Category Archives: GENERAL INTEREST

Planning an Old Growth Forest for the Seventh Generation (Citizen Science in Forest Hill Park)

August 23, 2016BEAUTY, GENERAL INTERESTElsa Johnson

by Elsa Johnson

My friend Maria Armitage says that whenever her husband Keith goes for a walk in Forest Hill Park, when he comes home, he says: “It’s a jewel.”

A few years ago the East Cleveland Parks Association (a volunteer board that works with the City of East Cleveland to help maintain the East Cleveland portions of Forest Hill Park; disclosure — I am on this board) began to become concerned about oak tree deaths occurring in two iconic areas of the park. The two areas, designed and named by A.D. Taylor in his 1936 master plan for the park, are The Great Meadow and The Meadow Vista. Both are upland oak savannahs – i.e., unique, lightly forested grasslands where oaks are the dominant species. Such savannahs were historically maintained by fire (set by man, or by wildfires resulting from lightning strikes), or were the result of grazing. In the history of the park since it has been a park, the savannah environments have been maintained through mowing.

By the time John D. Rockefeller Sr. bought the property in the late mid-century of the 1800’s, these two upland areas were pastures studded with oak trees. This was probably their beginning as oak savannahs. We do not know how old the trees in these pastures were at this time. They may have been scattered remnants of the original forests that were there in 1796 when Moses Cleaveland surveyed the Cuyahoga River site that became the City of Cleveland. Or they may have been young trees, or a mix of both. We do know that Rockefeller added a few specimen trees here when he bought the property 2/3rds of a century later, but those trees were exotic species, not oaks. We also know that the Cleveland Museum of Natural History inventoried some of the largest trees in The Great Meadow and designated some of them ‘Moses Cleaveland Trees’. What this means, in the year 2016, is that the oldest of these trees are over 200 years old, while the youngest of those original savannah trees are a minimum of 150 years old.

By any standard, old growth forest.

So when the savannahs/meadows began to lose trees – one of the first to go was a huge and spectacular Moses Cleaveland Tree in The Great Meadow, lost in 2011 – ECPA was deeply concerned, and became more so with each passing year, with the loss of additional trees, in what seemed like a ring spreading out from the site of the original losses, with Meadow Vista area suffering many, many, more tree losses than The Great Meadow.

If any area can be described as the heart of Forest Hill Park it is The Great Meadow. It is the crossroads through which all paths must pass to get elsewhere, and it is the one place in the park with an unfettered view from the eastern end of the meadow all the way through to the western end of the meadow, a distance of about half a mile. And then, from the west end (where Rockefeller once had his summer home), the view continues out over Cleveland’s east side and on, out over Lake Erie toward invisible Canada, some 50 miles away.

Since 2011 the park has lost 6 trees in The Great Meadow, most of them in one centralized area. In The Meadow Vista area the park has lost 6 to 7 trees (or more) each year, and more than one area has been affected. In one area so many trees have been lost as to profoundly affect soil hydrology. ECPA watched, worried, and wondered how to get a handle on what was going one, and what did whatever was going on mean for the future of these iconic old growth oak savannahs? It became obvious that there was a necessity to plan for the planting of new trees to ensure oak savannahs for the future. To help answer these questions ECPA established The Great Meadow Task Force which reached out to The Holden Arboretum’s Community Forester, Chad Clink. His recommendation was 1.) test affected trees for pathogens, and 2.) do a thorough inventory using a certified arborist.

Alas, ECPA is a volunteer organization funded through donations and small grants, and this looked expensive, so the task force cast about and found : The Plant Doctor, Dr. David Roberts, Senior Academic Specialist at Michigan State University, discoverer of the Emerald Ash Borer, and specialist in diseases and pests of oak trees, who volunteered to come down and spend a day looking at trees in The Great Meadow.

