Articles

A BIG thank you to our volunteers who showed up to tackle the ivy in George Himes Park, along the Terwilliger Parkway.

Terwilliger Parkway got the best of both worlds last month! Volunteers put in native plants and had time to also do ivy removal! How good is that?

We had a tenacious group pulling ivy Saturday, May 21st. We freed 12 trees and cleared 200 sq feet of the forest floor to allow our native plants room to grow.

This year marked the 18th year of No Ivy Day, an annual event put on by Portland Parks and Recreation, to rid our natural areas and parks of invasive ivy. Friends of Terwilliger was a co-sponsor.

November’s restoration work party brought us back to the Norris “foundation” to remove tree and ground ivy as well as blackberries. This 2-acre site was once considered by the Portland chapter of the Rhododendron Society for its test garden before locating to its current site at Crystal Springs.

Thanks go out to all of you hearty volunteers who made the most of our calm fall weather to rid Terwilliger Parkway of those nasty invasive plants.

Ask Larry McLaughlin why he volunteers in Terwilliger Parkway, and he’ll say he just likes to feel he’s accomplished something worthwhile.

2018 is off to a good start as we battle invasive species, particularly that darn ivy.

We’ve hosted 5 work parties, so far this year, with volunteers coming from all over the Portland metro area as well as from around the world!

Friends of Terwilliger volunteers have spent thousands of hours over the past 23 years removing invasive vegetation in Terwilliger Parkway. Perhaps chief among the bad-news invasives is English or Irish ivy. We all know what it looks like and that it is Bad—but what is it, really?

With a few good workers, Friends of Terwilliger was able to rid the Terwilliger Parkway of more invasive plants.

English Ivy (Hedera Helix) was brought to Oregon in the mid-1800’s as a way to remind early settlers of home. What started out as an innocent plan has come to represent one of the toughest problems Portland’s natural areas face today. It now invades more and more of our parks and will ultimately destroy our cherished tree canopy unless we remove it now. By allowing ivy to grow unchecked it will climb trees where it will mature, produce seeds, and continue the “seeds of destruction” by being transported by non-native birds.

Twenty years ago, we began partnering with a Multnomah County program called Alternative Community Service (ACS) for on-the-ground restoration efforts in the Terwilliger Parkway natural areas.