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.

Mountain Lakes Habitat Restoration Update

We made more progress last Sunday. Clark cut invasive shrubs on the island just up from the lakes, and I planted about 40 more live stakes of silky dogwood, elderberry and buttonbush.

This weekend, I'm going to take a pause from field work to devote time to getting square with Uncle Sam, and will also take GPS readings to figure out how close we are to clearing brush from 4 acres, as FOPOS is contracted to do for the WHIP habitat restoration grant.

Thanks to all who have helped thus far.

Rogers Refuge Gets Some TLC

Birds don't have cell phones, so how were we to know that the birdhouses at Rogers Refuge were so full of previous years' nesting material that there was no longer any room for the birds?

Maintenance--the eternal battle against entropy--is most often encountered with its sidekick modifier "deferred." The act of maintaining is an expression of love, increasingly rare in a hurried, throwaway age, and is to be celebrated whenever and wherever it happens.

On March 15, Fred, Winnie and Alex Spar took the possibly unprecedented step of cleaning out and re-positioning the many birdhouses at Rogers Wildlife Refuge. Most were jam-packed with a decade's worth of nests.


Fred and Winnie are both members of the Friends of Rogers Refuge (FORR)--the volunteer organization that works with the water company and the township to manage this haven for birds. Fred serves as president of FORR.




Visitors to the Refuge will notice some curious yellow tubes proliferating around the edges of the marsh, like Chinese lanterns. These have been installed to protect "live stakes" of native shrubs planted this spring. If all goes according to plan, this field, which until last year was dominated by invasive Phragmitis, will become populated with silky dogwood, buttonbush, elderberry, and various species of wildflowers grown from locally collected seed.

Turning the Tide, One Island at a Time

Working our way down the valley towards the lakes at Mountain Lakes Preserve, cutting down invasive shrubs as we go, we came upon an island. Or, rather, Clark came upon an island, and has been spending some spring afternoons relieving it of a long-held burden of the usual suspects--multiflora rose, privet and honeysuckle.

A big ash tree stands guard at the upstream end, splitting the stream in two and preventing periodic floodwaters from carrying the island's soil downstream into the lakes.


In the course of removing exotic species, some native ones have emerged from the tangle. Below is a Christmas fern, growing at the base of a privet, and just about to send up a new crop of "fiddlehead"-shaped leaf shoots. Other natives discovered on the island are elderberry, spicebush and wild indigo (Amorpha fruticosa).

Clark, who is enjoying a very active retirement, has also been cutting down invasive shrubs along many of the Mountain Lakes trails he walks daily. Thanks to volunteers like Clark, the landscape at Mountain Lakes is becoming more and more a place to nourish wildlife and the human spirit.

Reading the Forest Floor

These cool, grey days aren't very springlike, but take a look amongst the dull brown leaves at Mountain Lakes, or most anyplace in Princeton that's within a stone's throw of a creek, and you're likely to see the wave of growth beginning its quiet surge.

Two annuals--one native, the other introduced from Asia--are sprouting in abundance. The first photo shows native jewelweed, which will grow to three feet and offer orange or in rare cases yellow tubular flowers to the hummingbirds all summer long. It has gelatinous sap that is used to treat poison ivy. If you put one of its leaves underwater, it will suddenly appear metallic silver. The flowers hang like earrings. Either one of these features could explain the common name. It's also called Touch Me Not, which refers to the spring-loaded seeds that explode when you touch the pods. But for now, they are just tiny sprouts among the dull leaves on a grey spring day.

Some day I will commit an hour to counting how many Japanese stiltgrass sprouts come up in an average square foot of Princeton soil. Multiplied by how many square feet Princeton contains, the figure will no doubt soar into the trillions and beyond. There are whole meadows of this stuff in Princeton nature preserves, which means there is precious little room for native species once the stiltgrass gets through hogging all the nutrients, water and sunlight. It also changes the soil chemistry, which can have ecological ramifications.