Much planning ensued. What information was necessary? Was there additional information that would be interesting? — That would help people be interested and want to invest in a Save-A-Tree/Plant-A-Tree program? — That would reforest the meadows and create an old growth forest that would still be there in another 200 years, for the seventh generation?

The task force began by tagging each tree with a number and locating it on a photographic map. It was decided the walk-through would look at each tagged tree and list its species, general health, and recommendations for its care, and also measure each tree’s circumference (by which one applies a formula to arrive at its diameter), the distance out from the tree of its canopy drip-line, the height of the tree, and an estimate of its age (by Dr. Roberts). By using specific calculations this information can tell one how much carbon each tree is sequestering — the task force thought that would be cool information.

The walk-through revealed that, of the old trees in the Great Meadow – a total of about 70 trees – many, if not most, are close to or exceed 100 feet in height. The largest tree has a circumference of 15 feet – but many other trees are very nearly as big around. Canopy was the most variable component measured, with trees standing in isolation having larger canopy spreads than trees growing in the proximity of an oak grouping. And Dr. Roberts estimated the various ages age of the trees as around 150 to 200 years old, which fit with their known history. He said that the trees in The Great Meadow are largely in good health, and what a pleasure it was to visit such a collection of healthy old growth trees.

All of this information is in the process of being brought together in a spreadsheet. It will be used to seek funds for the necessary maintenance of these valuable trees in their unique and iconic savannah environment, and also for the planting of new trees so that the oak savannahs of Forest Hill Park remain the inspiration of exclamations like : “It’s a jewel!”

Note: ECPA is hoping to get Dr. Robert back for a return visit to study the diseases and/or pests affecting the trees in The Meadow Vista.

Note : To learn more about ECPA and Forest Hill Park go to ecpaohio.org

How to Measure the Height of a Tree (without climbing it).

You will need a stiff equilateral triangle with a drinking straw taped to one side of it which you will use to look through, and a 100 foot measuring tape. You will need two people. One person will stand at the trunk of the tree holding the zero end of the tape. The other person will walk away from the tree spooling out the tape. When she gets out to what she thinks is the tree’s height, she will stop, take the triangle, and at eye level, line the horizontal bottom of the triangle parallel to the ground and the vertical side of the triangle parallel to the trunk of the tree. Looking through the straw, she will look for the top of the tree. When she can see where the tree leaves touch the sky, she will note the distance on the measuring tape (she may have to move and try this several times). The height of the tree is the distance measured on the tape plus her height at eye level added to it. This is fun to do.

Gardenopolis Bulletin: Keeping Your Plants Up in a Drought

July 26, 2016GENERAL INTERESTAnn McCulloh

By Contributing Editor Ann McCulloh

Our current dry spell in Northeast Ohio is a rather unfamiliar challenge to gardeners, accustomed as we are to a generous annual average rainfall of 39.14 inches. The United States Drought Monitor http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/ recently updated our status to “Moderate Drought”, from “Abnormally Dry” a week ago. The National Weather Service is not predicting relief anytime soon. Add unusually hot days, one after another, and the situation is getting serious for gardens, and gardeners! (Although when I Google “Cleveland drought” I get endless hits about a basketball championship, and nothing at all about weather. Hmmm?)

When I dig down and find powder dry soil at a depth of 12”, I know that annuals, perennials, shrubs and even trees are in trouble and even in danger of dying. The ones that survive will show the results of stress with slowed growth, fewer flowers, shoot dieback and increased susceptibility to pests and diseases.

