Come visit the new pollination preservation garden at the park entrance between the driveway and tennis courts.

What’s a pollination preservation garden? Plants have been chosen based on Dr. Robert Gegear, UMass Dartmouth’s research on plants needed to support bumblebees and butterflies that are at risk of local extinction.

More than 85 percent of all plants require animals to pollinate them, a process essential for creating seeds and fruits and reproduction. Those animals, especially insects, are keystones in the food web that supports all the wildlife around us, and our own food supply.

Bumblebees are our most important local pollinators. In Massachusetts, we have already lost two of 12 bumblebee species. Another two–the golden northern and half-black bumblebees–were once common in Eastern Massachusetts but are now at risk of local extinction. More than 40 species of butterflies and moths, which are also pollinators, are also in decline and at risk, along with 113 other native bee species. The plants in this garden will support the two native bumblebee species, 10 species of butterflies, and many of the other native bee species at risk.

This garden is sponsored by the Friends of Cold Spring Park, with the approval of and assistance of the Newton Department of Parks, Recreation & Culture. It was planted as the Eagle Scout project of Dobi Wollaber, with Troop 209. Funding was provided by the Friends of Cold Spring Park, with the help of grants from Green Newton and Newton Conservators.

We hope that it will inspire you to use some of the plants here in your own yards, to help create pollinator pathways across Newton and neighboring cities and towns. Our website will soon be fleshed out with more information about the at-risk pollinators, the plants we have used, and links to much more information about what we can all do to preserve pollinators and the plants they depend on.

You can also see updates on our Facebook page, and the Facebook page of the Newton Community Pollinator Project. See also the article in the Fig City News.

April 6, 7-8 pm, “Nibbling on Native Plants in Your Back Yard and Beyond,” Newton Conservators Webinar with Russ Cohen

April 20, 7-8:15 pm, “Jumping Worms in Field and Forest,” Newton Conservators Webinar with Dr. Annise Johnson

April 23, 9:30 am, Invasives Pull. Meet at the kiosk.

May 1, 9:30 am, NewtonServes Day, Invasives pull. Meet at the kiosk.

May 4, 6-9 pm, Newton Conservators Annual Dinner

May 8, 8-11 am, Birding in Cold Spring Park, in-person, meet at the kiosk, with Pete Gilmore

May 10, 1 pm, Invasives pull. Meet at the kiosk.

May 11, 7-8:15 pm, Spring Warblers in Newton, Newton Conservators Webinar with Pete Gilmore. Learn about 25 species of Warblers in Cold Spring Park.

May 15, 9:30 am, Invasives Pull. Meet at the kiosk.

May 21, 9:30 am, Tour of Cold Spring Park with Alan Nogee

June 7, 9:30, Invasives Pull. Meet at the kiosk.

June 15, 7-8:15, Newton’s Street Trees: Past, Present & Future, Newton Conservators Webinar with Marc Welch

From Zervas to Winslow & Wilber:

A significant majority (58%) want to extend the Eagle Scout boardwalks, while 34% preferred a full size boardwalk. A number of commenters indicated, however, that they were ok with either option, or preferred a short-term extension of the scout boardwalks while exploring the wider option. The primary concern about the wider option appears to be financial.

We will therefore proceed to recruit a scout to extend the existing boardwalks. (We will also attempt to address the concern raised by a couple of commenters that the existing boardwalks can be slippery.)

We will also explore whether there may be funds available for a wider boardwalk that could not be used for other purposes, such as the state agency that funds trails, and/or Americans for Disability Act funds that can only be used for enabling accessibility. We know there has been interest in accessible access to the park from the Zervas Elementary School, and interest in greater accessibility in Cold Spring Park (and other parks) in the city’s Open Space Plan. We will reach out to the Zervas community to assess the level of interest and potential support there. We will not try to fund a large portion of such a project ourselves.

There were a couple of people expressing interest in leaving the area more “natural” and avoiding disturbing wildlife. The water issues on that section of trail are caused by a stormwater outfall that empties almost directly onto the trail. This human-caused problem will get worse as homes in the area get bigger, and thus shed more rain water, and as climate change causes more extreme storms. In addition, when the trail gets very muddy, people tend to walk along the edges, making the trail wider, and trampling vegetation. Alleviating these problems will therefore improve, rather than harm the ecological health of the park, as well as improve access.

From Vaughn & Wilbur to Plymouth:

Opinion was relatively evenly divided between fixing a couple of muddy spots on this section of trail vs. leaving it alone and dedicating the money to ecological restoration. As only one-quarter of people supported resurfacing the whole section with stone dust, we will not pursue that option at this time. Since ¾ of respondents favor some improvement to this trail section, we interpret the results to favor doing so as inexpensively as possible. One person suggested we consider wood chips instead of stone dust. These are essentially free, and can be spread with volunteer labor. However, they are more difficult to run on, and need to be replaced every year or two. We will discuss with the Department of Parks, Recreation & Culture whether it would make sense to do a trial of using wood chips as an alternative to stone dust behind the old softball field and in the wash below Plymouth Road.

Among the other helpful comments we will try to address:

• Prioritizing repairs to the existing resurfaced areas that have been damaged by erosion or falling trees
• Broadening our funding outreach to neighboring villages
• Eliminating some “braided” paths, where more than one trail route has been created, thereby unnecessarily trampling more vegetation
• Improve trail markers and navigation signs
• Restore “No biking” signs
• Increase removal of invasive plants and begin ecological restoration of important areas
• Explore whether the city would fix the large depressions on Wilber St.
• If dog park users formally request the the dog park be fenced in, we will discuss taking a position on this issue.

Thank you all for the very helpful feedback and input!

Working with the Department of Parks, Recreation & Culture (PRC), we will be restoring the stone dust surface of the Cochituate Aqueduct trail between Plymouth Road and Duncklee Street.

Thanks to PRC for providing design and oversight services.

Thanks for construction funding from:

• The Krieger Family Trust
• Friends of Cold Spring Park members like you!

No more of this!

Please note times that both Newton high school cross-country teams will be running on the Cold Spring Park LifeCourse trail.

They are supposed to raise masks when approaching anyone on the trail. We encourage everyone to mask up, keep to the sides of the trail, and step off, if necessary, to let runners pass. Thanks. Stay safe!

Friends of Cold Spring Park is now a 501c3 charitable corporation.

All donations are tax deductible.

We donated $12,368 to the City for the renovation, to complement $9,000 from Parks & Rec and $20,000 from the location fee from Defending Jacob (which premiers Apr. 24). Thanks to all of you who contributed! Our contribution still leaves us more than $12,000 toward the next phase of work. Other trail sections will be much more expensive, however, especially the Aqueduct, which is much wider and will likely need special erosion control measures.

Trail work will require some temporary inconvenience and closures, of course. Hopefully, it can be done section by section, with detours around specific sections. The section of trail from the parking lot to Zervas, however, is likely to require detouring to Beacon Street. The entire process is hoped to take less than two months, but may take as long as three. We will email updates as we know the specific schedule, and post them on our Facebook Page and web site.

Here’s a picture from a short ceremony in the park with Alan handing an oversized check to Mayor Ruthanne Fuller, and lots of mutual thank you’s.