To Weed a Wetland

The ecolab at Princeton High School--actually an upscale stormwater detention basin transformed by teachers, students and grounds crew into a wetland--is now in its second season. This photo shows some fox sedges that were part of the initial planting. Behind them is one of the miniponds, with cattails springing up. The dark green leaves and blue flowers at the far side of the pond are pickerelweed, which will bloom throughout the summer. The image in the photo is one of soft, grassy vegetation next to water, beauty and repose. Relax and enjoy it, for the moment, because the next photo is of the same ecolab from another, less flattering angle.


I put this photo in to show how deceptive a pretty picture of a garden can be. Here, the wetland looks more like a war zone, and in some ways it is. The carcasses of weeds lay desiccating on broad strips of black plastic layed down to suppress growth in areas not yet planted with natives.

Though the ecolab is a wetland, it is still a garden, and actions taken this second season will determine whether all the native wildflowers and sedges planted the first year will thrive or be overwhelmed by (mostly exotic) weeds. Will a feel-good project (native plants, wetlands, schoolkids, butterflies, birdhouses) actually live up to its billing, or will it fade beneath a blanket of bindweed, horseweed and a wave of exotic grasses.

With students and teachers mostly dispersed to farflung locales for the summer, the weeds have a perfect opportunity to prosper and turn good intentions into chaos. Most communities don't have a niche for someone with the knowledge and time to care for a planting like this, which is one reason why most of the urban landscape is a boring combination of trees and turf that offers little habitat for wildlife. That's where I come in, with support from the nonprofit Friends of Princeton Open Space and help from a summer intern from Princeton University. We've been augmenting the efforts of teacher Tim Anderson, spending a couple hours a week pulling weeds and adding to the initial planting with native Hibiscus, green bulrush and cutleaf coneflower grown from local seed.

In this photo, you can see the challenge of figuring out what to pull and what to leave. The heart-shaped leaves on the left are of marsh marigold, a native that graced the wetland early this spring with yellow flowers. The oval leaves to the right are plantain, a common exotic weed that, like all the others, we try to pull before its seeds mature. The flat leaves at the top of the photo are blue flag iris, another native.

Interestingly, the plant most people think of as iconic in wetlands--cattail--is one of the biggest threats to the ecolab, as its expansionist tendencies could easily crowd out all the less aggressive natives, reducing the site to a near monoculture.

It sounds intimidating, but the work is made much easier by being strategic--pulling new cattails before they get firmly rooted, pulling exotic weeds when the ground is soft and before they produce seeds. One of the conveniences of a wetland garden is that the soil is very often soft, so that weeds pull easily. Another plus is that the native wildflowers grow with such vigor, making weeding around them all the more rewarding. As this is written, the JoePyes are about to bloom--a good time to pay a visit. The ecolab wetland is on Walnut Street, across from Westminster Conservatory.

Nature Walk Sunday, June 29, 2pm

Princeton's Autumn Hill Reservation is our next destination for a nature walk and plant inventory (see previous post for last week's). The preserve is on the eastern side of Princeton, on Herrontown Road just west of Snowden Lane. Head east from downtown on Nassau Street, take a left on Snowden (traffic light). Follow Snowden past the turnoffs for Smoyer Park and Herrontown Woods, then take a left where the road deadends at Herrontown Road. Autumn Hill Reservation parking is a short way up on the right.

For more info on Autumn Hill Reservation, and a trail map, follow these links:

http://www.princetontwp.org/authill.html
http://www.njtrails.org/trailguide.php?TrailID=97

Woodfield Reservation

This summer, I'm leading walks Sunday afternoons in various nature preserves in Princeton. The goal is to better our acquaintance with the various preserves, and also to conduct plant inventories along the trails that will be published later this year in the Princeton Environmental Resource Inventory (ERI). The ERI is being updated for the first time since 1978.

Our first outing was to Woodfield Reservation, located on the northwest side of town, near Princeton Day School. The preserve's trails are in excellent condition, thanks in particular to all the work that volunteer Andrew Love of nearby TenAcre has done over the years.

There were many pleasant surprises along the way. The first photo shows spires of black cohosh just about to bloom. For some reason, native species like maple-leaved Viburnum, a leguminous vine called Hog Peanut, and various ferns are more abundant here than at Mountain Lakes Preserve. There's also an impressive patch of maidenhair fern.