(Crispy white pine, a recent casualty)

Bottom line: we need to water. Alot! Most people just are not watering enough right now. Since it’s hard to know if you’re doing it correctly, here are some tips that I find helpful:

Established plants need a minimum of 1” of rain per week for optimal growth. Newly planted ones, more like 2” per week. If you are using a sprinkler, set an empty tuna can within the range of the spray. Check the amount of time needed to fill the can as the sprinkler runs. That’s how long the sprinkler should run each week to supply that critical 1”.
Even established trees need supplemental water during a drought. A soaker hose or sprinkler run for about an hour will usually saturate the soil to the needed depth of 10”. Doing this even once or twice during a drought event will be beneficial.
Water deeply and infrequently (just 1-2 times a week for established plants, 5-7 times a week only for the smallest, newest seedlings.) This allows for development of deeper, more drought-resistant roots.
Large tomato plants, full grown hostas, small shrubs and so on need about 1-2 gallons of water per week. Count the seconds it takes to fill a watering can with the hose. That’s how long to hold the hose on each plant.
Water the soil at the base of the plant, soaking the soil, not the leaves! Plants absorb water through their roots, while wet leaves allow diseases to thrive. A long-handled watering wand attached to the hose with a shutoff valve is my favorite tool for this.

Watering in the evening conserves some water as it can soak into the ground rather than evaporating into the warmer daytime air.
Cover bare soil with a 2” layer of mulch at all times! Shredded bark, pine nuggets, pine straw, wood chips, dry leaves, or straw are all good options.

And be sure to keep the gardener well-hydrated too! I recommend plentiful iced tea and occasional dashes through the sprinkler.

The Peripatetic Gardener Visits Kingwood Center Garden

July 5, 2016BEAUTY, GENERAL INTERESTElsa Johnson

by Elsa Johnson

I’ve been visiting Kingwood most of my life – so far back, anyway, that I cannot remember the first time… but when I ask other Clevelanders, including gardeners, if they have been to Kingwood, most of them do not know Kingwood exists, even though it is a relatively easy one and a half hour drive down route 71.

Kingwood is a – sort of – example example of the English Landscape School, the garden style (or estate style) that did away with formalism in the late 18^th century, and in its place offered idyllic pastoral landscapes that typically included gently rolling lawns interspersed with specimen trees, re-creations of formal classical architecture (‘follies’) punctuating the ends of long sweeps of lawn, lakes and views, and curving and meandering pathways, all offering and supporting views of idealized nature. All this was very different from the formal geometrical gardens that had come before.

Kingwood, at a slight 47 acres, is this in miniature. To visit Kingwood is to feel you have stepped back in time and place, as if to Jane Austen country. This could be the estate of someone from the minor nobility or the well-off established gentry – not really quite grand enough to be the estate of landed high aristocrats, but a long, long, long way from the hoi polloi.

It is the brick mansion and other architectural works that establish this tone, set like a gems in their park-like setting, but it is the gardens that flesh out this fantasy. One without the other would not be nearly as wonderful.

The mansion sits set into a hillside off in the center of the property, but this center feels like the cornerstone, as the southwest quadrant of the estate is mostly woodland and remains outside of one’s awareness. One arrives at the mansion on the lowest level via a rather grand entry courtyard enclosed by high brick walls. To the north of the entry courtyard an opening in the wall steps down to a terrace that in turn looks out over a descending sweep of lawn, bordered by flowers and trees, that terminates some distance away in a fountain. During a recent May visit, this esplanade was decorated by young ladies in pretty prom dresses, looking flower-like themselves, and their somewhat bewildered escorts.

South of the entry court one enters the house into a ground floor arrival hall; the visitor then proceeds up the stairs to the living levels. From this living level one looks through the rooms (unfortunately one cannot actually go into them) and sees that this level also opens out at ground level, but one level higher, to a serene sweep of lawn and majestic specimen trees, many of them venerable beeches and maples. This relative inaccessibility makes visiting the high side of the estate something of an afterthought for most people, one suspects, but it is the space that most clearly shouts: English Landscape School. One can follow a path around the house to arrive at this space (there are also meandering paths through a little woodland garden west of the house).

From here one can walk east toward what seems to be an impenetrable wall of high hedges, some ten feet to fifteen feet tall, of hemlock, and ubiquitous yew. These hedges are well worth seeing in their own right. How often does one see this scale of hedging executed and maintained so successfully?

