Pulling Weeds at the Wildscape

by Carolyn Henderson

Aren’t all weeds native? Ha!

Weeds were the call of the day when a dedicated group of El Camino Real Texas Master Naturalist members showed up at the Birds and Bees Wildscape Saturday. There were plenty of them calling.

Members Gene and Cindy Rek own the Bird and Bee Farm, and they have allotted space to ECRTMN to grow a wildscape for use in educating people and spreading native plants to interested citizens. They are converting the acreage they have to native plants and grasses. These efforts have brought about an award from the Texas Environmental Quality Commission.

The TEQC is going to come out and video interviews with the Reks and a couple other members of ECRTMN. Catherine Johnson, manager of the ECR part, called for a clean-up day to make the wildscape more presentable for its “two minutes” of fame. More information on the award will be discussed when more is known about it.

Catherine, Donna Lewis, Scott Berger, Linda Burgess, Eric Neubauer, Debra Sorenson, Alan Rudd and his son, Adam, Cindy Rek, Jackie Thornton, and I knocked out a good portion of the clean-up but had to avoid some for ant treatments. Bees, unusual flies, spiders, and a few butterflies were already there, too. There are not yet many flowers. Everything is slow coming back this year, and I believe that is statewide, according to Texas Nature Trackers – TMN. In another week or so, I believe it will be in full growth mode.

Alan and Adam finished a storage building they had started at the wildscape. It is a great building for the site, and now all the planting pots that we save to share with others will not blow all over the place.

There was also a good amount of fellowship – especially around the table where all the goodies were that Catherine baked and brought for us. We went home having eaten a lot of chocolate and honey tea from Cindy.

There’s more to be done in a short period of time, so if any members have time and an urge to pull weeds (Catherine treated the two spaces that had ant problems), the gate is usually open.