Two New Grasses Bloom at the High School

A few years back, I spent an afternoon with some of Tim Anderson's science students collecting bags of Indian grass seed in a location where annual mowing allows prairie species to survive. This is the same Indian grass that flourishes in tallgrass prairies out west. In Princeton, it's most common along the petroleum pipeline right of way that cuts across the Princeton ridge, and in the meadows at Tusculum. Tim wanted to get some growing in the high school ecolab wetland on Walnut Street.

This is the first year they have grown up and flowered in significant numbers on some of the higher ground at the high school wetland. They have golden anthers that can be attractive in a subtle, hard-to-photograph sort of way.

Another grass at the wetland, planted this spring and now flowering, is wild rice, which grows wild along the Stony Brook and at Rogers Refuge. Like corn, it's an annual that grows to remarkable size in one season. The wild rice, when combined with the cattails, Jerusalem artichoke, duck potato, elderberries and, for carnivores, the thriving crawdad population, is making the wetland look more edible all the time. This photo reproduces exactly what the flower head looks like when I have my glasses off.

Duck potato,a.k.a. arrowhead, is also blooming this time of year,

along with mistflower (Eupatorium coelestinum), which only grows to two feet high. It's ambitions are more horizontal than vertical, as it can get expansive and pushy if not surrounded by equally aggressive natives.

Cardinal flower (red) and boneset (white) are likely no longer blooming when this is finally posted. If you visit the wetland now, the dominant color may be yellow, with tickseed sunflower and the native tuberous sunflower called "jerusalem artichoke" taking over the stage.

Raingarden Plantlist

I've been asked a number of times what plants were used in establishing the raingarden on Harrison Street just south of Hamilton Ave. The garden was designed and installed by Curtis Helm, with some help from me. Plants were donated by Curtis' friends at Pinelands Nursery. This photo was taken at the end of June, just as the tall Joe-Pye-Weeds and smooth oxeyes (yellow) were starting to bloom.

The garden was densely planted several years ago with about 330 plants--ten each of two kinds of ferns, 7 shrubs, and about 25 each of various wildflowers, sedges, rushes and grasses. There are many other species that can be used, but these have worked well together. Hardest hit during this summer's drought were the monkey flowers and ferns.

Swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata), turtlehead (Chelone glabra), Joe-Pye-Weed (Eupatorium maculatum), Sweet smooth oxeye (Heliopsis helianthoides), Blue flag iris (Iris versicolor), soft rush (Juncus effusus), Cardinal flower (Lobelia cardinalis), Great lobelia (Lobelia syphilitica), Monkey flower (Mimulus ringens), Sensitive fern (Onoclea sensibilis), Cinnamon fern (Osmunda cinnamomea), Switch grass (Panicum virgatum), Woolgrass (Scirpus cyperinus), seaside goldenrod (Solidago sempervirens), and Virginia sweetspire (Itea virginica).

Most of these can be found growing wild in the Princeton area, with the exception of oxeye, seaside goldenrod and Itea virginica.

Peak Bloom at the High School Wetland

If peak bloom falls on a week when there's no one at the school to appreciate it, does it make a sound? They say the composer Scriabin could see colors in music, so it's not farfetched to hear a fusion of rock and jazz in this blooming frenzy, a foretelling of what will emanate from the building just beyond it come September.

In full voice, for anyone passing by on Walnut Street, are Hibiscus moscheutos (white or pink), boneset and daisy fleabane (white), cutleaf coneflower, sunflower and black-eyed susan (yellow), cardinal flower (red), and pickerel weed (blue).

Tour of HS Ecolab Wetland This Saturday

This Saturday, June 19, a highly bikeable tour of "environmentally smart approaches to building, landscaping, gardening, and managing waste" in Princeton. This event, from 11-3, was organized by the Princeton Environmental Commission. Check out the map and descriptions at www.sustainableprinceton.org, and visit the stops in any order you choose.
Two garden installations that I helped start will be on the tour. I will be at the Princeton High School ecolab wetland from 1-3 to offer plant by plant commentary, and will be putting up interpretive signs there and at the Harrison St. raingarden this week in preparation for the tour. A new raingarden I installed this spring is not on the tour, but can be found in front of the Whole Earth Center on Nassau Street. The extraordinary gardens at Riverside Elementary will also be on display, as well as the fine facilities at D&R Greenway for growing native plants.

Here are some photos from the High School wetland:

The magical mystery sump pump that feeds water from the high school basement into the wetland. It comes on every twenty minutes or so, regardless of weather--a humble but highly beneficial version of Old Faithful in Yellowstone Park.

The cool, clear waters of the sump pump feed a pond--one of three in the wetland-- that teems with crayfish,

which grow to considerable size.

Silky dogwood is one of the shrubs, planted on some of the higher ground in the wetland. Other shrubs include: elderberry, indigo bush, swamp rose, buttonbush, winterberry and red chokeberry. Blackhaw Viburnum, a more upland species, also grows here on relatively high ground.

There's lots of blue flag iris planted here to show off this native that is seldom seen growing in the wild. The yellow flag iris, common in Princeton's wetlands, is an introduced species.