These hedges enclose a series of formal, tiered, cascading terraces — ornamented at the very top by my favorite sculpture of the naked god Pan poised to play his pipe, with a playful goat wrapping itself around his knees, reminding us of Pan’s animal nature.

These terraces terminate some distance away, on down the slope,

with an alcove set into a tall hedge, holding a sculpture of a lovely maiden – surely a tryst inducing place.

East of this folly the lawn opens out again and a path meanders through it, anchored here and there by perennial beds. From there one can wander into a conservatory and a retail plant shop. Here Kingwood grows all the annuals it plants in its various formal beds. North of the conservatory lies what was the service entrance to the estate and all the working areas of the estate; here a large u-shaped building once sheltered horses on one side and chickens on the other – one can still see the little doors that were opened so the chickens could run outside.

Today these buildings are used for events (Kingwood is a popular site for weddings) and garden shows.

East of these is the rose garden, which leads on to an herb garden enclosed by a white pine hedge, and then over to the east end of the small lake/pond, where the space between the pond and the stable is being turned into (via a master plan) a terrace and a rain garden, with the water coming off of the roofs of the old stable buildings. These spaces, more intimate in their scale, feel more ‘gardeny’ and less ‘estatey’… and are a nice place to stop and eat that picnic lunch you brought with you, while the peacocks holler in the distance (warning – we’re not kidding about the picnic lunch — Mansfield has little to offer in the way of restaurants).

I like to end my visit to Kingwood in the perennial garden, tucked in the space between the sloping lawn esplanade off the entry court and a drive down from it. There are several huge cypress trees here with interesting knees poking up out of the ground.

The perennials grow among them, swirling together in pleasing, loose, soft masses. Nothing formal about these.

We (co-editors Elsa Johnson and Catherine Feldman) would like to thank the Director of Kingwood Center Gardens, Charles Gleaves, who graciously escorted us on this most recent tour. From him we learned that the City of Mansfield provides Kingwood with leaves in the fall. These, shredded and composted, are then applied to the various beds, both permanent and annual – a practice we have written about in Gardenopolis Cleveland and encourage. After years of such application the result is a deep rich soil in which plants flourish, which is slow to dry out, even in our current drought.

****

If you have planned your time well you might still have time and energy for a quick visit to Louis Bromfield’s Malabar Farm, now a state park. Although more remembered for his fiction and semi-celebrity status, Bromfield also wrote agricultural treatises, and he made Malabar a working farm experimenting in innovative, scientific, sustainable framing practices. Bromfield believed that resource conservation – especially soil and water – was America’s biggest challenge.

We would say it still is.

****

Taking a Swing at Pawpaws

June 22, 2016GENERAL INTEREST, PERMACULTURETom Gibson

by Tom Gibson

Growing pawpaws and, especially, getting them to fruit in quantity has been an exercise in slow motion frustration. Each year since my 6 trees started flowering in 2010 (planted in 2008) I’ve made at least one misstep that has limited production and/or harvest.

It reminds me of a particularly agonizing game of baseball, with just one or two swings per year and never getting the bat squarely on the ball. What follows is an account of my ups (few) and downs (many) as I try to raise a proper harvest and how (spoiler alert!) this year I may finally have hit a home run.

A good pawpaw crop is a worthy goal. The fruit are delicious—with a taste somewhere between a banana and a mango. They are great fresh from the tree , in smoothies , and in a whole range of desserts.

jpegsi

They also contain exceptionally high levels of nutrition. (http://www.pawpaw.kysu.edu/pawpaw/cooking.htm)

They are native to North America (with custard apple relatives in Central America) and they are particularly resistant to many of the plagues of more traditional fruit, from fungi to insects to deer. (Their leaves even contain compounds that are the basis for insecticides.) Their history is particularly ancient; at one time they enjoyed a symbiotic relationship with mammoths

(https://www.americanforests.org/magazine/article/trees-that-miss-the-mammoths/), who ate the fruit, pooped out the seeds in a nice pile of fertilizer, and spread the trees far and wide. In recent years, pawpaws and their consumers have benefitted from active breeding for flavor.

