City of Grand Junction parks crews are ramping up maintenance activities to keep grass, plants and trees healthy throughout the year. While staff have been busy this winter with facility-improvement projects, removing trees damaged by pests, and treating rights-of-way to prevent spring weed growth, maintenance priorities shift, and duties expand as the grass begins to grow.

Sprinkler systems are being turned back on for all 35 developed parks, where turf is crucial for sports such as soccer and lacrosse, and for more than 500 acres of right-of-way landscaping. The city has launched a program to convert turf to native plants in areas where turf is unnecessary or detrimental, such as medians along roadways.

Along with turning on irrigation, regular mowing begins and will continue until late fall. When maintenance equipment is operating in areas where residents or visitors are present, staff will ask individuals to move to another area.

In the second half of April, crews will apply products in parks to control or eliminate Japanese Beetles. While city crews focus on public spaces, residents are encouraged to apply pet- and human-safe treatment called GrubEx to their own lawns to help control the beetles.

In addition to dealing with pests, city park crews are combating weeds in public spaces. A systematic weed-treatment program was implemented this winter, attempting to greatly reduce weed growth as Grand Junction enters the growing season.

As warmer weather arrives, city staff have begun rotating the cleaning and monitoring of 16 city park restrooms, including those at Las Colonias, Dos Rios, Sherwood, Riverside, Westlake, Eagle Rim and Hawthorne parks.

Three parks – Duckpond, Rocket and Columbine – are open for the reservation/rental of shelters. These parks offer shelters with restroom facilities available for events such as graduations, birthday parties or neighborhood gatherings through an online reservation system on the city website.