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The Maple Street Gate and Friends If you ever had occasion to walk from the Robbins Library or the Rogers Pierce playground to Maple St, you likely noticed that the historic Maple Street Gate was in need of repair. The doorknob and latch disappeared long ago and sections had become very loose and required restoration. The Friends of the Robbins Town Gardens, of which I am a founding member, incorporated in June 2015. The Friends assists the Town of Arlington to protect, preserve, restore, and maintain the historic landscape and features in the Winfield Robbins Memorial Gardens as well as the grounds surrounding the Town Hall and the Whittemore-Robbins House. Noticing that the gate was in disrepair, the Friends encouraged the town to repair it. This past April, the gate…

“Relating to, or characterized by military aggression” is the Merriam-Webster definition of the word “invasive,” and one that fits Asian bittersweet, the most rampant four-star invading plant in the Robbins Town Gardens. The aggressor has no enemies except humans. Volunteers from the Arlington Garden Club, Massachusetts Master Gardeners and Friends of the Robbins Town Gardens work to keep the vine under control; and, for the most part, succeed. They have pulled down enormous strangling masses that have festooned trees; they have dug up—as much as possible—the tenacious carrot-orange roots; they have refused to be seduced by the red and gold berries; they pass the word: never plant Asian bittersweet! Like marauding Asian bittersweet, other unwanted, persistent plants in the Gardens, such as Japanese barberry and Multiflora rose, were first imported…