Seeing Promise in a Puddle

Some people might look at this December scene and see a drainage problem. I see a spot begging to become a wetland garden, so that some small portion of stately but static grounds can be devoted to habitat and color.

A Whole Lotta Buddin' Goin' On

There's been an air of anticipation the past couple weeks as some of the biggest and brightest wetland wildflowers have been getting ready to bloom. These are some of the buds quickly developing in the July sun.

The first photo shows the buds of Joe Pye Weed.

Buds of Hibiscus moscheutos (Princeton's one native Hibiscus species)

Cutleaf Coneflower, just starting to open.

The beginnings of Boneset flowers, with pickerelweed in the background.

Photos were taken at the Princeton High School ecolab wetland, tucked inbetween the two new wings of the school on Walnut Street. If you're out for a walk, the wetland makes for a nice visit. There's a sidewalk all the way around it. The canal towpath, between Harrison St. and Washington Rd. is another great spot to see many of these flowers.

High School Ecolab Wetland--Early Summer Edition

Planted two years ago, the Princeton High School wetland is coming along. We've been nurturing the natives, pulling out the weeds or covering them with black plastic. Each year, a few new species get added. Here's what's blooming:

Pickerelweed blooms all summer long, and likes its feet in water.

Black-eyed Susans were bought from Pinelands Nursery and planted in drier areas of the wetland several years ago. It grows naturally in the meadows at Tusculum in Princeton.

Sweet Bergamot, rather than its red-flowered relative Beebalm, is native to the Princeton area.

Daisy Fleabane, a weedy but attractive native that shows up of its own accord.

Red Clover, though not native, is not invasive.

High School Ecolab Wetland--Spring Edition

A detention basin is a dug out area designed to collect rainwater from roofs and parking lots and hold it for awhile after storms. Usually they are designed without thought to their potential as wildlife habitat, and are planted with high-maintenance turf. When located at a high school, it sounds like a place where water is told to go when it's been bad.

This basin was converted to a wetland, planted with native species and informally stocked with native frogs, fish and possibly a turtle. It is fed by an eternal spring, which is the romantic name I'm giving to the sump pump that sends groundwater from the school basement into the wetland every twenty minutes or so, year-round, rain or shine. The steady water supply allows a greater variety of native wetland species to prosper.

After two years and some t.l.c. from teacher Tim Anderson, his students, myself and others, the native plants have become well established. An early bloomer is the marsh marigold. This showy native species is difficult or impossible to find growing in the wild in Princeton, but flourishes in this constructed wetland. (Frequently mistaken for marsh marigold is the bright yellow flower that has colonized many local floodplains--an invasive exotic plant called Lesser Celandine--see April 27, 2007 post.)

The blooms of a species of willow planted in the ecolab wetland were a pleasant surprise. Though native, willow tends to be an aggressive grower that may need to be controlled to allow other species to coexist.

This spring, a pair of mallards showed up, and seemed to give serious consideration to breeding there.

Fall's Last Flowers

From the outside looking in, the Princeton High School wetland ecolab looks pretty spent, as it should by the end of October. But a few flowers are hanging on.


This post's second photo is of native black-eyed susan blooming on top of black plastic laid down to contain weeds in some areas.

Third photo is of Helianthus tuberosa, a.k.a. Jerusalem Artichoke--a strangely named native sunflower whose tubers were eaten by American Indians. It's now grown as an edible ornamental.


The pale blue flower in the fourth photo is mistflower--a native perennial that looks like an exotic annual that's sold at nurseries.
Though most flowers are lingering from the summer, the fourth photo shows marsh marigold, a spring bloomer that the weather apparently fooled into blooming in the fall.

In the fifth photo, red clover, a good example of an exotic species that doesn't take over.

The last photo shows not a flower but the color of silky dogwood, a native shrub often found in the wild.

A New Raingarden on Harrison Street

Sometimes you just have to seize the day, take an idea and run with it. Borough resident Curtis Helm called me one day with an idea for a rainwater garden in front of the Senior Center at Spruce Circle. We found a nice sunny spot that could be fed by water from the nearby roofs. Curtis drew up a design and plant list, I met with Scott Parsens, head of the Princeton Housing Authority, who then got the go-ahead from the housing board. A day later, Curtis had already picked up plants donated by Pinelands Nursery.

This past weekend, serenaded by traffic noise on Harrison Street, Curtis broke new ground, so to speak, using his trusty old TroyBuilt roto tiller to remove the sod. We then recontoured the ground with shovels, digging out dirt and building a berm to catch the runoff from nearby downspouts.

The next day Curtis planted a host of native wildflowers, rushes and ferns--Cardinal Flower, JoePyeWeed, Sunflower, Swamp Milkweed, Smooth Rush, Sensitive Fern to name a few. Switchgrass and Virginia Sweetspire will be planted on the berms. Some woodchip mulch around the edges, a trimming of the shrubs, signs to explain it all to passersby, and the raingarden's birth will be complete.

Rainwater enters from the upper and lower righthand corners, accumulates to six inches or so, then seeps in over several hours, providing the plants with an underground reservoir of water to feed on as their roots grow.

I like to think of this as "sunken bed" gardening, as opposed to raised beds.