But they still have distinct idiosyncrasies that reflect their origins. And it’s those idiosyncrasies with which I have struggled over the past 6 years since my pawpaw trees started to flower. Here’s my chronicle:

Year 3, 2010. I had already avoided the problem of cross-pollination by planting two distinct cultivars. In this, I was better off than the Holden Arboretum, which planted only one set of cultivars and was puzzled when they didn’t fruit! A huge, embarrassing swing and a miss!

But my pawpaws still weren’t fruiting. Their pre-Columbian origins meant that they had evolved without the honey bee. Thus the pawpaws’ dark red, funereal l flowers that don’t look or smell like anything a bee would visit.

Instead, its pollinators are detritus-loving beetles and blow flies, the iridescent blue-green flies we see on dog poop.

Clearly, my suburban Cleveland Heights yard did not contain enough dead animal waste!

Some pawpaw growers solve this problem by supplying their orchards with roadkill and dead fish

(definitely not an approach that would have pleased my neighbors or my wife!).

An Athens, Ohio, permaculturist runs goats through his pawpaw orchards. The goats eat grass that might compete with the pawpaws and leave behind poop. The ingenious farmer harvests both milk and fruit. But, once again, not a Cleveland Heights solution.

So flowers, but no fruit. In baseball terms, a called strike.

Year 4, Spring 2012. The suggested online solution for suburban pawpaw pollination is by hand. Buy the finest-haired, most delicate water color brush and gently knock pollen off one cultivar’s flower into a dish, then “paint” the pollen into the flower of another cultivar.

I try this, bumbling around inside one flower, knocking loose a light brown shower of particles, gathering the pollen on my brush, and bumbling around again inside the next cultivar’s flower. I have no idea if I’m hitting the stigma, the female part of the flower, but then, in a meta sense, blow flies don’t know what they’re doing, either.

Year 4, Fall 2012. Twenty fruit have formed! Green orbs the size of mangos.

A Wooster Arboretum horticulturist tells me to wait until the pawpaws turn brown before harvesting. So I wait. It’s early October, but still no brown, maybe a tiny suggestion of yellow. Suddenly 4 of the fruit on one cultivar disappear. It looks like a raccoon or a possum knew more about pawpaw ripeness than my horticulturist acquaintance.

I learn to judge ripeness by feel. Just the right amount of softness and I can bring fruit from the other, later-maturing cultivar into the kitchen window sill for raccoon-free ripening (too early, though, and the fruit never gets ripe enough to eat!).

Nevertheless, my wife and I are excited. We love the wonderful custardy texture of a fully ripe pawpaw. We give a few fruit away to special gardening friends. It’s almost like child birth. I tell my grandchildren that I have become a “Pawpaw Papa!”

Of all our progeny, we managed to harvest and eat just 12 of the original 20. In baseball terms, we’ve gotten hits, but we’ve left a lot of runners on base. We want to score more!

Years 5 and 6, 2013-2014. More fruit, require more blossoms. But the latter seem less abundant they should be. Eric Toensmeier, the famous permaculturist, who grows pawpaws prolifically in Massachusetts, writes that, in nature, pawpaws like to grow as understory trees next to black locusts. Presumably, pawpaws crave the nitrogen that these legume trees and their symbiotic bacteria make available to the plants around them. Elsa Johnson, my landscape design partner and Gardenopolis Cleveland co-editor, and I get permission from the Cleveland Museum of Natural History and travel to the museum’s Ashtabula preserve where black locusts grow like weeds. We dig up five foot-high seedlings and transplant them right behind my pawpaw trees. Just a few years later and the black locusts are taller than the 12 foot pawpaws.

