As spring cleaning goes, it’s a massive project. Volunteers are fanning out throughout the Rock Creek watershed this month to pick up litter. Rock Creek Conservancy’s annual Extreme Cleanup started as an Earth Day weekend event at several sites. These days, the Extreme Cleanup takes place over an entire month, and one of the kickoff […]
Search Results for: john burwell
Save the trees! At three local parks, volunteers are doing that and more – by attacking invasive weeds.
One day over Martin Luther King weekend, a few expert Weed Warriors and a large number of less-experienced volunteers gathered in the wooded area behind the Politics and Prose parking lot to pick up trash and free dozens of trees from invasive English ivy. And whether they realized it or not, they played a role […]
Someone IS coming for those leaves piled by the curb. Here’s how to learn when the crews will be on your street.
by Marlene Berlin If you’ve seen leaves carefully raked to the curb, where they sit… and sit… and sit… you might be scratching your head as to the status of leaf collection in our area. But progress has been made. The Department of Public Works (DPW) breaks Ward 3 into four sections: 3A, B, C […]
The invasion of the ‘tree snatchers’
by Adam Sieminski Winter creeper (Euonymus fortunei) is a tenacious, perennial, and evergreen plant that grows as a sprawling groundcover or climbing vine. Those qualities make it attractive to many local gardeners – but the plant is invasive and damaging to trees. Introduced from Asia more than a century ago, this species is becoming a pest […]
Meet Your Neighbors: Thanks to this Weed Warrior, invasive plants don’t stand a chance
by Marlene Berlin John Burwell has appeared on our pages several times over the past three years for his work as a volunteer caregiver of our daylighted and restored streams, Broad Branch and Linnean. For example, we recently wrote about the signs he designed, built and posted at these two parks. Burwell’s home is actually […]
Broad Branch Stream has new signs to help visitors find their way, and learn about native plants
The neighbor who made Linnean Park’s first-ever interpretive signs has also created one for the nearby Broad Branch tributary of Rock Creek. John Burwell’s latest sign, on Linnean Avenue near the footbridge leading to the walking path, informs visitors of the Broad Branch stream’s history as a “daylighted” waterway. The project that brought the stream […]
Invasive vines strangle trees. But in Linnean Park, someone has cut native vines that do no harm.
One or more individuals cut down multiple mature native grape vines in Linnean Park, perhaps with the intention of protecting the trees the vines inhabited. These vines, in fact, are not harmful to their host trees, and are beneficial for wildlife. Often trees are invaded by English ivy, twining porcelainberry or oriental bittersweet. The non-native […]
Linnean Park now has signs, because a park volunteer and advocate “thought it was time”
by John Burwell When I and some like-minded neighbors adopted Linnean Park last summer, our goals went beyond improving the park for health of flora, fauna and enjoyment by visitors. We have been lobbying the Department of Parks and Recreation to consider installing an official identifying sign at each entrance, similar to those erected at […]
How DC’s oldest Boy Scout troop built a new bridge in Linnean Park
by John Burwell One weekend in early January, William Wales, a junior at Jackson-Reed High School, led Boy Scout Troop 100 in building and installing a boardwalk bridge over a small waterway in Linnean Park. This fulfilled the requirements for his Eagle Scout service project. As regular park visitors know, the old log footbridge was […]
Young volunteers are replacing a rotting bridge on the Linnean Park trail
by John Burwell Visitors to Linnean Park the weekend January 7th and 8th will be unable to cross the old cut log footbridge, as a new boardwalk bridge will be under construction. A member of Boy Scout Troop 100 will be leading the troop in building a level and safe water crossing as his Eagle […]