Fall 2023

I was unable to add this post to my previous blog (www.bellavistapark.blogspot.com) so this will be my attempt to add more information about the park. I hope to do a scientific survey like the one I did twelve years ago to update the condition of the park. My involvement with the park has waxed and waned over the years. I made sporadic attempts to control weeds in the park from about 2012 to 2020 but never with any consistency. In 2020 I retired from teaching, which coincided with the COVID epidemic. Since the park was not being used very much, and I had ample time, I began working in earnest to repair some of the damage that time had done to the (mostly neglected by the city) park. Most of the people who had formed the Friends of Bella Vista Park had moved away from the neighborhood. I had (and still have) the original landscape plans from Keller, Mitchell, the landscape architects who designed the park (with help from our committee). I knew that FOBVP had a written 'memorandum of understanding' with the City of Oakland allowing the group to maintain the park. It was under this imprimatur that I set out to make improvements. The first thing I did was to try to eliminate the bermuda grass that infested much of the grounds. This weed had choked out and killed the ground covers on the north and east sides and was gradually taking over the 11th Avenue strip outside the fence. I was able to kill off most of this weed but some persisted. It would actually take me three years to eventually eviscerate this menace. At the same time that I was focused on the bermuda grass I also repaired many broken sprinkler heads, mowed the lawn, and did several other projects trying to preserve the plant material that had survived in the years since the original park installation. Next I began clearing out the perennial garden adjoining the community garden. Weed grasses had spread from the lawn into this garden area. Many of the original plants had died including manzanitas, penstemons, and lavender. The only things that remained from the foundational planting was three butterfly bushes (Buddleia) and one sage. Once I cleared the weed grasses I had a largely fallow area. At some point I bumped into another FOBVP pioneer, Dawn Hawkins, who joined in on my crusade. She contacted other former volunteers and found some new folks. Then she secured $500 of funding that provided money for new plants. By the spring of 2021 we had the labor and materials to fill in plant material in the perennial garden. While we were organizing the perennial project I spent many hours digging up Algerian ivy (Hedera canariensis) in the 10th Avenue strip. The city helped by hauling away the ivy cuttings I had accumulated. With the ivy partially cleared (mostly on the extreme west side of this strip) we were able to plant some new plants here at the same time we were filling in the perennial garden. Unfortunately this part of the project was doomed. With the ivy removed the ground was cleared for some grassy weeds to grow in the 10th Avenue strip. One day the city gardeners noticed these new weeds. They mowed down these weeds with a weed eater. The new plantings we had done in this area were, of course, mowed down with the weeds. In the summer of 2021 I traveled East for two months. While I was gone many of the plants that we had put in the perennial garden died. There was a drought at the time and I think the city turned off the irrigation system. Weed grasses once again migrated from the lawn into the perernnial area. This also helped kill some of our spring 2021 plantings. I grew discouraged by the many setbacks we had sustained.I lost interest in the park for nearly a year. It wasn't until August of 2023 that I resumed working avidly on the park.