People think of Kudzu as the ultimate invasive weed, but it's these little fellows that come up by the trillions that are turning our preserves into monocultures of plants no wildlife will eat.

I've heard that jewelweed is an invasive problem where it has been introduced in Europe. I wish that ecosystems had mechanisms for quickly bringing new species into some sort of balance, but wildlife seem to adapt their tastes very slowly, if at all, giving the uneaten exotics a huge competitive advantage.

EEK! There's a bug in the house!

Call the police. Vacate the premises. Secure the perimeter. There's a bug in the house, and it's ready to attack.

Having been alerted to the situation by a distressed family member, I courageously approached the beast, armed with an insect identification book fully loaded with images and text. I fumbled through the pages, searching fruitlessly for a name with which to peg the intruder. Fortunately, my trusty companion Google was nearby, and soon gave me the lowdown on what I was up against: a fully grown Brown Marmorated Stinkbug!

Not wishing to engage this fearsome fellow in head-on conflict, I decided to let it crawl up on my finger, from which perch it was able to observe me starting to type this blog entry. Apparently in an attempt to do some editing of my description of events, it decided to hop down on the keyboard--dangerous territory for a highly squashable true bug, given the forest of flying fingers. By the time I thought to put it outside, it had already slipped off the keyboard and disappeared. I reported happily to the family that everything was under control.

Like another frequent indoor visitor--the Asian ladybug beetle--the brown marmorated stinkbug is not native to the U.S. It reportedly can raise a stink if it wants to, or if you crush it, but I didn't have a chance to find out. There are many colorful stinkbug species, but this is not one of them.

March Native Plant Workshop Update

We had perfect weather for another hands-on workshop session March 30 at Mountain Lakes. Clark, Kim and Steven continued cutting invasive multiflora rose, privet and honeysuckle from the small valley upstream of the lakes, and Simonette and I planted seeds of cutleaf coneflower, tall meadow rue, Joe Pye, Late Flowering Boneset, ironweed, bladdernut and fringed sedge in the greenhouse.

The habitat restoration is being funded by a grant from the USDA's Wildlife Habitat Incentive Program, and we're currently in hurry up mode to meet the deadline for the brush removal phase of the project. Thanks to everyone for their help.

The workshops are co-sponsored by Friends of Princeton Open Space and the Whole Earth Center.

Skunk Cabbage Pollination

I had assumed that, because skunk cabbages smell bad and mimic the color of rotten meat, that their flowers catered only to flies. But two weeks ago I happened to peer into one and found a honey bee collecting a major load of pollen. A fascinating description of skunk cabbage's central heating system and unusual root characteristics can be found at the Wikipedia website.

March 16 Workday Update

We had a good workday on the 16th at Mountain Lakes. Russ went after more multiflora rose and I planted 15 elderberry "live stakes", using the thickets of previously cut rose and privet bushes to protect the elderberries from the deer.

Spring Has a Spring To Its Baby Steps

Spring is bursting out here and there, in subtle prelude to the full unleashing of flowers. These crocuses are celebrating their liberation from English ivy, which happened last year (see last year's posts for easy ivy removal). Other non-native annuals like snowdrops and aconite have also been blooming for weeks.





Native species blooming this time of year are more understated--nature without makeup on. These are the catkins of alders lining Pettoranello Pond. Look up at the street trees, and chances are you'll see the reddish haze of tiny maple flowers. The skunk cabbages at Mountain Lakes are putting a call out to all flies for pollination services, as the spring peepers offer up eerie, spontaneous, mass orchestrations of primordial mating calls. There was even a V of geese flying north today.

Live Stakes Today, Shrubs Tomorrow

Thanks to yesterday's habitat restoration session at Mountain Lakes, the invasive shrubs are less legion, and some thirty new native shrubs now have a foothold in the valley just up from the lakes. It was a beautiful, sunny afternoon for working outside. The high winds left over from yesterday's storm front sailed high overhead.

