October Update

Ahhh, Summer at the beach! Many of us are so fortunate to be able to live and work near the San Diego Coast. And if you happen to live near or visit Dog Beach in Ocean Beach then you also have the opportunity to be near the mouth of the San Diego River. The river mouth in Ocean Beach is where the San Diego River completes its 52-mile journey from the mountains near Julian, CA to the Pacific Ocean. At this location we are lucky enough to be able to visit one of the last remaining coastal dune and wetland habitats in all of California. The Friends of the San Diego River Mouth with the support of the San Diego River Park Foundation meet here on the 4th Saturday of odd numbered months (Jan, March, May etc) to continue the restoration work began by the Aquatic Adventures wetland avengers event. Our next event will take place on 11/28/09 from 9am-Noon. Activities will include trail maintenance, tending the native plant demonstration garden, trash and invasive plant removal and an educational tour. For the previous 2 events volunteers have been working on removing Algerian Sea Lavender from the marsh zone of the site. It appears that the removal is working as the areas that have been taken care of are seeing the return of native pickle weed and salt grass. In some spots the Algerian Sea Lavender had completely carpeted the ground and had displaced the native vegetation. But the Friends group and our awesome volunteers will keep at it until this pest is eradicated.
In other developments, the Friends of the San Diego River Mouth would like to welcome Michael Nieto to our group. Michael is a trained botanist that works for a local company called Recon. He brings a lot of knowledge and experience with him to help us really care for this rare and important site. Welcome Michael, we are so lucky and happy to have you on our team! During our last work party Michael discovered the presence of a very rare and endangered plant at the site Cordylanthus maritimus or Salt Marsh Bird's-Beak. Great find Michael!
Under Michael's direction we plan to do a plant survey of the site on 10/24/09. Time to be announced.

Mystery Gardeners!
During our last event in September it was discovered that someone had taken it upon themselves to inappropriately prune almost all of the plants in the demonstration garden. They really hacked up the Laurel Sumac, bladderpods, sunflowers and more. Then to add insult to injury, they also removed our recently planted dudleya and replaced them with nonnative aloe, cactus and other nonnative succulents. If you know of anyone doing this please let us know. We would love to have them join our group and learn the proper care of native plants and why we shouldn't introduce nonnative plants to the site.
I can be reached at 619.297.7380.
As always we wish to thank our core volunteers Bob, Leslie, Lara and Michael and also Ranger Lisa for all of her support.