A map (found on the web at njtrails.org) is very useful for navigating to Council Rock (framed by the elbowed tree in the photo), which lives up to its name, jutting out over a broad, rock-strewn valley--a great playscape for kids.

Rising from the valley are towering tulip poplars and black gum. The photo shows black gum's distinctive bark.

A Giant in the Garden

One native wildflower in the backyard garden showed unexpected vertical ambitions this spring. The Tall Meadow Rue is making its name sound like an understatement, having risen from the ground to a height of 9 feet. Its flowers are just opening, like a galazy of stars that attract a distinctively diminuitive bee to pollinate them.

Also just opening are two kinds of yellow flower--Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta) and Purple-Headed Sneezeweed (Helenium flexuosum).

Another native blooming now is Adam's Needle (Yucca filamentosa), which looks like an import from the desert. It's striking white spires can be seen at the entryways of Pettoranello Gardens and Potts Park.

Black Bear Update

A second black bear was sighted in Princeton yesterday. Here is info copied from an email circulated, I believe, by the district school superintendent:

There have been sightings of a young male bear throughout the
community over recent days, including yesterday, the 16th of
June.Township and Borough police officers are well aware of the
situation and animal control has been tracking the bear. Today alone
it was in Smoyer Park, by the lake at the end of Harrison and in other
areas near Riverside and Littlebrook Schools. And then he retreated
through the woods behind the homes on Herrontown Road, into the areas
of the gas pipeline and back towards the northwest. He enjoyed the
garbage at Smoyer Park . So do not put garbage out the night before
pick ups, and make sure you have clean grills in your back yards.

This is the information from the Animal Control Officer:

The bear is a 100-125 pound young male and has been non-aggressive.

Be aware of your surroundings.

If you spot the bear, calmly raise your hands, clap your hands briefly
and make sure the bear knows you are there.

Don't startle the bear. It will probably run away.

You should call the police with the time and location of the
sighting.

Black Bear in the Borough!

A Safety Alert from Princeton University

Date: Saturday, June 7, 2008

Incident: Black Bear Sighting

The Department of Public Safety is alerting community members about a reported sighting of a black bear in Princeton Borough. The bear was seen by Princeton Borough Police at about 9 a.m. today. In addition a bear sighting was reported in Princeton Township and Montgomery Township on Friday, June 6, 2008, in the evening hours.

Princeton Borough Police, Princeton Township Police, the municipal Animal Control Officer, and the New Jersey Division of Wildlife Fish and Game were alerted to this report.

The borough police reported the bear was seen on Cleveland Lane, Westcott Drive and Pardoe Road. It was last seen heading west by Mountain Avenue and Great Road.

The bear did not come into contact with any person, nor did it present any threat. Do not approach the bear or attempt to feed it.

If you see a bear, please contact the Princeton Borough Police, Princeton Township Police, the University's Department of Public Safety, or dial 911 and give the exact location of the animal. Leave the area calmly and slowly.

How To Kill Bamboo, Phase 3

One of the chief activities, perhaps the primary activity, of any avid plant lover and gardener is to kill plants--specifically those which are clearly determined to overwhelm the plants you love. Most people politely call it weeding.

One of the greatest weeds of all has been moving into my yard from the rental next door. The landlord tried to get rid of it, but gave up. Last year, I decided to take it on, sharpened my sword (loppers), donned my armor, picked my moment and charged. Phase 1 was to cut every last stem at its base. The bamboo played dead for a week, then sent multitudinous shoots rocketing up into the air. Rather than rush in with more loppering, I sat back and waited while the beast spent its energy on stems. Then, as the ten foot high stems began to send out leaves that could fuel the serpent's roots, I moved in with my loppers and again cut every last one down to the ground. The bamboo attempted no more grand growth before winter.

This spring, however, it has again sent an army of shoots into the air, and again I waited as it invested in infrastructure. Then, just as it began to unveil its solar panels to draw energy from the sun (see photo), I cut the shoots at the ground.

The strategy here, as with english ivy discussed in another post, is to starve the plant of energy. Plants metabolize constantly, which means they need energy to maintain their tissues. If deprived of leaves over a long enough period, a plant will eventually exhaust its energy reserves.

We'll see what the bamboo tries next.

June Blooms

Here's what's bloomin' in early June at Mountain Lakes Preserve and elsewhere in Princeton, shrubwise. On your left are the spires of Indigo Bush (Amorpha fruticosa), which grows along the banks of ponds, mostly, and was getting lots of attention from pollinators when I paid it a visit. I just learned that it is highly invasive in Hungary. But here it mixes well with other natives.