We lopped the invasive bush honeysuckles and multflora rose bushes off at the ground, pulling many of the smaller honeysuckles completely out by the root. The more massive invasives were left in place as nifty protective cages into which we could plant the native shrubs, which took the form of live stakes.

A live stake, as I never tire of explaining because it's such an elegant way to create new plants, is a two foot cutting taken from a dormant, fully grown shrub. You then stick the bottom end into the soft late-winter soil and cut off all but a couple sets of buds above ground. Then wait for spring, when roots form below ground and leaves above. It would be highly convenient if all native shrubs were so cooperative, but only three species root on their own in this manner: silky dogwood, buttonbush and elderberry. All three can be found growing in the wet ground along streams. We planted the first two kinds.

Thanks to Clark, Steven and Annarie and her two children for their help and good company.

Another session is planned for this coming Sunday, March 16.

Greenhouse Gets a Spring Cleaning

February's native plant workshop, held this past Sunday, was like one of those White Tornado commercials from the 60s, a whirlwind of clean energy zipping through the Mountain Lakes greenhouse, putting everything in order. Pots were stacked, space was cleared for growing the coming season's wildflowers, and Kim led a project to render the unlatchable greenhouse door once again safe and functional.

Prior to the cleanup, we had walked up the long driveway, identifying woody plants as we went. Everyone got up to speed on distinguishing native spicebush from exotic shrub honeysuckle and multiflora rose. And then we started identifying trees by their bark and form. Shagbark hickory lived up to its name, the walnut bark was dark with deep furrows, the red oaks had flat, gray "ski tracks" running down the trunk, and a Kentucky coffee tree had gray "potato chips" flaring out. There were also some very impressive black cherries, pignut hickories and silver maples. Tiny red spots on the pavement proved to be fallen flowers from the silver maples, which get an early start on spring.

Susy of the Whole Earth Center provided cider and cookies. There were nine of us, all told. Thanks to all!

-- These native plant workshops are sponsored by Friends of Princeton Open Space and the Whole Earth Center.

Wildlife Refuge Restoration Begins in Earnest

A misty morning at Rogers Wildlife Refuge in Princeton. This observation deck looks out on a great diversity of native plant and birdlife . The relatively dry ground the deck stands on, however, is dominated by invasive shrubs like multiflora rose, honeysuckle and privet.

This past Sunday, we cut these exotic shrubs at the base with loppers, covering about a half acre of territory in a couple hours. The marsh has few enough of these exotic shrubs that there's a chance we can cut them all down before spring, making more room for native species and greatly reducing the seed source these exotic fringe areas represent.

Thanks to Owen and Kathy for their help!

Restoring a Marsh

This past year, the Friends of Princeton Open Space received a grant from the federal government's Wildlife Habitat Incentive Program (WHIP) to restore four acres of habitat in Mountain Lakes Preserve. The initial phase of the restoration involves removing the intimidating architecture of invasive shrubs from the chosen locations in the preserve.

Recently, volunteer Michael Arntzenius and I took advantage of the cool winter weather to take on the dense growth of exotic multiflora rose, privet and shrub honeysuckles growing around a springfed marsh.

When confronting a ten foot-high wall of invasive shrubs, some of which are well-armed with thorns, one helpful motivation is the liberation of the native species partially buried in the invasive tide.


Here is a particularly satisfying situation, in which a native red chokeberry can be relieved of competition from the invasive multiflora rose growing up, through and over it (cluster of native stems to the left in photo). Just two strokes of the loppers shifts the balance, allowing the native to lay claim to sunlight and soil moisture in the coming growing season.






After some struggle, and a few encounters with the business end of the rose bushes' armor, we cleared a pathway along the edge of the marsh, which has remained hidden behind the thorny wall for decades.










