This is the 51st event held by Oakland Gardens on March 09th, 2024. The weather today is quite cold, the temperature is very low, and the wind blows hard. Such cold weather cannot stop our love for the community. Our ranger Dana has returned from vacation in Vietnam and looks very energetic. Dana and his friends Paul and Jean, explained to us the main tasks for today.
We were divided into three groups today: high school students, middle school students, and elementary school students. High school students work in areas closer to the lake. They piled up some dead leaves under trees that need to be kept warm because being near the lake is much colder than other places.
Middle school students are stacking soil in the middle of the park. There were some small saplings planted there, and Dana told us that planting white flags on the ground indicated that new trees had been planted there. We surround the saplings with nutrient soil to help them grow vigorously.
Elementary school students are collecting sweet gum balls under some big trees Dana said these can also bring warmth to trees. While collecting balls, they also picked up large branches , and we gathered them together and placed them in the same place. The park staff will take them away and turn them into sawdust for the next time we need it.
During the break time, Dana told us about types of trees like the maidenhair tree or also known as the ginkgo biloba, which came from parts of China. We learned that for this tree there are two types, the male version, and the female version. The male is more commonly grown due to the fact that it doesn’t produce nuts or flowers. People don’t like the nuts because they have a coating on the outside that smells terrible, to ensure that the visitors will not smell these fumes, we only grow male versions.The smell though it’s revolving, it helps the tree grow because due to the smell animals don’t want to eat its nuts which lets it reproduce. Even with all the protection it has due to smell, it’s still eaten in parts of the world. People from China have found a way to get past the smell and get to the nut inside, using this technique people can still eat it even though it stinks.
As the activity is coming to an end, we will finish half of the work and then we cleaned up the tools. We need to confirm that the returned tools are urgent. We are also conducting another inspection within our scope of work to confirm that no tools have been left behind. Because it is half finished we will come back for our next event to finish it completely.
Thank you Dana, Paul, and Jean for teaching us new knowledge. We look forward to the next event.
Our volunteers:
Jia Qi Liu (Angela): 3 hours
Hong Hao Liu (Alfred): 3 hours
Stephanie ShiRan You: 3 hours
Zihao Wang: 3 hours
Ethan Lin: 3 hours
Ryan Wu: 3 hours
Iokseng Lin: 3 hours
Iokting Lin: 3 hours
Ioknor Lin: 3 hours
Hannah Liu: 3 hours
Sophia Li: 3 hours
Aidan Zheng: 3 hours
Brandon Lin: 3 hours
Aiden Lin: 3 hours
Hannah Zheng: 3 hours
Sophia Lin: 3 hours
Hang Xu Yu: 3 hours
Song Hou: 3 hours
Darren Li: 3 hours
Albert Tang: 2 hours
Evina Liu: 1.5 hours
Report by: Stephanie ShiRan You
Reviewed by: Jia Qi Liu (Angela Liu)