Bike the streets of Princeton and you'll see lots of Korean dogwoods (Cornus kousa) with 4-petaled blooms crowding their branches, sometimes so thick they look like snow. The one in the photo grows in front of Mountain Lakes House. Very pretty, and not invasive that I've noticed. The native flowering dogwood (Cornus florida), which produces excellent berries for fall migrants, blooms a few weeks earlier.





Learn to recognize Multiflora Rose and you'll start seeing it everywhere. It's part of the default landscape in town, sprouting up along fencelines, and does an altogether too good a job of crowding out native species in the local preserves. It was intentionally introduced to the U.S. to make "living" fences on farms, and has gone well beyond its intended role, having escaped to make most of our woods impenetrable.





Since this is a Viburnum, I was hopeful it was a native, but it turns out to be Viburnum dilitatum, an ornamental that has invaded local woods. We're starting to remove it from Mountain Lakes Preserve, despite its attractive blooms. Please resist planting it in your yard.

Whatever insects are around don't show much interest in any of these white flowers, for some reason.

Picnic and Presentations June 12

On Thursday, June 12, the Princeton Environmental Commission will host a picnic, followed by two presentations geared to the general public. The event will take place at the township's Mountain Lakes House, 57 Mountain Ave in Princeton. All are welcome.

Events will be as follows:

6pm: An indoor/outdoor picnic on the patio and lawn overlooking the lakes. Children are welcome. Bring your own sandwiches and salads. The Environmental Commission will provide seating, entertainment, cold beverages, and dessert.

7pm: Presentation of the PEC's third annual Sustainable Princeton Leadership Awards.

7:30-8:30pm: Presentation of the draft Environmental Resource Inventory for the two Princetons.

The environmental resource inventory brings together information about Princeton's watersheds, geology, rare species, climate and soils. It catalogs historic buildings, schools, demographics and transportation.

Princeton's last resource inventory was in 1978, and was in great need of an update. The PEC paid for this environmental study using borough and township funds and a matching grant from The Association of NJ Environmental Commissions (ANJEC). The study is being carried out by the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC), with input from the PEC and borough/township staff. The public presentation will provide community members an opportunity to learn more about Princeton's natural and historical resources.

One aspect that the inventory does not include is a detailed survey of plant and animal life. That's the part of it I'll be working on, and I welcome anyone in the community who has the knowledge and interest to help put together biological inventories of Princeton's parks and preserves. These can then be added to the publication later this year.

Mountain Lakes House is just behind Pettoranello Gardens, across 206 from the Community Park fields. Take the long driveway at 57 Mountain Ave. and park in the gravel lot, to the left before you reach the house. For further information, please contact the PEC at 921-1359 or acriscit@princeton-township.nj.us.

Princeton Cares Helps Out at Mountain Lakes

Princeton Cares, a local nonprofit, organized a workday at Mountain Lakes on Sunday, May 17. Ten high schoolers from Princeton Day School, Hun and Princeton High School, along with two parents and a sibling, cleared invasive species and planted native bottlebrush grass near the Mountain Lakes House.

This was stop #1 in a whole day of good deeds by the nonprofit volunteers.

Plant Sale Sunday

Friends of Princeton Open Space and the Whole Earth Center are sponsoring a small plant sale at Whole Earth Center on Sunday, June 1 at 2pm. Species available: cardinal flower, great lobelia, black-eyed susan, mistflower, serviceberry, swamp azalea, red chokeberry, Virginia sweetspire and sweet pepperbush. Prices range from $3-$12.

Around 3 or so, we'll take a short walk to visit native gardens that have been installed just a block away from Whole Earth Center, in Harrison Street Park and at the Senior Center on Harrison Street. The gardens aren't blooming yet, but we'll look at their placement, design, and how the plants are doing. One of the goals of the native plant workshops is to create demo gardens around town, and these are two fine examples.

Whole Earth Center will provide refreshments.

Photo: Great Lobelia

Evergreen Growth Logic

People often think of evergreen trees and shrubs as static, but they too go through seasonal transformations. An American Holly demonstrates this well. The photo shows three years worth of leaves. This spring's new leaves are olive green, last year's leaves are bright green, and the two year old leaves (yellow) are in the process of being cast overboard. The tree might look unhealthy, but the shedding of two-year-old leaves is as natural as when deciduous trees drop their one-year-old leaves in the fall.

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.

