If you’ve been looking for some way to do your bit, here in our back yard, consider lending a hand to eradicate invasive Sea Lavender (botanical name Limonium ramosissimum) from our shoreline. For the last few weeks, and continuing most Sundays, from 10 to 1 p.m. through the month of May, volunteers are needed to pull weeds in Marin County locations from Bothin Marsh to Marinship Park. The focus April 29 will be to clear the area alongside the Sausalito Mill Valley Bike Path (from Mike’s Bikes out to Gate 6 1/2).
Where: from Mike’s Bikes out to Gate 6 1/2
What date: Sun April 29,10 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Who: volunteers from all over the Bay Area
Contact: email Jude Stalker
There’s a concerted shift countywide to eliminate herbicides and pesticides from our arsenal, but what that often leaves us with is the need for bodies to get out there and weed. Not so much fun in and of itself but somewhat social and potentially meditative. Thanks to two controlled burns (targeting Sea Lavender) along the Bike Path earlier this year, the hand weeding of that area will be that much less onerous. We have a chance to get out ahead of this pushy little plant, before it completely takes over, but we need volunteers.
Big Picture: sea lavender is invading the Bay Area, pushing out other plant species and, in turn, native bird habitats.
Local Action: volunteer to weed for a few hours—”weed little and often”.
Relevant posts:
Learn Weed Management Skills – June 17
Invasive Sea Lavender Threatens Our Shores
Letter from Jude Stalker, organizer of these weeding parties:
Hello Friends of the Shoreline,
It is that time of year again when the pesky invasive sea lavender is popping up and needing to be removed before it displaces the native plants and sets its thousands of seeds.
Marin Audubon volunteers have been removing this plant from various sites along the Richardson Bay shoreline and Corte Madera Ecological Reserve for several years and have made great progress in keeping it contained but still need to keep after it.
The Marin County Open Space District and Cal-Trans have been removing it where it is found on their properties and this year, the California Invasive Plant Council (Cal-IPC) has secured funding to have it removed from a few of the sites in Marin that have large infestations. Marin Audubon will be continuing to remove it from other various locations along the shoreline.
Our goal again this year is to completely remove all known invasive sea lavender plants from Marin County and WE NEED YOUR HELP to reach that goal.
Starting Sunday April 8 (10:00 am-1:00), we will hold a volunteer invasive sea lavender removal day most every Sunday through May. The dates we will be working will be: April 29, May 6, 20 and 27.
We will work in light rain but heavy rain will cancel (I will send an e-mail out the night before a work day if we need to cancel).
All gloves, tools, supplies, snacks and instruction will be provided. All you need to do is to show up.
Please come out and spend some Sundays in beautiful locations with really nice people for a really worthy cause. Any amount of time you can help out is greatly appreciated.
Please let me know when you can come so I will have enough tools, supplies and especially snacks on hand.
I will send out an e-mail every week after that to let everyone know where the location will be for the upcoming Sunday.
If you would like to help out but just cannot make it on a Sunday, please let me know what day and time(s) work better and I can arrange for more work parties on those days.
I hope I see you out on the shoreline soon.
Please spread the word!