, if the City could hire some high school students for this work; many of them badly need summer jobs now.
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