Fighting back against the weeds

The agonizing pain, the humanity, and the terrible torture that is the constant effort of pulling weeds at a riverside is immeasurable by any mortal being. The crawling through mud while wearing the tight torture chambers that men call jeans is nothing short of inhumane. All of this is due to an event known as the City of Glendale’s Riverwalk Workday.

Every month, volunteers gather to work along the Glendale Narrows Riverwalk, an area of landscaped biking and walking paths located on the edge of the Los Angeles River, near the Golden State and Ventura Freeways. Their mission: to eradicate every non-native plant that rears its head from the ground, damaging the entire ecosystem. The Riverwalk area took root back in 2008, when John Pearson, who then worked for the City of Glendale, served as the project manager for the construction of the Riverwalk.

When Pearson retired from his job, he and his friend, Marc Stirdivant, established the monthly activity of gathering volunteers every third Sunday to weed out all non-native flora. Pearson’s grand plan is to turn the Riverwalk into a luscious oasis, clean the nearby river, and then place a bridge connecting the Riverwalk to Griffith Park. (Just recently, the City agreed to seek funding for this bridge.)

It so happened that I recently participated in this activity. The hike started early in the morning in the parking lot of the Glendale Narrows Riverwalk. As nearly 10 participants gathered here, Stirdivant and Pearson organized the members and listed the activities that would occur. From this point, the members were dispersed to clean up the riverside. I decided to invite a friend of mine, fellow junior Alec Badalian, and together we walked up towards the end of the park.

For our job we were given a pair of work gloves and a hand weeder tool, used for rooting out the plants. After passing under a bridge that could most definitely use some maintenance, we arrived at our work site. To the left spanned the green areas of the Riverwalk covered in small trees and weeds. On the right was gushing the LA River covered in toppled trees, sunken piles of bushes and honking geese. Beyond that I could only see the rolling green hills of Griffith Park.

As I walked up the river bank, the clouds grew darker, foreshadowing the painful labor under the freezing California rain. Badalian and I took up a section at a time, slowly rooting out weeds one at a time. The process was slow, but, in a strange way, it was fun too. “It gives me this sense of accomplishment, as if I do something,” said volunteer Lissy Sheehy, “something small, but nonetheless the feeling of accomplishment makes it all the more fun.”

As the three hours slowly ticked away, we pulled weed after weed, and every time we looked back it felt as if new weeds popped where the old ones stood. Nonetheless, we were inspired by the need to save nature. “We remove the non-native plants because they harm the animals, like the geese and the other birds,” volunteer Anne McNeill said. “It goes on to rebuild the ecological balance.”

The park was filled mainly with pod grass. These were very resilient weeds forcing us to repeatedly stab the roots until we could yank them out. Then I was asked to remove dandelions and mulefat from the local hill. As we walked, Stirdivant, who serves as Senior Administrative Analyst of the Community Services & Parks Department, described each of the plants. “The pog grass,” he said, “are the ones that grow in barren land most often and set up deep roots so that they can spread easily.”

He further went on to describe the numerous types of weeds that grew in that area. There were so many of them, from dandelions to mulefat, stretching across the small piece of land, that it seemed as if we had ages of work to do.

When faced with these odds, and a nonstop feeling that the weeds keep growing no matter how much you root them out, an inevitable question arises. And so I asked the volunteer group if the actual project is at all effective. Both McNeil and Sheehy stated that the project is indeed effective. “If we didn’t work in this park, it would have already been overgrown with exotic plants,” McNeil said.

After an hour or so of pulling dandelions on the hill, we took a small break. Nothing felt better then being able to stand straight after spending around two hours hunched over. After a couple of granola bars, the work resumed. Moving further towards the eastern end of the small park, I noticed something strange. Behind a bench at the very corner of the park towered a very exotic plant. What its nature was remains a mystery to me, but its alien nature was confirmed to me by Pearson. “That’s the only non-native plant I decided to leave,” Pearson said. “Not only does it provide shade for the bench its also very beautiful.”

I resumed my work as it began to slightly drizzle. The rain made the job easier, but when I looked around I was surprised and yet inspired by the sight of people of all ages and types gathered here, under the rain, hunched over, with hand weeders and trimming scissors, cutting and pulling at every single weed to prolong the lifespan of this beautiful land. The effect was doubled by the fact that no one gained anything from the activity. Almost all those people lived away from the park, but they all came together, in the cold, to improve the look of this city, even if it is very slightly.

“I am very interested in vegetation,” said McNeil when explaining her reason for coming here. “It’s relaxing working around trees and plants, even in rain.”