Here's how the marsh looks in late May, with fringed sedge, skunk cabbage, winterberry thriving in the springfed opening. Per usual, the wettest areas are dominated by natives, with the exotics having the upper hand around the fringe.

2nd Workday At Mountain Lakes--More Progress

During the Sunday workday at Mountain Lakes on Feb. 10, we were treated to a command performance of rapid mood swings by the weather. Clouds gathered, then scattered, the wind roared through the treetops, then settled down; finally, snow began to fall, dusting the valley in white. Through all of this, we continued working down the small valley, pulling up the smaller invasive shrubs and cutting the bigger ones at the base, expanding on the work done the week prior. Some of the larger exotic shrubs--honeysuckles and privets--were left standing for later cutting into sections that can be used to "corduroy" the muddy trail running past the worksite. Thanks to Steven, Russ, Brownlee, Cynthia, Annarie and her daughter and son, and Kathy for all their help.

Habitat Restoration Update

Another habitat restoration session is planned for this Sunday, Feb. 10, at 2pm. To participate, drive up the driveway at 57 Mountain Ave in Princeton, and park in the gravel parking lot. Please wear work clothes, leather gloves, and bring tools if you have them. Bowsaws, loppers, pruning shears, clippers--any of these would be useful, though I have a few extras. Below is an account of what transpired last weekend.


This past Sunday's workday at Mountain Lakes was very productive. The "winter" weather (sunny, 45 degrees) and soft soil proved perfect for pulling out hundreds of small honeysuckle and privet shrubs that have been invading the valley.

We left the two or three native shrubs in the mix (red chokeberries), and noticed many sedges and a few Christmas ferns ready to respond to the new dose of sunshine they'll receive now that the invasives are removed. One not-too-invasive exotic, wineberry, was left in place, the idea being that we'll control it by eating its raspberry-like berries in the summer.





In this photo, the adults stand back as the kids take on an invasive honeysuckle shrub.

Native Plant Workshop, Sunday, Jan. 27

The first of the new year's series of monthly native plant workshops in Princeton will be this Sunday, January 27 at 2pm. We'll meet at the Community Park North parking lot (next to Pettoranello Gardens at Mountain Ave and 206), and walk up to Mountain Lakes House, doing some winter plant identification along the way. At the house, we'll have a planning session for the new year's field trips and initiatives, and take a look at the lakeside spot we planted last fall. The Whole Earth Center will provide cider. The workshops are open to the public.

Among initiatives are:

• Growing native wildflowers and grasses this spring from locally collected seed. Some can be grown at the Mountain Lakes greenhouse, but participants can also plant and care for a few flats in their backyards, use some of the plants and make the rest available for the workshop plant sale and local restoration projects.
• Start a native plant workshop listserve, for participants to post questions, info and ideas.
• Develop plant inventories for local preserves.
• Other initiatives participants suggest.

If the weather is inclement, come directly to the Mountain Lakes House at 57 Mountain Ave. There's a parking lot at the end of the long driveway.

The workshops are co-sponsored by Friends of Princeton Open Space (FOPOS) and the Whole Earth Center.

Public Library's Environmental Film Festival

Below is the link to info about the great film festival at the Princeton Public Library, in its second year, happening now through January 12. I'll be making a slide presentation entitled "Restoring Native Habitats In Princeton Preserves and Backyards" on Saturday, Jan. 12 at 1:30.

The 2008 Princeton Environmental Film Festival

Wednesday January 2 – Sunday January 6, and Saturday January 12

All screenings and talks are free and open to the public and are in the Community Room at the Princeton Public Library, 65 Witherspoon Street, Princeton, NJ.

COMPLETE SCHEDULE and more information: http://www.princetonlibrary.org/peff/

The Color-Coded Forest

Even this late in the fall, some shrubs and trees announce their identities by the colors of their leaves. They can appear as if a child carefully colored in a number-coded landscape-- oaks and blackhaw Viburnums bronze, the Asian photinia a golden yellow that turned to dark brown in the hard frost. Here is a photo of Pettoranello Gardens, with native oaks bronze above a shrub layer of still-green exotic honeysuckles.