Asian Photinia--A Newly Identified Invasive

Sometimes Mother Nature can fool those who don't look closely enough. It was recently pointed out to me that the large, aggressive shrub in our Princeton, NJ preserves that I was happily calling Aronia arbutifolia is in fact an exotic invasive, Photinia villosa.

It did seem strange that a species I had had no luck with growing in the past could be doing so well and acting strangely dominant and exclusionary in the local wilds. A quick look in Michael Dir's hefty Manual of Woody Landscape Plants showed distinct differences.

They have similar flowers--both are in the rose family--but native Red Chokeberry blooms a few weeks earlier, with Photinia blossums opening in mid to late May.

The petiole (segment connecting leaf to stem) is 1/8th inch on Photinia, longer on Chokeberry. The leaf venation pattern too is different.







Fall color is tan, while Red Chokeberry is said to be red. Photinia also grows much larger, reaching 15 feet or more.

Results from an internet search suggest that I'm not the only one who has been unaware. The USDA government site shows it growing in three states plus DC, but not in NJ. A University of Florida site says it has little invasive potential.

Thanks to Jared Rosenbaum, of D&R Greenway, for alerting me to the presence of this invasive.

Persistence May Further

In New York's Central Park, many of the lake edges have been planted with native wildflowers. This is the first year we've tried it at Princeton's "Central Park", a.k.a. Mountain Lakes Preserve. It's not as easy as it might seem. Years ago the StonyBrook Watershed Association tried it. I've been told the geese and deer watched from afar as the plants were installed, then moved in after all was planted and munched to their hearts' content.

This past October, our Princeton Native Plant Workshop group planted the edge of the upper Mountain lake with native wildflowers grown from seed (see Oct '07 post). It was a fun session, and lots of plants went in, but they suffered from frost heave over the winter.




A number of the plants survived, however, and this spring I added some more from the Mountain Lakes greenhouse--cutleaf coneflower, rose mallow Hibiscus, woolsedge, swamp milkweed--and added some visual cues and signage to help prevent inadvertent mowing and trampling by passers by.

Last year, one lone Late-Flowering Boneset was all the lakefront had to offer to pollinators in July and August. With some luck, they'll have more faire to sustain them this summer.

NJ Trails helps out at Mountain Lakes

A volunteer crew from the NJ Trail Association came to Mountain Lakes Preserve this past Saturday to add steps to a steep section of the Farmview Trail that overlooks neighboring Coventry Farm.

Note the Egyptian method of transporting heavy stones found nearby along the hillside.

Friends of Princeton Open Space board member Ted Thomas, on the right in the second photo, coordinated the session.

A big thank you to NJTA for their help. If you ever want to download maps of nature trails, including those in Princeton, go to their website at www.njtrails.org.

This Sunday, A Talk and a Walk

We'll talk the talk and walk the walk this Sunday at 3pm, when the Friends of Princeton Open Space has its annual meeting at Mountain Lakes House. The very brief meeting will be followed by a talk by international climate change expert Stephen Pacala, who is a professor at Princeton University and Co-Director of Princeton's Carbon Mitigation Initiative. There will be some refreshments after the talk, and then I'll lead a nature walk through Mountain Lakes and the meadows of Tusculum, stopping by our habitat restoration project just upstream of the lakes.

If you're planning to come, please call 921 2772 to rsvp. All are welcome. Mountain Lakes House is at the end of the long driveway at 57 Mountain Ave. in Princeton.

A Popular Walkway

One of the more popular walks for Princeton residents, of all sorts, is the driveway leading up to Mountain Lakes House. For anyone not ready to venture onto the trails around the lakes, up into the boulder fields of Witherspoon Woods, or over to the meadows of Tusculum, the driveway provides a broad, dependably dry passage into nature.

Right now, the dogwoods are showing the rest of the wooded world what elegance is all about.









If you look down along the roadsides, you'll see some other white blooms--spring beauties and, alas, the highly invasive garlic mustard. Less ubiquitous is the native Virginia Knotweed (photo), which has a dark thumbprint on its leaf.




There's even one small patch of native wild geranium along the edge of the driveway, offering a bit of alternative color in this time of flower white and leaf green.

Shrubs Around Town

A few shrubs blooming around town right now:

There's an impressive grouping of Fothergilla, a shrub native to the southeast US, near the ballfield at Marquand Park. In shady locations, it's less opulent with the blooms, but its leaves still turn a brilliant orange in the fall.

