Friends of River View Natural Area Stewardship Page

Stewardship

FoRVNA is the official Stewardship Partner with Portland Parks & Recreation (Aka City Nature West). You can read the Agreement [HERE].

Stewardship Events and Advisories

Stewardship Events are scheduled by City Nature West (Portland Parks Bureau). Registration is required for our last event was capped at 20 (We fell short!) Once registered, volunteers get an Email with the meeting location. Volunteers should not show up without registering.

Advisories are about paid contractors doing work under supervision of city staff.

No Ivy Day! October 25, 2025, 9am-12pm

This event will be a collaboration between Portland Parks and Westside Watersheds. You must register for this event.

COMING SOON: a link to an on-line sign up form. Check back one week prior to the event. Assembly area disclosed to registrants.

ADVISORY! Cutting Tree Ivy, Treating Ground Ivy & Weeds with Herbicides, October 2-4, 2024

The city is planning to conduct more vegetation maintenance work at River View Natural Area on October 2, 3 and 4. They will be working with their regular forest management contractor, R. Franco Restoration, to hand cut tree ivy and treat ground ivy and other weeds with herbicide. This work will take place throughout the entire site, as a continuation of implementing the River View Natural Area Management Plan. Either Marshall Johnson or Bee Sinichko will be on site with the contractor each day.

Submitted by: Marshall Johnson | Natural Resource Ecologist | West Lands Stewardship | Portland Parks & Recreation | Marshall.Johnson @ portlandoregon.gov

Let Marshall know if you have any questions or concerns about the work.

ADVISORY! Localized Spraying MONDAY May 13, 2024

It is well into our annual garlic mustard management season, and City Nature West will have a crew coming through the Natural Area on Monday, May 13h, to do some spot spray treatment, and hand pulling.

City staff Marshall Johnson will be on site with the crew. Signage will be posted at the trailheads and along the roadsides around the work areas. (This action was deferred one week due to rain.)

From Marshall, Natural Resource Ecologist: "We use two different herbicides that are approved for use in natural areas like River View - one is Aquaneat which is a glyphosate product. The other one is Vastlan, which is a triclopyr product."

Read more under 'Invasive Species' on our Issues page: [LINK]

Weekday, March 30, 2022

FoRVNA and joiners helped Parks remove Irish Ivy at a Stewardship Event on a weekday, March 30, 2022!

Yes, you read that correctly, Irish, not English Ivy. There is a difference!

Attending were four Friends of RVNA, a Lewis&Clark College professor, a dedicated city-wide volunteer ‘John’, and a parent with four school kids. The event was led by Mary Verrilli of City Nature West (PP&R).

Here is a pre-event photo of a FoRVNA threesome, and a photo of Mary demonstrating how to mince pulled Ivy for on-site decomposition to John and two schoolboys. Not pictured: a “forest” Gnome on its way to a rest home.

FoRVNA Stewardship Event History

Four stewardship events were held in 2017: Jan 14, April 1, July 8, and on October's No Ivy Day. One event was held in 2016 on Saturday, October 29th. No events were held in 2018-2021! (The city-wide stewardship 'workparty' calendar is [404]).

A few reports from past stewardship events

Many Ivy Pulls, Plantings, and trash cleanups were held after the property was first acquired, prior to FoRVNA formation. We don't have a list of them (yet). This section is about FoRVNA-promoted events going back in time.

Saturday, October 28th, 2017 — Ivy Pull

New little ivy vines are typically pulled up out of the ground, not down from trees. Learn about controlling invasive english ivy. Many projects sites run from 9:00am—Noon with a lunch celebration to follow at specific sites. This is the 14th annual No Ivy Day for the Portland area!

Saturday, July 8, 2017 — Trail Maintenance and Erosion Control

Good turnout! Thirty registered and with those who showed up, we had two teams of 8 to 10 people, not counting staff. Photos tell the story.

This sign was pulled up on April 1 when Trail #4 was closed (below Trail #5). The task of relocating it was saved for this crew. We shovel-dug a hole and re-set the signpost in the clay.

One of the teams worked on the closed Trail #4, cutting in diversions for water runoff, and also placed woody chunks and available downed branches into the deeply eroded channels, with the goal of returning this awful trail to the forest floor! The other team, worked on a better segment for a different trail down below. (No photo or details.. sorry!)

This shows how gorgeous and green the day was — a few crew members heading back up hill.

Volunteers for this event registered via SOLVE OREGON.

Saturday, April 1, 2017 — 9am-Noon — Native Plantings and Trail Maintenance

This resulted in the closing of Trail 4, beyond where Trail 5 came into it.

Saturday, March 11, 2017 — Native Planting

We had a good turn out, some directly from PP&R website, some via SOLV site, and a group of students from L&C College. Nick Sweeney & Son from South Burlingame was there, as were a number of family/kid teams. Before we even set out, a Kinglet was spotted just inside the natural area!

This is how a 'planting' works — staff had already placed hundreds of colored flags in the area to be planted. Volunteers took a bunch of root stock from bags that had been brought to the site.

Root Stock provided fpr PLanting (from Metro facilty)

Each bag had a colored flag. We were given instructions for handling and planting, and went to work! We also removed English Ivy near the flag, and removed whatever human junk we found. The ivy was hand twisted, and left to decay.

We planted 450 root stock natives, 5 varieties: including elderberry, snowberry, ?, ?, ... Root stock is like sticks with some roots on one end and buds on the other half!

We planted an additional 200 potted plants called 'Fringe Cup'.

It was a muddy Saturday morning, but the sky did not rain on us much. Good Fun!

Saturday, January 14, 2017 — Native Planting

Cancelled due to snow and ice!

Saturday, October 29, 2016 — No Ivy Day

Ivy Pull...

People may think of an IVY PULL as pulling Ivy down from trees but that is not the case. There are two things done with Ivy. First, it's most important to cut ivy vines at the base of all trees and remove the ivy roots from the ground. The sky-high ivy will cease 'fruiting' (birds spread ivy berries!) and start to wither. Once the huge vines are under control, the next (on-going) effort is to pull up little Ivy starts (that arise from ivy roots infesting the ground, never quite completely removed, and from berries dropped by birds coming in from ivy outside the natural area. (The city also sprays for ivy at certain times.) Visit NoIvyLeague.com for more about this program.

The Event this year, was pulling up little ivys, lopping them into pieces to aid decomposition. We always pick up trash and old stuff (Tires, shoes!) found in the work area.

At the end of the ivy pull, the group broadcast a native seed mix.. more valuable per pound than gold, we were told!