Cobbs Creek Community Environmental Center

05/29/2026

Happy to those who celebrate, we'd like to offer you a few freaks from our orchard for you to enjoy:

1+2. Walking Onions (Allium x proliferum)
We planted these perennial onions last fall with , and we're happy to see them thriving! Instead of developing flowers at their tips like most onions, walking onion develop miniature onion bulbs or 'bulblets'. Once these develop enough they begin to weigh down the top of the plant, and when it bends over enough to touch the ground, these bulblets take root and start to grow on their own! In this way, these plants "walk" around the garden year to year.

3+4. Solomon's Seal (Polygonatum sp.)
This was a surprise volunteer in the orchard, and a very interesting one at that! This unidentified species of Solomon's Seal grows nearly 4ft high! So cool to see, and it looks so different from the rest of our usual garden flowers!

5. Wrinkly Stinkhorn (Phallus rugulosus)
This gnarly fungus popped up in the orchard likely thanks to all the rain we've received over the last week or two. It smells almost as gross as it looks, but very colorful and cool to see!

Join us for Orchard Tenders next Thursday, or just stop on by anytime we're open to check out what other delights you might find in the orchard!

05/18/2026

Did you know that we have a Community Orchard? Filled with dozens of species of herbs, native flowers, and fruit-bearing trees/shrubs/vines, this orchard is both a learning space and a food producer!

Join us for "Orchard Tenders", a monthly volunteer orchard workday, every First Thursday from 10am-12pm!

Learn the basics of orchard care, discover how to identify some of the plants, and lend a hand in making this unique space even more beautiful! We'll be getting our hands dirty, so be sure to wear proper clothes and footwear. We'll provide the snacks, gloves, and tools :)

Register for free on our eventbrite page at TinyURL.com/CobbsEventReg or use the link in our bio

First Thursdays:
June 4th
July 2nd
August 6th
September 3rd
October 1st
November 5th
10am-12pm

05/13/2026

For this week's , we're taking a look at one of our favorite spring flowers - Eastern Red Columbine, or Aquilegia canadensis

This stunning native plant blooms from late April to early June in our area, and is putting on an absolute show right now!

We love Columbine for a number of reasons:
-It is a perennial that will happily spread itself. Not only will it return every year, but it will drop new seeds every summer to make plenty of new baby columbines! Plant it once and in just a few years you'll be rewarded with a whole patch of beauties to share with your friends ❤️

-So easy to grow! Columbine can thrive even in the most neglected corners of your garden. It doesn't need full sun, it'll do great in almost any sun conditions. Additionally, they are really tough in bad soil. You can put them in your rockiest, thinnest soil spots and they'll have no problems. In Philly gardens we're often searching for plants that don't mind shade, and columbines are a great choice for that purpose.

-This is a *classic* hummingbird plant. Hummingbirds tend to be most attracted to red flowers (we have the same taste!), and the long red tubes of the columbine contain nectar that can only be reached by long-tongued critters like hummingbirds, bees, moths, and butterflies.

Fun fact: speaking of birds, the scientific name "Aquilegia" comes from the Latin word for "eagle" (aquila), and refers to the talon-shaped flower spurs.

Swipe through to see the evolution of columbines through the spring, from the cute rosette leaves in the late winter, to the blossoms, seed, and in-between

05/11/2026

We had so much fun at our Mother's Day Bouquet Make & Take last week!

Participants learned the basics of how to arrange a bouquet, where to source flowers and foliage from (including some invasive plants right from our trails!), and how to care for arrangements to keep them looking healthy longer. Our favorite part was seeing how different each bouquet looked at the end, despite everyone using the same materials!

This was such a hit that we're interested in doing more bouquet workshops again in the future. Let us know in the comments what occasion when we should host the next one!

05/06/2026

SOLD OUT!

Thanks to so much interest in our Mother's Day Bouquet Workshop, the event is now sold out!

Were you interested in this event but not able to attend this time around? Leave a comment and let us know if we should do another bouquet workshop later this year!

05/05/2026

Celebrating 250 years - Philly is known as the “City of Firsts.” The First Mother’s Day Celebration was held in Philadelphia on Sunday, May 10,1908, supported by merchant John Wanamaker. Due to a massive turnout (around 15,000 people), the event included the John Wanamaker Store Auditorium and the plaza in front of City Hall. In celebration of our place in history join CCCEC for a Mother’s Day Bouquet Make & Take.

05/05/2026

05/04/2026