Garden Activities: March 31, 2026

Tuesday we returned to our usual process of working together as a team to accomplish a particular task. It has been several weeks since we were last in the Trail of Trees and it shows! Below is what we were faced with.

A main trail through the Trail of Trees showing the extent of the weed encroachment on and adjacent to the path.

Helping in the task of improving this situation were: Julia Appelrouth, Beverly Kemmerling, Nancy Taylor Walker, Anna Wiktor-Becker, Ann Wright and myself. Katie Shank showed up but quickly repaired to the KAG where she participated in a new educational program for young children. Bill Dobner was on site to work with the compost.

Katie sporting a hairdo designed to mimic the antennae of garden insects.

The weeds we tackled were mostly star thistle and clover; other less common weeds included other forms of thistle, filaree, upright and prostrate euphorbia, etc.

This is the annual yellow sweetclover.

One of the sow thistles in front, and a star thistle behind.

A rabbit enjoying the green clover while I believe the dead patch above is the slightly up-hill clover having already gone by. This rabbit wasn’t at all perturbed by our presence and only darted off when we were practically on top of him (or her). 

Some images of the worker bees:

Nancy.

Julia and Anna.

Ann and Julia.

Beverly and KMM.

On the way to the Trail of Trees we passed the Butterfly Garden where three plants were at their peek: 

Monkey flower (Mimulus aurantiacus ‘Ro——?') the blooms of which have amazing variation. I didn’t get a good image of the label. 

Mexican lobelia (Lobelia laxiflora) and evening primrose (Oenothera speciosa).

Here are some highlights from the past month:

https://youtu.be/CfIqjZ8BpfM?si=z_EUVdGilgLeqTRV 

Many thanks to Katie for the YouTube video, and to Nancy and Beverly for their images!

Enjoy the garden…KMM