Recent Activities

Arlington 4th of July Parade

Mollie and Mollie on the float	Thanks to Vandergriff Chevrolet for the use of the tow vehicle
For the third year, ACC has participated in Arlington's 4th of July Parade. The first two years, we used floats with a recycling theme. This year, we decided to switch to theme celebrating native plants and backyard wildscaping. It was another great success.
In the parking lot, ready to go.	Everyone's ready to walk the parade.
On the route, some get to ride :-)	Passin' in review.

Current Activities

Molly Hollar Wildscape Demonstration Gardens at Veterans Park
We've developed a wildscape demonstration garden at Veterans Park. For more information on work times, check out the Wildscape page.

Community Garden Effort

We are starting an effort to create a community garden in Arlington. This would be a centralized place where people can grow their own vegetables and herbs, with excess produce being given to charity. This is not an ACC-only effort. We're working with the Arlington Organic Garden Club on this, as well as other individuals, and hopefully other organizations to make this a community effort, not just an ACC effort. While we're working on a single garden at this time, the plan is really to eventually have several gardens throughout the town. The city of Coppell has two nice community gardens. Since Coppell has a population approximately one-tenth of Arlington, it seems that we could possibly have 20 community gardens scattered throughout the town. Stephen Smith is heading up this effort. There should soon be an area on this web site devoted to this effort.

Stephen Smith at one of the Coppell Community Gardens

New York Avenue Blackland Prairie workdays

This has been a continuing effort in prairie restoration at a blackland prairie remnant along New York Avenue is southeast Arlington. This 8 acres remnant is about the only pristine (as in unplowed, un-bulldozed, unpaved) piece of the blackland prairie left in Arlington, and due in part to ACC efforts, it was purchased as park land in a Park bond package a few years back.

Activities in General

ACC can be a little hard to define at times. Is it a twisted sort of garden club? A mini-Sierra Club whose boundaries are the city limits? People who just can’t abide litter? Or is it something else entirely, a group defined by the diverse interests and concerns of its members? A partial list of our activities last year may help define us, at least until we look back at the 2003 list.

November 2001-March 2002: Project FeederWatch with the 3rd grade at Hill Elementary School. Information is sent to Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology where it is analyzed with data from about 15,000 other sites in the US and Canada.

February 2: Grass Harvesting with John Snowden. Volunteers dug up large quantities of native grasses at a southwest Arlington site soon to be bulldozed. Twenty one-gallon containers of little bluestem ended up being planted at Veterans Park.

April 6: East Arlington Renewal Spring Fest. The festival was rained out, but we were there for the second year, this time with our recycling-themed game.

May 11-12: Pecan Street Festival. We presented our display and operated the game, and this was the first time we used our recycling bins.

April 18: UTA Earth Day. Stephen Smith made toy tops from waste bits of wood, and we explained our display to passing students and staff.

April 20: Second Annual Community Litter Challenge. We gathered trash of every possible kind from Richard Greene Linear Park by the Ballfield.

April 20: EarthFest at Martin Luther King Jr Sports Center. Once again we made kids happy with the game.

April 20: Special Parks Workday at Randol Mill Park. We helped with mulch, planting, and gardening in the Wildscape.

May 14: City Council. ACC received a check for second-place finish in the Community Litter Challenge. Organizer Roni Crotty and Mayor Odom offered the city’s thanks and encouragement. Maybe next year we’ll be back on top.

June 15: Natural Urban Living Garden Show. Thanks to AOGC, we presented our display and an illustrated talk on Wildscaping at Bob Duncan Community Center in Vandergriff Park June 22: Plant sale at Randol Mill Park greenhouse. Proceeds from sales of native plants propagated by ACC volunteers in the Randol Mill greenhouse benefited the Wildscape and the Parks Department.

July 4: Fourth of July Parade. ACC provided the first recycling at the parade in response to Lorrie Anderle’s hope that someone would start recycling at this thirsty event.

August 23: With ACC guides, Montessori Academy students explored the wildscape at their school.

September 14: First cleanup day at Center-Mesquite Bridges. Along with lots of Parks workers, we cut and hauled off invading willows, picked up some trash, and perspired.

September 21: Trinity Trash Bash. We set up the game near the hot dogs and were a big hit. We also provided recycling bins.

October 26: O.S. Gray Park workday. We helped spread mulch on new nature trails and look forward to further developments in this park.

October 12: Founders Park cleanup. We participated in one of Roni Crotty’s monthly trash days, in spite of having to wear the fluorescent orange vests.

November 16: First backyard compost class at Veterans Park compost site. Arlington Master Composter Don Graves taught his 2-hour class here, and more classes are planned. The site shows the kind of joint venture we really like: ACC, Arlington Master Composters, and the Parks Department have all contributed to this successful compost demonstration site. And the finished product goes directly back into the Wildscape.