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Come celebrate the 5th anniversary of Friends of Rock Creek's Environment on Thursday, October 28, 2010.   Please join us for a festive evening at the British Embassy, a beautiful location bordering Rock Creek Park.  Mark your calendar now and keep an eye out for your invitation.  If you are not on our email list, please sign up in the e-News box in the upper right corner of this website.

Please help sponsor this special event!  By helping to underwrite the costs, you can ensure that all proceeds go toward FORCE's critical on-the-ground work in D.C. and Montgomery County.  In addition, you can help FORCE grow by inviting friends or neighbors who might be interested in our work to attend as your guests.  Click here to serve as a sponsor.

The British Embassy has joined forces with Friends of Rock Creek’s Environment to tackle English ivy in Rock Creek Park.

English ivy is an aggressive invader of Washington’s natural areas. This imported vine spreads from landscaped areas into Rock Creek Park, where it covers and smothers the plants that grow there naturally. English ivy grows up tree trunks and into the canopy. Ivy overgrowth weakens and eventually kills trees, and added weight makes it more likely that a tree or branch will fall during a storm.

On Earth Day, British Embassy staff members and their families and students from the British School cut, sawed, and pulled ivy that is choking trees in the Normanstone section of Rock Creek Park. The Embassy, located at 3100 Massachusetts Avenue NW in Washington, is across Massachusetts Avenue from the park. The British have already removed English ivy planted as part of the landscaping on their own property and then moved to save trees in the neighboring woodlands.  Click here for the  Public Radio story ("British Fight Rock Creek Invader").

Numerous embassies and ambassadors’ residences border Rock Creek Park.  FORCE has worked with the Embassy of Belgium to clear English ivy from Normanstone in January.

Thank you to all the great volunteers who turned out in April to haul trash out of parks along the entire length of Rock Creek.  It was a gorgeous day, and groups gathered at nearly 50 locations to collect cans, bottles, scrap metal, plastic, grocery carts, construction waste, and other trash.   Click here for a map of Rock Creek Extreme Cleanup locations. 

The Rock Creek Extreme Cleanup is part of the Alice Ferguson Foundation's 22nd Annual Potomac River Watershed Cleanup and is supported by a generous grant from REI.