A visit to San Francisco Botanical Garden

A nice center meeting place, perhaps the hillside trails off McKinley Square can have something similar, with a water fountain & lights.

Catepillar on the Asclepias Fascicularis (narrowleaf milkweed )

Catepillar on the Asclepias Fascicularis (narrowleaf milkweed )

Caterpillars devouring Stinging Nettle

Even the Stinging Nettle plant has its purpose in nature, instead of just providing us painful reminder to stay away, it is a providing food source to local caterpillars. 

These caterpillars look similar to the Peacock Butterfly

Anyone know for sure?

-------------------

After some analysis from Jake Sigg of Nature News and  Liam O'Brien of SFButterfly, 

Liam informed me these are likely Red Admirals. 

Thank you!    :-)

101 Freeway Accident & Helicopters wake up Potrero Hill

Big rig accident on 101, whose most major impact on Potrero Hill was to wake everyone up at 6am with low flying news helicopters.  At least 3 news helicopters were circling Potrero Hill at 6am and continued past 12noon until when the freeway opened.

Reportedly complaints about the helicopters can be made to the FAA

Alameda office (510) 748-0122 

October 16th Planting Day a Tremendous Success

On October 16th,  volunteers from the local community, and SF Park & Recreation planted approximately 600 native & sustainable plants on the McKinley Square hillside.

This is part of a multi planting effort to push out non-native invasive species (such as the fox tail weed)  which are unsafe for dogs, and replace with native plants that will help the local butterflies, and other insects, some of which are endangered.

Lunch was sponsored by Goat Hill Pizza & Chiotras Grocery.   Thank You to everyone who made this possible.

Every flag or pot you see is a new plant planted on Oct 16. 

Every pot in this picture is a newly planted plant

Every flag or pot you see is a new plant planted on Oct 16. 

Thank you Goat Hill and Chiotras for sponsoring lunch!

The plants we started with, supplied by SF Park & Recreation and Community Donations.

McKinley Square Hillside Planting

Join us!   October 16th, 2011 
10AM - 12Noon

Come join your fellow local community members 

& SF Park & Recreation

Planting 100s of native /sustainable plants and improving trails on the McKinley Square hillside.

RSVP encouraged but not required  

(RSVPing helps us know how many pizzas & plants to have on hand) 

A Partial list of the plants being planted:
Yarrow - Achillea millefolium
Idaho Fescue - Festuca idahoensis
Red Fescue/ Molate Fescue - Festuca rubra molate
California Fescue - Festuca californica
Perennial Aster - Aster chilensis
Sticky Monkeyflower - Mimulus aurantiacus
Phacelia - Phacelia californica
Gum Plant - Grindelia camporum
Summer Lupine - Lupinus formosus

Volunteer Guidelines

·       Old clothes—inevitably you will be getting dirty

·       Layers of clothes—long pants and long sleeved shirt

·       Sturdy, closed-toed shoes with good tread

·       Raingear and/or sun block and sun hat

·       Water or additional snacks for special dietary needs

·       Gloves & tools—if you have them,, otherwise SFRPD will supply

·       Projects take place rain or shine, barring high winds or dangerous weather conditions. 


DRINKS SPONSORED BY Chiotras Grocery.  


LUNCH SPONSORED BY:

Goat Hill Pizza

McKinley Square Futures meeting Oct 1, 2011 (Meeting 3 of ? )

For meeting #3,  the design park was split into quadrants, and people voted on what quadrants they wished to see the most improvement in.   It appeared the hillside area got most of the 1st place votes (see conclusion picture at bottom of this page).

Individual features (sunshade in kids play area? restroom facilities? safe & clean zone on grass?  )  still are possible.

For both short & long term goals, it may be worth while to put together a diverse working group in the community who can spend detailed time working with John Merten and Park & Recreation, keep the community informed their progress, solicit feedback both in person and electronically,  and put together plan(s) for community approval.

Meanwhile, we can get started now. There is a native/sustainable planting on the McKinley Square hillside October 16th, 10am to 12noon.  Please join us.  You can RSVP at the email address below.  RSVPs help us know how many plants to supply. 

Stay tuned for date & time for meeting #4.


The complete video of meeting #3 is here:

Click on the images below for a large detailed design of each quadrants.

Quadrant A

Quadrant B

Quadrant C

Quadrant D

Results of community prioritization. Red dots are highest.  

Potrero Hill spiders?

All around Potrero Hill neighborhoods I see these large spiders.   Some definitely  bigger than 1 inch.  Anyone have ideas what these are and any other details? Of course its kinda freaky walking through a spider web, but the question is... are these dangerous? I can get more pictures if you want.