Pease Park could use your help. Since we’ve been social distancing, we haven’t been able to host our annual spring volunteer events in the park. We’re asking our volunteers to help curb some of the ragweed and litter that has found itself in Pease Park while also maintaining a safe distance away from each other.
About Ragweed
Ragweed is a native but aggressive species found all over Central Texas. If you have allergies in the Fall, Ragweed is the most likely culprit. A single plant can produce up to 1 billion pollen grains. These grains are very light weight and float easily through the air, blanketing most of Austin every Fall. Moreover, as the planet warms due to climate change, we’ve seen the pollen season of this plant start earlier every year. The increasing temperature also increases the amount of pollen each plant produces. So it is vital that we work in the Spring to reduce the ragweed in the park. Please note that if you are a Fall allergy sufferer we reccommend using an abundance of caution when interacting with this plant. Pollen isn’t produced till the Fall but we’d like everyone to be overly cautious and if your allergies are severe we recommend picking up litter instead.
Ragweed is an annual plant that grows and spreads quickly taking up huge swaths of parkland and preventing other more desirable plants such as pollinators and trees from taking root. Normally, in the Spring when the ragweed is just starting to sprout, Pease Park Conservancy leads volunteers in a ragweed pull throughout the park. Because Ragweed doesn’t produce seeds and it can be pulled and dropped in place. Ragweed once pulled will naturally decompose and add nutrients to the soil. In lieu of our normal volunteer events, we hope you will help us out by pulling some Ragweed on your morning walk or afternoon jog!
About Litter
Litter is always a problem in the park. As one of the lowest points in Austin, Pease Park acts as a green sponge, collecting and soaking up the stormwater runoff from all of the surrounding neighborhoods. While it collects all of the water, it also collects some of the litter as well. Consequently, Pease Park offers us one of the last opportunities to collect litter before it enters our waterways, flowing from Shoal Creek to Town Lake to the Colorado River and eventually into our oceans. The Conservancy always has a litter removal component to our volunteer events, and unfortunately, due to Covid-19, we haven’t been able to meet, leaving the litter to wash out into Shoal Creek. Thus, we need your help to collect this litter and dispose of it properly. So if you’re strolling through the park, walking your dog, please take some time to look around and see if you can help protect our oceans.
Ragweed Removal Tutorial
Thank you for supporting Pease Park and if you’d like to pull some Ragweed, please watch this video tutorial created by our sustainability intern Nick Boysen on how to properly identify and remove ragweed in the park.
In the map below, we’ve placed markers to indicate where we’ve found clusters of ragweed in the park. If you normally walk the park in a certain route, check out one of the indicated clusters and see if you can help mitigate some Fall allergies.
Do’s And Don’ts
Here’s a quick list of some “Do’s and Don’t’s” when pulling ragweed or picking up litter in the park.
Do:
Do practice safe distancing at all times & wear a face covering and gloves
If you go off-trail, do wear long pants and closed-toed shoes
Do watch out for, and avoid, Poison Ivy - “Leaves of Three, Let It Be”
Do wear sunscreen and stay hydrated
Do pull or cut ragweed and drop in place, avoid piling it up
Do properly dispose of litter
Do use caution when handling ragweed - it is an allergen
Don’t:
Don’t take any action that jeopardizes your health & safety, or the health & safety of others
Don’t make a pile of ragweed (please, do leave it where you pulled it)
Don’t leave gloves, trash bags, or other items in the park
Don’t pick up hazardous items such as broken glass, razor blades, syringes, hazardous household products, dead animals, condoms, all unlabeled jugs, bottles and drums, etc. (if you find hazardous items in the park please report to the city by calling 3-1-1, or emailing us.)
Don’t approach encampments in the park
We’d love to hear from you if your planning a “Do It Yourself” Volunteer Day in Pease Park! You can either email us at info@peasepark.org or comment on this article below! We’d love if you’d share photos with us as well!
Check Out Our Chief Operating Officer Chuck Smith Curbing Some Ragweed On His Morning Walk:
