Volume 68, Issue 8 August, 2024 | |
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August 2024 Community Center Calendar
24 | Homestead Valley Music Festival | 11:30 a.m. - 6:30 p.m.
On-Going 2024 Community Center Calendar
Saturdays: AA Mtg 10:00 a.m.
1st/3rd Wednesday: Tam Design Review Board Mtg 7:00 p.m.
2nd Tuesday: Homestead Valley Land Trust Board Mtg 7:30 p.m.
3rd Tuesday: Homestead Valley Community Association Board Mtg 7:00 p.m.
4th Tuesday: Sanitary District Board Mtg 7:30 p.m.
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Welcome to the Community Corner for updates on all the latest news and happenings throughout Homestead Valley and our greater Mill Valley community!
Events
Movies in the Park
Friday, August 2
Movie begins at sunset
Elemental (2023)
Old Mill Park
Midsummer Night's Dream
Saturday, August 10 - Monday, September 2
Curtain Theatre's production of Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' in Old Mill Park amphitheater. Running Saturday and Sundays and Labor Day Monday through September 2. Shows at 2:00 p.m.
Family Fun Fest
Monday, August 19
4:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.
Mill Valley Community Center
Community Campout @ The Mill Valley Community Center
Camp out with neighbors and friends at the Mill Valley Community Center! The theme for this year's Community Campout is...Mill Valley Olympics!
Date: August 24-25
Location: Mill Valley Community Center
Camps
Camp Funderblast
Continues weekly until August 16
Homestead Valley Community Center
Schools
Marin Horizon School
Tuesday, August 27 - First Day of School
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Homestead Valley Music Festival | |
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Join us on August 24th at the Homestead Valley Music Festival!
This year's poster was designed by local Homestead Valley resident Greg Lehman. Huge thank you to Greg!
This year’s theme is all about Keeping it Local! We have put together an amazing line up filled with musicians from the area. Starting us off will be Meggy Travers, coming to us from Laverne Ave, right here in Homestead Valley. Next up is Asher Belsky, an SF-native ready to wail on his guitar. Put on your dancing shoes for Corner Pocket - a group of locals who will get you grooving. Lumanation will follow with their very cool combination of reggae, ska and redwood soul. Talley Up! will round out the day with New Orleans funk that will leave us with a bounce in our step for days to follow.
Want to be a part of making this great day happen? Please join us as a volunteer at the festival! To see all the opportunities, click here.
For more information about the bands and to see photos from 2023, check out our website.
See you at the Homestead Valley Music Festival!
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Homestead Valley Backyard Gardening | |
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Homestead Valley Backyard Gardening:
Invasive Ivies
by Kristin Desmond Ashley
with Marabeth Grahame and Curtis Oldenburg
Hello again Homestead neighbors. Summer is full upon us with warm days alternating with cooling fog. Now that we are in August, many of our birds have finished nesting and native shrub and tree fruits and nuts are beginning to mature. This month, we focus the Homestead Valley Backyard Gardening article on ivy.
Ivies are among the most common and problematic vines we see growing around Homestead Valley. Most prevalent is English ivy. Cape ivy, although it looks similar, is not related and is fortunately much less common. Deer happily eat English ivy, but there is much more of it than they can consume. Robust in our frost free climate, drought tolerant, and accepting of nearly all soil types, these vines are generally very successful plants. However, they are also known for smothering any other plant in their way, climbing up trees, burdening them with their weight so trees can eventually fall, and destroying wood, stucco and other structures with their roots. English ivy is a favorite habitat for rats and snails so removing it from near homes is often a critical step in managing rat infestations. When English ivy is allowed to fruit, birds will eat the berries and spread the seeds in their droppings. In some parts of Homestead Valley and greater Mill Valley, these various kinds of ivy are moving quickly out into our wild lands. If you are going to plant and maintain ivy in your garden you should manage it very carefully.
Once established, ivies are very labor intensive to remove. Because they spread easily via roots, stems, and/or rhizome fragments, it’s best to pull out as much of the underground material as you can. For large patches, stems can be cut at ground level and rolled up like a rug giving easier access to the roots. If you pile English ivy where deer are, they will eat the leaves, reducing your pile down to the woody stems. Material should then be bagged or placed in your green bin and taken away. Ivy and other vines cannot be chipped.
It’s critical to cut ivy that is growing up into trees at ground level as soon as you see it moving up. If the ivy is high in the tree, look for tendrils that reach back to the ground as they will root themselves and keep the vine alive and make sure to cut these also. This will cause the ivy on the tree to die off within weeks and eventually fall. Wind, water, and the bark’s natural process will loosen dead vines eventually. It’s not recommended to pull down the ivy until it’s already loosened, as you can damage tree bark and/or branches by pulling too hard on strongly bound vines. Note: if you have a heavy infestation in your trees, it’s wise to have help from an arborist to cut away the greater portion of the hanging vines. This will hasten dying of the ivy and help the trees recover sooner. Also, if you have heavily infested trees, there is the possibility that ivy will cause branches and/or whole trees to fall (see end of article), a situation an arborist can assess and provide risk-mitigating recommendations for.
Cape ivy has been a listed invasive species in California since soon after it was introduced in the late 1800s. Found in coastal California near creeks or water seeps, it forms dense mats of vegetation over trees and shrubs, killing the plants underneath. It is toxic to animals and fish can be killed when plant materials are soaking in waterways. Stem and rhizome fragments re-sprout if left in the ground.
Once you have an area cleared of ivy, if you keep on top of re-sprouts regularly, the ongoing maintenance is small. If the area you’ve cleared is away from the “first five feet” next to your house, consider putting down a mulch layer of arborist chips which will block light and help slow regrowth.
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English Ivy, Hedera helix
Native to Europe and western Asia. Grows in sun to full shade, is drought tolerant and not fussy about soil. Leaves and fruit are toxic to humans and livestock. Sap can irritate skin. It shades out understory vegetation and climbs into tree canopies, dominating and killing trees. Ivy clings to surfaces with aerial roots which then aggressively work their way into wood or cracks in walls.
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English Ivy leaves
Photo: Marabeth Grahame
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English Ivy invading redwood trees
Photo: Kristin Desmond Ashley
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Cape Ivy (aka German Ivy, Parlor Ivy, Water Ivy), Delairea odorata
Native to South Africa. Yellow flowers. Grows in riparian areas and oak woodlands. Vines form dense mats smothering plants below. Toxic to fish and other animals.
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Cape Ivy leaves and flowers
Photo: Marabeth Grahame
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Cape Ivy invading a riparian area
Photo: Charles Kennard, via Bay Nature website
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There is a native vine, California Manroot (aka Wild Cucumber), Marah fabacea, which you might mistake for an ivy at first glance. The leaf shape is somewhat similar, and manroot does climb trees. However, manroot goes dormant in summer and is not aggressive like the non-native ivies. It grows in full sun with low water. The fruits are large green prickly spheres enjoyed by wildlife as food. | |
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California Manroot leaves, flowers and fruit
Photo: Dee E. Warenycia, via calphotos.berkeley.edu website
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What could you plant once you’ve removed the ivy? There are so many native plants to try depending on where it was growing! Here are a few options:
Groundcovers/low growing
• Sun: Coyote mint (Monardella villosa), blue eyed grass (Sisyrinchium bellum), pink cuddleweed (Pseudognaphalium ramosissimum), manzanitas, prostrate type ceanothus, dwarf checker bloom (Sidalcea malviflora ssp. malviflora), many native annuals
• Part sun: Miner’s lettuce (Claytonia perfoliata), blue wildrye (Elymus glaucus), thingrass (Agrostis pallen), torrey’s melicgrass (Melica torreyana), California fescue (Festuca californica), alum root (Heuchera micrantha), many native annuals
• Shade: Yerba buena (Clinopodium douglasii), Redwood sorrel (Oxalis oregana), native ferns
Vines
• Sun: native morning glories (Calystegia species), California manroot (Marah fabacea)
• Part sun/shade: California honeysuckle (Lonicera hispidula), old man’s beard (Clematis vitalba), chaparral clematis (Clematis lasiantha)
Some years ago, an ivy-damaged tree fell in The Canyon (westernmost Homestead Valley). More from the article in the Homestead Headlines at that time is reproduced here:
In late February, 2017 a heavily ivy-laden bay tree growing out of a steep slope in Tamalpais Canyon was pulled out of the ground and fell in a windstorm into a mature redwood tree downslope. The redwood caught the bay and withstood its weight for almost ten minutes before snapping at its base and coming down heavily, totaling a Prius parked on Tamalpais Drive and taking out a power line. The weight of the ivy along with the sail-like properties of its plumes made the bay susceptible to the winds that toppled it.
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Let’s all help to keep this from happening again by removing invasive ivy! If you cultivate it intentionally in your garden, please keep it contained and out of trees. Happy gardening! | |
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Music Class Continues this Summer
In Harmony offers family music and movement classes for children ages 0-8 and the grownups who love them! These group music classes, designed for infants, toddlers, preschoolers and big kids, are backed by a research-driven curriculum that will nurture your child's inner musician, but the emphasis is on FUN! You and your children will grow a strong bond through singing, dancing, clapping, bouncing, instrument playing and other rhythm activities! So much more than a music class, In Harmony Music fosters developmental benefits that will support all areas of learning.
Friday classes offered at Homestead Valley Community Center at 11:30 a.m. The summer session runs through August 16. Save $30 with coupon code HVCC. Additional indoor, outdoor and online classes available around Marin. Register now! www.inharmonymusic.com
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Homestead Valley Vignettes by Chuck Oldenburg | |
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Fire Protection
In the early years, Homestead’s fire protection service came from the Marin County Fire Department. In 1940, Ove Johnson watched helplessly while his home at 235 La Verne burned to the ground. The county fire fighters had responded to the call, but they were not authorized to fight structure fires—they were there to prevent the fire from spreading onto grassland and forest. Ove was furious. He did something about this sad state of affairs. After rebuilding his home, he bought an old Hudson truck. He and five friends refurbished it as a fire truck. In an emergency, Ove’s wife sounded the siren on top of their house. The volunteer fire brigade rushed to the Johnson’s garage, started up the fire truck and sped off to the fire.
In 1950, Mrs. White, who owned a lumber yard, gave the firemen all the lumber they needed to build a firehouse. She also sold them the lot on the corner of Evergreen and Melrose for $100. Dirt from excavating for a school expansion across the street was used as fill over a culvert for the creek. Lee Holden, a contractor, built the firehouse. A dance was held there on New Year’s Eve.
In 1962, paid firemen were hired—no more volunteers and the Homestead Valley and Tamalpais Valley fire departments merged. In 1972 two new bays were added to the building. In 1980 the firehouse was closed. Through a joint powers arrangement, Homestead was served from firehouses in Mill Valley and Tam Valley. The Homestead firehouse was rented as a residence.
In 1989 the Loma Prieta earthquake damaged the firehouse severely and it was demolished. With financial help from the Homestead Valley Land Trust to pay for a landscape architect and materials, volunteers developed the site into a park. Volunteer Park was dedicated in 1992. The Land Trust leased the park from the Fire District for $1 per year.
In 1993 the joint powers agreement between Mill Valley and Tam Valley fire departments was voided. The Tamalpais Fire Protection District decided that a fire station must be located in Homestead Valley. In 1994, a temporary solution was found. Two firefighters were housed in a home on Evergreen—an ambulance and a fire truck were parked in the yard next to the house under a temporary canopy.
In 1998 detailed engineering and architectural plans were developed for the construction of a new firehouse on the site of Volunteer Park. This project was abandoned in 1999 when the Southern Marin Fire Protection District was formed by merger of Tam Valley’s and Alto-Richardson Bay’s fire departments. A new arrangement was made for Homestead to be served once again from the Mill Valley and Tam Valley firehouses.
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Homestead Valley Contact Information | |
Help 1st Responders Locate Your Home
Reflective Address Placard Order Form:
Click Here
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STAY CONNECTED:
Did you know HVCA is on Instagram @homesteadvalley? Be sure to follow us to stay up to date on events, last minute announcements, and more.
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Homestead Valley Community Association, 315 Montford Avenue, Mill Valley, CA 94941 | | | | |