Here's a closeup.


















English Laurel is in full bloom at Pettoranello Gardens. Though not native, it has not proven invasive, and can be a sturdy evergreen for landscaping.







Blackhaw Viburnum is a common large shrub growing wild at Mountain Lakes Preserve, just down the long driveway from Pettoranello Gardens. The flowers are often 20 feet up, and are harder to see now that the woods is greening up.

April 27 Workday at Mountain Lakes Preserve

During this past Sunday's workday, Kim, Owen and I planted up more seeds, potted some green bulrush, and protected newly planted shrubs with cages and homemade stakes fashioned by Clark earlier in the week.



Photos above: 1) Spicebush blooms on an island we're restoring just upstream of Mountain Lakes. 2) Native hibiscus sprouts in the greenhouse.

Master Gardener Plant Sale This Saturday

This Saturday would be a great day to check out the Mercer Educational Gardens during the Master Gardeners' Spring Plant Expo. They'll be selling perennials and herbs from 10-2, Barbara Bromley will be on hand for Q&A, and there is always the grounds to explore, which includes demonstrations of some 17 different designs for compost bins. Photos and descriptions of these can be found on their website. The Gardens are a short drive out of town towards Pennington.

More info, and lots of other things to explore, at www.mgofmc.org.

From Seed to Seedling to New Home

One of the objectives of the Friends of Princeton Open Space is to restore habitat in the many natural areas the organization helped to preserve. Part of this effort is to use remnants of local biodiversity as seed sources for reintroducing species that for various reasons disappeared from other preserves.

If enough of these wildflowers are grown, then we can start offering them to homeowners who want to improve habitat in their backyards.

The seedling in the photo was grown last year from seed collected locally. Cutleaf coneflower is a showy native wildflower that prefers sun but still blooms in the shade, and can grow to eight feet. It grows in only a few spots locally, most notably along the towpath, but with some help could beautify floodplains, detention basins, preserves and backyards throughout Princeton.

Here, it's being planted at Rogers Wildlife Refuge, as part of a habitat restoration project that began with the removal of the highly invasive Phragmitis reed by Partners for Fish and Wildlife.

The rootbound seedling first gets its roots torn up (second photo), then gets planted, marked and (hopefully) protected from deer by a little tipi made of skewer sticks (an untested approach).

Though watering probably won't be necessary in the marshy ground, we'll need to check back to make sure the smartweed sprouting all around doesn't overwhelm it.

Naked Coffee Trees on Harrison Street

Here's one of the last holdouts from spring, still in its wintry hunch, bare limbs stark against a cloudy sky. Plants, like many authors and movie stars, have two names. The common name for this not very common tree is Kentucky Coffee Tree, which refers to the resemblance its seeds bear to coffee beans. It's scientific name is Gymnocladus dioicus, which may refer to its way of losing leaves early in the fall and sprouting them late in the spring. Gymno means naked.

Norway Maple's Spring Moment

This photo was taken four days ago. Spring is in such a pellmell rush right now that the scene has already changed, but for a few days anyway you could spot every Norway Maple in town if you knew what to look for. Their flowers and emerging leaves made a distinctive flush of yellow-green, just ahead of most other trees. If you were keeping your head down, you could still see their tiny flowers fallen onto the sidewalks.

Like the barberry bush, the Norway maple is an exotic that can be very invasive. It pops up along the fencerows of people's yards, and before they know it, they have a large bully in their yard, pushing up into the canopy of more favored trees, making such dense shade and grabbing so much soil moisture that nothing can grow underneath it. Though it has long since lost favor in the horticultural trade, its self-seeding and capacity to tolerate shade insures it a place in Princeton's default landscape.

Barberry Bush Bops Bees

I would like to say something nice about a shrub that, despite one very cool characteristic, is being cut down as part of the habitat restoration at Mountain Lakes. Barberry is a commonly planted shrub, used as a hedge in many yards. It's generally around 4 feet high, has small leaves and small thorns on its stems. This time of year, it sprouts lots of small flowers, white or yellow.

Back in my college days, we learned in field botany that if you tickle the flower at the base of the filament, the anther will slap against the stigma. All of which is to say that if you take a small leaf blade, stick it into the flower and look closely, you're likely to see a sudden, quick motion.

When a bee pays a visit, its legs probably poke into the flower and trigger the anther to slap against its body, thereby giving the bee a dose of pollen that it will carry along with it to other barberry flowers, thus serving the cause of pollination.

