For our stewardship projects this year the Friends group once again focused on weeding the Kingsley Park bioswale and the Neville Place patio gardens, setting up and monitoring nesting boxes for birds, filling the bird feeders at Neville Place, and working with the Cambridge Water Department on the Purple Loosestrife Biocontrol Project. Many Friends group members also participated in the Water Department's Fresh Pond Stewardship Program, weeding, planting, and designing planting beds.

We have monitored and weeded the Kingsley Park bioswale each summer since 2007, when the Water Department gave us permission to "adopt" it. This year our Friends group volunteers spent a total of about 70 hours over the course of 6 weeks removing invasive weeds including mugwort, burdock, and bindweeds. By mid-August the bioswale was in such good condition that we discontinued our weeding sessions for the year. We left the area full of milkweeds, wild senna, blue and white vervains, lupines, evening primrose, and a variety of asters, and goldenrods.

The patio flower and vegetable gardens at Neville Place are a source of enjoyment for many of the Neville residents, some of whom were once avid gardeners. This year we donated and planted tomato, basil, and parsley plants; and Ranger Jean Rogers, working with participants from the Pathways for Family Success program, planted annuals in the flower garden and in the large flower pots on the patio. During the winter, the residents enjoy looking out the dining room and downstairs Country Kitchen windows at birds at the bird feeders. The Friends group donates money for birdseed, and members help keep the feeders filled.

Our nesting box program has grown since 2004 from four Tree Swallow boxes to 15 Tree Swallow and four Chickadee boxes. The fledgling Tree Swallow "Class of 2009" may number 60 or more youngsters from 12 nests, an extraordinary success rate. Surprisingly, birds used none of the Chickadee boxes this year. We are considering how we might change conditions or locations for next year. Details of this year's results are included in the FFPR 2009 Nest Box Report.

This was the fourth year of the Purple Loosestrife Biocontrol Project at Fresh Pond. Each spring the Water Department has purchased and released Galerucella beetles in the Purple Loosestrife-infested wetland near the north end of Little Fresh Pond. The beetles eat only Purple Loosestrife, and can eventually bring about the collapse of the loosestrife monoculture. During a Friends group program in April, participants made beetle nurseries, which involved planting loosestrife plants inside cages of fine mesh. When the shipment of beetles arrived on May 6, some of them were placed on the potted loosestrife plants, and the rest were released in the wetland.

This year's fall monitoring data did not show a significant reduction in size or reproductive capacity of the loosestrife plants. In 2010 we may decide to purchase a different species of loosestrife-specific insect, one that attacks the roots of the plants. Our beetle nurseries also did not produce many beetles. The high level of maintenance required for these nurseries has been a challenge, and we may need to reconsider whether the results have been worth the effort.

Many of this year's volunteers in the Cambridge Water Department's Reservation Stewardship Program are FFPR members. The program flourished under the capable leadership of Watershed Manager's Assistant Emily Tansey. Emily organized bi-weekly weeding sessions that focused on Black's Nook, the woods along Beech Path and the Lusitania and Butterfly Meadows. The season began in May with a "Garlic Mustard Weedout" and continued with the removal of garlic mustard from all around the Reservation. The Stewards then tackled mugwort and other weeds in the Butterfly and Lusitania Meadows. Our grand finale involved working our way through the woods from the east end of Beech Path to the hillside in back of Neville Place, using Weed Wrenches® and shovels, to uproot common and glossy buckthorns; leaving the woods, now, a "buckthorn-free zone." Although more weeds will move in, this section of the Reservation will be easier to maintain in the future as a result of our efforts.

Fresh Pond Stewards Suzanna Black and I spent more than 70 hours weeding and adding plants to the woodland garden north of the Water Department that we call "Suzanna's Corner." Growing there now are about 80 plant species that are historically native to Middlesex County (as listed in The Vascular Plants of Massachusetts: a County Checklist by Bruce Sorrie and Paul Somers.) Reservation Site Supervisor Vince Falcione generously helped us by having his landscape workers put wood chips on our circular path, haul in some large rocks, plant about 20 Mountain Laurels, install a beautiful split-log bench that the workers made for us, and replace the brush barrier along the Perimeter Road with a low mesh fence. We look forward to spring, to another year of working in this very special place, and to having an "open house" there during Fresh Pond Day in early May.

Suzanna and I also collaborated with Vince on the planting bed in the Water Department parking lot, purchasing more native perennials to add to the ones we planted last year. He then asked Suzanna and me to design a perennial border garden among the shrub beds along the bike path to the north of the Purification Facility - a job we tackled with delight. We ordered, and his workers planted, a mix of about 150 Rudbeckia and low-growing pink and purple asters.

Additional stewardship contributions were made by individuals and groups, big and small, on projects including the installation of erosion control bars on hillsides, spreading of wood chips on paths, trash pickup, invasive plant removal, planting of native plants, watering and plant maintenance, water quality monitoring and ranger support services. These folks worked with Chief Ranger Jean Rogers under the Fresh Ponds Partners Program prescribed by the Fresh Pond Master Plan.

Many thanks to the volunteers and professionals who helped make 2009 a year of progress in the effort to maintain healthy native plant and animal communities at Fresh Pond Reservation, and to keep the Reservation safe and accessible for everyone.

Volunteers: Susan Agger, Alka Balthazar, Brad Barber, Francisco Barreto, Suzanna Black, Margaret Cain, Cheryle Carson, Carol Collura, Susan Coolidge, Jodi Dowling, Noa Hall, Nancy Haslett, Eric Houston, Susan Kaufman, Lore Levitt, Betsy Meyer, Pete Mellor, Squizzle Plekavich, Rebecca Ramsay, Gabe Sanchez, Grenelle Scott , Barbara Strell, Delmo Villela, Judy Vollmer, Elizabeth Wylde *

Professionals: Ted Elliman (NEWFS), Vince Falcione (CWD), Jessica Korecki (NEWFS), Terry Morrow (NEWFS), Chip Norton (CWD), Kate Pawling (NEWFS), Ranger Jean Rogers (CWD), Emily Tansey (CWD), Jose and Juan (Waverly Landscape employees.) Belated thanks to Nicola Cataldo (NEWFS) for her horticultural assistance in 2008.

Groups: Pathways to Family Success, Dare to Care Youth, CRLS Athletic Teams, People Making a Difference

Elizabeth Wylde
For Friends of Fresh Pond Reservation
January 3, 2010

*Thanks to the many other volunteers, whose names we don't have, who participated in stewardship activities at the Reservation in 2009.