My neighbor Mary’s home backs up to the College Street Ravine, and her backyard has become overgrown with English ivy which has overtaken large trees on the hillside, engulfed the cyclone fence along the back of her property, and has covered her backyard. She’s been worried about the state of affairs for a while now and I’d like to put her mind at ease by opening it all back up, and giving the natives a new place to thrive.

I think we’ll do an amazing transformation here in a couple hours, but I’m also going to come back several days over Labor Day weekend to continue leaning into the property for folks who’d like to help out and the weekend works better for you.

I’m hoping to treat the back hillside, down to the trail, as a case study on returning the whole area back to native species over time—so the view from the top and bottom are an example of what the whole greenbelt could look like with enough restoration attention. This could be a project that takes many visits to fully realize.

We can all start at the back of her property on day 1, and then maybe have folks working from both the hillside down, and from the ravine trail up once we start working on the hill. This will be a fun one!

College Street Ravine