The parks are looking better than ever–as many people tell the Blackstone Parks Conservancy. This is thanks to the Parks Department, which mows the Boulevard park and parts of the Conservation District, to the small number of volunteers who serve on the Conservancy’s board and three committees: Boulevard, Park, and Education, and to the volunteers who show up for special workdays. Donations are also crucial.
On the Boulevard
A new volunteer chairperson, landscape architect Colgate Searle, has stepped up to chair the Boulevard Committee, which had been headless for two years. Gale Aronson, who so brilliantly led that committee up to two years ago, has generously carried on producing the summer concerts in the meantime.
During the “wilderness years,” a few people from the Park Committee and the board pitched in to look after essentials on the Boulevard—new trees, gardens, winter moths, etc.—and it survived. But having a fulltime leader, a professional who thoroughly understands plants and drainage, will make a visible difference over time.
In late June the newly revived committee selected a few small pruning projects with City Forester Doug Still. For the rest of the summer these volunteers will be planning badly needed path improvements. With Colgate guiding the process it will be possible to assemble the necessary maps and figure out exactly what needs to be done where. This quest has been enormously complicated by a fire in the tool shed at Roger Williams Park that destroyed many records, but Colgate hopes to track some down here and there. He says the cost of resurveying and mapping the path would probably be beyond the city’s reach.
Different parts of the path will require different treatments. For instance, Colgate suspects that the puddles in some parts of the path result from having a clay material underneath that doesn’t allow drainage. His objective after assembling plans for repair at the least possible cost is to meet with the Parks Department to schedule upgrades over the next several years. At this point it will be clear how much fundraising will be called for.
In the Blackstone Park Conservation District
The Park Committee tried a new experiment in June, an early evening maintenance gathering called Park-Keeping. Happily, ten people showed up, some of them first-time volunteers, for what turned out to be a festive work session that accomplished quite a lot. Fence mending, chip spreading, needs assessment, clearing poison ivy that impinged on paths and clearing small invasives such as Norway maples took place in a short time.
Education
The BPC is setting up a search for volunteers for the programs that the Education Committee has so successfully organized in the past. As soon as enough people sign up, hopefully this fall, the new Children’s Circle for small children will be officially opened.
Beside the River
A delightful place to cool off on a hot summer day is on a bench by York Pond and the Seekonk River. You may encounter an egret or heron, not to mention ducklings.
Jane Peterson