The logic here is that the honeysuckles evolved in a milder climate on another continent, whereas plants native to America adapted to longer winters by dropping their leaves earlier.


Just upstream of Mountain Lakes, the extent of exotic invasive shrubs is especially revealed this time of year, as the vistas open up. The pink of winged Euonymus has just fallen, but the invasion of honeysuckle shrubs can easily be tracked by their persistent green.

A Norway Maple's Memory of Distant Lands

The frost hit hard two nights ago, as the temperature dipped to the low 20s. A full moon shone down from so nearly straight above, and so bright on a cold snap night that even a town slicker took notice. I went outside and in the stillness heard the floppy sound of Norway Maple leaves hitting the ground in a steady letting go. No other kind of tree was dropping its leaves--only the Norway Maples, still responding after centuries in America to cues and tempos learned long ago in distant lands.

Autumn's Backyard Dance Audition

Today, an Indian Summer day, with brightly colored light filling the backyard, I tried to make myself still enough to watch leaves fall.

The trees in my backyard are a mixed blessing. They obscure the sunsets and the vast sweep of the sky, but today they are offering their own endless permutations of beauty. Each leaf, huddled in vaulted obscurity all summer long, has but one chance to show its personality. Gliding back to the ground from whence they came, the leaves of a silver maple tree slice through the air, each in its own way. Some are in a rush; others stretch the moment for all it's worth. Some spin fast, some slow, some descend in spirals tight or broad. Others glide like well-crafted paper airplanes, landing far afield. Each catches the light in this moment of distinction, these few seconds of quiet fame.

As if they were dancers auditioning for a ballet that will be forever in the writing, I wish I could congratulate each one on its flight--its contribution to the beauty of an autumn day--before it fades beneath a shimmering shower of countless others.

Ivy Control, Part 2

A typical scene along a property line, where English Ivy has taken over. Say you tire of its imperialistic ambitions and static green, but don't want to engage in a down and dirty tug of war (see previous post, 3/5/07). If it happens to be fall, and leaves are plentiful, it's a perfect time to do it in without hardly a pull.



Enter that most versatile of substances, cardboard, easily requisitioned along curbsides. The bigger the pieces, the better. Some people use newspapers, but many layers are needed, they decompose too fast, and their small size makes for many more cracks where the ivy could push up. Tools needed are shown.

The principal behind this approach involves the need of plants for energy. Cut off sunlight for months at a time, and even a powerful-looking patch of ivy will fade back into the ground. With a constant need to metabolize, and no new energy coming in, the ivy roots die of starvation.

Use this approach only if there are no spring bulbs or other desired plants mixed in with the ivy.

Begin by pulling the ivy away from trees and shrubs. If it's rained recently and the ground is soft, most stems pull easily out of the ground. Cut the stubborn ones with hand clippers. Also work along the edges of the patch, pulling the ivy back to reduce the area that needs to be covered.



Then spread the cardboard, overlapping 6" to a foot to prevent any ivy from pushing up through gaps. Where there are lots of shrubs to work around, and different sizes of cardboard to work with, it starts to feel like a jigsaw puzzle, finding the right piece to fit any particular spot. In these photos, the process is simplified because the shrubs are all in a line.



Be sure to cover all the ivy, or sever connections between the areas covered and those that will remain exposed. Otherwise, the ivy that doesn't get covered will continue sending energy to the ivy under the cardboard.



Now it's time to cover the whole thing up with leaves, giving the impression that there is no ivy or cardboard. Over, say, two to six months, the ivy will give up the ghost, the cardboard will decompose and the area can be planted with wildflowers, bulbs, what have you. In the meantime, the leaves provide a quiet, woodsy feel. This whole project took about two hours.