The Fairmount Organic Recycling Center

An old post but it's still valuable information for Philadelphia residents. Need compost take your buckets, ID and get some compost for your garden. 









Lauren McEwen

If you are a Philadelphia resident and a gardener, then RUN, don't walk to the the Fairmount Organic Recycling Center located at 3850 Ford Road in Fairmount Park.

It may not look like much from the entrance, but you've come to the right place!

The Organic Recycling Center is an amazing resource that many gardeners don't realize they have access to. For residential use, city residents may obtain free compost, mulch, wood chips and herbivore manure. Residents are allowed to take up to 30-gallons of material per trip, and to make up to two trips per week. Giant logs are also available for cutting into firewood at no charge. You must provide your own tools, and a chain saw and splitter are recommended for cutting logs into firewood. For the organic materials, I would suggest bringing gardening gloves, a shovel, and a tarp or plastic sheeting to protect your trunk from any spillage.

Residents that wish to obtain more than the free allotment must purchase the materials. Non-residents, landscapers, garden centers, contractors and soil dealers can also purchase materials, which can be loaded into trucks and trailers with a front end loader by Park Staff. 

The Organic Recycling Center Office is the building in the center.

Upon arrival, residents must stop in the office to provide their driver's license to Recycling Center staff to demonstrate proof of residency. Residents must also complete a daily log-in sheet and waiver form prior to loading materials onto their vehicles. There are a few shovels in the office that you may borrow, but I would suggest bringing your own. 

Today I'm here for mulch.

For those driving cars, you can pull up directly next to the huge piles of organic material to load your containers. Trucks (even non-commercial ones) are not allowed in this area. Folks driving trucks must stay parked by the office and then load their containers onto a provided cart to wheel them over.

I like to bring six 5-gallon containers because I can still lift them when full.

I'm not able to produce enough of my own compost at home to fulfill all of my gardening needs, so the Organic Recycling Center is a resource that I greatly appreciate and use often. Maybe on my next trip I'll see you there!

The Fairmount Park Organic Recycling Center is located at:
3850 Ford Road, Philadelphia, PA 19131
215-685-0108

Hours of Operation:
Monday-Friday 7:30AM-3PM

Saturday Hours:
April 1 - October 31
7:30AM-11:30AM

Cloverly Park:What Dedicated Neighbors Can Accomplish

By Pat Vance

Today, Cloverly Park in west Germantown is a beloved neighborhood jewel: a place to sit in the shade of century-old trees, to enjoy the toddler-friendly play equipment, and to wander on quiet paths among an array of flowers from March to October.

In 1916, Cloverly Park, a two-acre parcel donated to Fairmount Park by the E. W. Clark family and once the site of its “fine mansion,” was lovely enough to warrant placement of Paul Manship’s “Duck Girl” sculpture that now graces Rittenhouse Square. 

Thirty years ago, though, it was a weed-choked ruin used by drug dealers and prostitutes. Enraged by rapes in the park in the mid-1980s, the neighbors had had enough. With the bare-bones Fairmount Park staff overwhelmed and underfunded, a small group of people led by Hap Haven and the Westside Neighborhood Council took matters into their own hands.

They removed abandoned cars and filled in deep ruts. Invasive species, including mature Ailanthus and poison ivy as thick as ropes, were chopped down, pulled out, and hauled away. And they filled bag after bag with trash and garbage.

Over the next decade, a dedicated group continued the reclamation. Their goals were to provide a safe place for families to bring young children to play and to create a beautiful public garden and mini-arboretum.

In 1993, Hap was joined by neighbors Cecelia McColgan and Julie O’Connell in working with Fairmount Park to secure a $50,000 allocation for large-scale improvements, including installing play equipment for toddlers, removing dead and diseased trees, and constructing an herbaceous perennial border. Through small grants from Weaver’s Way Environmental Committee, the group was able to augment donations of plant materials from the park’s friends and neighbors and enlarge the gardens.

Mayor Ed Rendell was so impressed with the group’s accomplishments that he accepted the group’s invitation to attend Cloverly’s rededication in 1996 and presented awards to Hap, Cecelia, and Julie.

The Friends of Cloverly Park were well known as successful, resourceful park stewards when the mayor’s office began its Growing the Neighborhood program, and in late 2004, Cloverly was selected to receive $20,000 in improvement funds. Through the efforts of the large volunteer team, the award funded installation of extensive border gardens; 1,000 feet of fencing; a new brick entrance, six new trees, dozens of shrubs to create a green “buffer” between the park and adjacent residences, and arbor care for the park’s mature trees, some of which were planted before the early 1900s. 

With subsequent improvement grants through the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, matched with donations from the park’s neighbors, including Post Brothers, the group replaced the park’s old wooden benches, many of which had been vandalized or were in disrepair, and planted more trees. Neighbor Ted Ellerkamp contributed countless hours to rehabilitate a barren area into an inviting shaded "pathway garden" that connects the deep shade garden to the park’s sunny “meadow" area.

In the last two years, largely through the Fairmount Park Conservancy’s free tree program for park groups, the Friends of Cloverly have planted an additional 13 trees as part of their ongoing effort to ensure successors for the park’s mature trees. And every year, flowering plants of many kinds are added into the park’s borders to increase color and texture.

The park logs in more than 1,200 volunteer hours every year. Among the park’s best friends are the men of Drexel University’s chapter of Pi Kappa Alpha, who have contributed more than 1,000 hours since 2005 and who helped with many of the major projects during the Growing the Neighborhood initiative.

While new people continue to join, many of the original volunteers remain
actively involved, including Hap Haven. Ellen Wert, Mark Kearney, Kathleen Wert, and Mark Bardsley are leaders of Friends of Cloverly Park, providing hours of dedication and effort to make Cloverly one of the loveliest public parks in the city. They organize twice yearly clean-up days that are enthusiastically attended and, recently added an annual plant sale.

 

Cloverly was awarded first prize in PHS’s City Gardens Contest in seven of the last eight years, taking second place in the remaining year. In 2014, the park was named a “Garden of Distinction” by PHS for “motivating people to improve the quality of life and create a sense of community through horticulture.”

Margaret Meade said, “Never doubt that a group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world…” The Friends of Cloverly Park have most assuredly proved that Meade was right.

Pennypack Park Philadelphia……Volunteer day.

Diane Podolsky

Pennypack Environmental Center in NE Philadelphia was the site of a recent volunteer opportunity. Two gardens needed tending, as the center is short staffed and relies on volunteers for these types of projects.

The rain garden, which fortunately was already graded, was cleared and new plants were added to the very lonely but thriving cardinal flowers. Master Gardeners suggested the addition of  Cinnamon fern, swamp milkweed, turtlehead, and lobelia as suitable plants for the site.

The most interesting was the Demonstration Garden that is used as a scented garden for visitors, public programs, and groups of children from schools and camps. The purpose of this garden is to have useful plants, especially ones that have a sensory impact. There are several lemon scented plants (verbena, lemon grass, lemon balm) as well as mints (bee balm, peppermint, spearmint) and kitchen herbs, several of which (the sage, rosemary, and basil) had to be replaced. Some of the more unusual additions are cotton and stevia, which is very sweet, and horseradish. We also added some scented geranium, lavender, and lamb's ear.  


The Center also put in a brand new downspout planter which directs rain off the roof and into a large planter.  A variety of native grasses and stiff goldenrod were added to the planter.