Another interesting aspect of barberry is the bright yellow of its inner wood, which you will discover if you cut it down. Though barberry is not as highly invasive an exotic as multiflora rose in local preserves, it's bad enough to make one wish people wouldn't plant it, and would consider removing it from their properties so there are less seeds to aid its spread into wild areas. In the meantime, the flowers can be entertaining.

Weekly Habitat Restoration Workday this Sunday, 9:30am

This Sunday's habitat restoration workday will run from 9:30 to 11:30am at Mountain Lakes. A description of last week's workday is below.

It's a busy time of year: more wildflower seeds to plant in the greenhouse, shrubs and wildflowers started last year to plant in areas cleared of invasives. This is prime time to pull garlic mustard--the biennial invasive herb (to get acquainted with this weed, check out photo in May 2, 2007 post on this blog).

If you'd like to join in, please wear work clothes, leather gloves, and bring tools if you have them. A shovel or spade could prove useful. For anyone wishing to work more on invasive shrub removal, bowsaws, loppers or pruning shears are handy. I'll have a few extras. As you drive up the driveway at 57 Mountain Ave, you'll likely see the blooms of spring beauty and flowering dogwood.

We'll meet in the gravel parking lot just before the house.

Last Sunday's workday was very productive. Clark and Brownlee fashioned deer guards for the native shrubs grown last year in the greenhouse (photo above). Kim planted more wildflower seeds in trays, while Brownlee cleaned seed. Annarie and her son cut more invasive shrubs in the valley west of Mountain Lakes House.

Already sprouted in the greenhouse are Rose Mallow Hibiscus, Late-Flowering Boneset and Fringed Sedge.

Thanks to all for their help.

Rose-Rosette Disease in Princeton Preserves

A typical scene in a Princeton preserve this time of year, with exotic shrub species greening up while the native trees are still dormant.

Most of these shrubs are multiflora rose, which bears thorns that will punish anyone daring to explore the woods. Removing these highly invasive shrubs has been a big part of our habitat restoration efforts.

Recently, though, I've become aware of a quiet accomplice to our efforts leaving signs of its work--signs that grow less subtle with each passing year.




Rose-Rosette Disease, which causes infected multflora rose bushes to sprout dense clumps of distorted, red leaves, has been spreading through Mountain Lakes Preserve, and in some cases has killed shrubs completely.

We can dream that the virus, which has been spreading eastward from the western U.S., apparently spread by a tiny native mite, will eventually wipe out this prolific, intimidating weed, but it's much too early to tell. There's also the possibility that the disease will pose a threat to the native swamp rose and cultivated varieties. Still, at this juncture, there's reason to entertain hope.

Daffodil Donation Brightens Up Mountain Lakes House

Thanks to the Garden Club of Princeton, whose members donated bulbs, time and effort to brighten up the grounds next to Mountain Lakes House.

The house, which is owned by the township but leased to Friends of Princeton Open Space (FOPOS), is rented out for weddings, parties and other events. All income beyond expenses helps support land preservation and restoration efforts in Princeton.

In addition, the Garden Club of America, through a recommendation by the Garden Club of Princeton, gave an award to the FOPOS board this year "For their devotion to the preservation of open space and increasing environmental awareness in and around Princeton, NJ."

Daffodils, by the way, are an example of a non-native species that doesn't spread into local woods and fields.

The Last Flower, or the First?

An improbable flower blooms on a slope overlooking the Mountain Lakes in Princeton. It's a bloodroot, the only one of its kind in the preserve, as far as I've been able to tell, and it wouldn't have been noticed at all if not for some observant weekend hikers.

I had been pulling up honeysuckle shrubs while my daughter built a stone house for an earthworm family along the creek--"so they can get married," she reported to me. We were about to leave when Owen and Marilyn came along. They had just noticed the flower, and showed it to us back up the trail.

The suspense now is whether this lone flower will have its daring investment in leaf and flower wiped out by a passerby--deer or human--or will be able to produce seed and spread.

Another wildflower that's very rare in the preserve is windflower. I found only two patches of this species, maybe ten plants total.

They can easily be mistaken for spring beauties, which are much more common.




Common as the spring beauties are the trout lilies, though few of them actually produce flowers, for some reason.

Many factors have made wildflowers rare in the preserve--past plowing, the high deer numbers, the competition for sun and water from invasive species. The wildflowers are most numerous in places that were not plowed, such as along old roadways, in floodplains and along the lake edge.