As I say above, today I found the Dave Clark Path on Albany’s Willamette Riverfront cleared of the blackberry bushes and thorny vines that threatened to snag walkers and bike riders the last few weeks.
Presumably this was the work of the Albany Parks Department maintenance crew. I can just imagine that they have been overwhelmed with work as everything in every one of Albany’s parks has been growing this summer and growing fast.
A few days ago I noticed and wrote about a city-owned lot overgrown with grass and Queen Anne’s Lace. That lot, in the middle of the Edgewater Village development just off the Clark Path, also had been cut today. (Too bad. That’s one place where tall weeds served as a useful ground cover and a place to support pollinating insects.)
The berry bushes along the Clark Path were a reminder that these paths, nice as they are, require repeated maintenance. If they just sat there year after year, pretty soon they could no longer be used.
A commenter on hh-today recently suggested that we, the users, should do our part. Yes, we should. But the kind of maintenance that’s required can’t be done without power tools and vehicles to cart the refuse away. It’s not the thing that casual volunteers can do as they saunter along the path.
Anyway, here’s a look at the Clark Path today without all those thorny vines. The thumbs-up at the end is meant to say “good job.” (hh)
HH
Tis a shame that blackberries are a noxious weed on our fair State. They can be tasty and nasty. There were “blackberry killers” years ago, but they were toxic and puny. I had three varities to fight because the area had raised them commercially. The only effective (but labor intensive) control method involved exposing the base of major nodes, then tracing roots to succeeding nodes.
So, blackberries aren’t so much noxious weeds as a highly successful crop that exceeded its market.
Ants, cockroaches, blackberries……
A week or so back I saw a female county inmate crew clearing the size of the paths with power tools.
Would a project like the Highway Dept has for families to adopt sections work here? Have a weekend to call them all in & keep the weeds at bay so power tools may not have to be used. There is in place a water front cleanup effort each year. I recall many years ago a local landscaper supervised a bunch of us volunteers to clean up the Pacific/R-R over pass over two days. Did wonders for the area.
I walk our Oak Creek Trail @ Teloh Calapooia Park 3-4 times a week. Lots of blackberries, etc. Once-per-week I carry a pair of gloves and some small compound hand-loppers and cut them back. While I don’t remove the detritus from the area, they are off the trail. It only takes once if you’re walking or jogging and get into them on you arms or legs to say “no more…”