I also spread a wood chip mulch around the trees—both to preserve moisture (noting that pawpaws often grow in the wild along river banks) and proliferate root growth.

Finally, I add lime, since calcium is supposed to aid fruit set.

Harvests stay in the 15 to 20 fruit range. We’re winning, but not by much.

Year 7, 2015. Whatever we’ve done seems to have worked. Blossoms appear in profusion. I hand-pollinate furiously for 10 days. After a week or so, tiny fruitlets appear—200 in all! (You’re probably beginning to notice a certain obsessiveness on my part!). Then, disaster! Two strong thunderstorms knock all but 4 fruitlets off the trees. My grand slam home run as essentially turned into a long out.

Later that fall, I notice that most of the lime was still in place, still undissolved. So not much help for fruit set. Instead, I learned in last fall’s Ohio State Soil Fertility course (http://www.gardenopoliscleveland.org/2015/12/four-permaculture-insights-from-a-soil-fertility-course/) that gypsum or calcium sulfate should have been my preferred source of calcium. Not only do the calcium ions in gypsum dissolve rapidly, but gypsum does not raise the pH. (Pawpaws prefer a more acidic pH of 5.5 to 7.) I spread gypsum under every tree.

Year 8, 2016 spring. So here we are. What do we have? Despite 4 vigorous thunderstorms this spring, the fruit have held. I’ve got about 20 adolescent fruit per tree and they’re looking great! Will 2016 be the Year of the Big Score? I’ll let you know in October.

Gracious Gardens of Shaker Heights 2016

June 7, 2016BEAUTY, GENERAL INTERESTCatherine Feldman

by Catherine Feldman
GARDENOPOLIS Cleveland is happy to advertise and recommend the12th Annual Gracious Gardens of Shaker Heights tour to take place on Fathers’ Day, June 19^thfrom noon until five pm. As always, fantastic gardens will be open to the public: this year, six private gardens from all across Shaker and one community garden at Shaker Heights High School will be on display. Visitors may purchase tickets now for $20 at the Shaker Historical Society, Gali’s Florist and Garden Center, J. Pistone Market, Van Aken Hardware, Shaker Hardware, Juma Gallery and Bremec on the Heights. Tickets may also be purchased for $25 at Shaker Heights Historical Society and at each of the gardens on the day of the tour.

For avid, curious and sociable gardeners there is also a kickoff party on Friday, June 17th from 6 -10 pm. The party is special this year because it takes place in a 150+year old farmhouse that belonged to Rockefeller’s pastor and golf buddy, the Reverend William Bustard. The house has been lovingly maintained and furnished by hosts, Jude and Dick Parke. A raise the paddle auction will be held in honor of former Fire Chief, George Vild. In recognition of the Shaker Heights Fire Department centennial funds will be raised for renovation of Shaker’s first fire truck, the 1917 La France pumper. Tickets may be purchased for $150 until June 10^th at the Shaker Historical Society. Party chairs are Jennifer Sullivan and Stacy Hunter; honorary chairs are Fire Chief and Mrs. Patrick Sweeney. For information, call 216-921-1201.

If you would like to volunteer for 2 ½ hours on the day of the tour, not only will you be able to chat with other gardeners, but also will receive a free ticket to tour the gardens. If you are interested mail Stacy at stacyshunter@gmail.com

The tour benefits the Shaker Historical Society, located in the Myers mansion at 16740 South Park Boulevard. Ware Petznick, executive director of SHS, is actively working to position it as a steward of Shaker’s past, and also it’s present and future. Ware explained to me, “The Van Sweringen brothers designed Shaker Heights on the garden city model in which the landscape was as important as the architecture. Their vision included beautiful winding streets with set back houses and deep gardens.” She added, “We are proud to present this garden tour with the help of our sponsors, particularly Liberatore Landscape Construction, Eastside Landscaping, Homestead Roofing and Aristotle Design Group.”

* In the interest of full transparency we readily reveal that co-chairs of the tour are Margaret Ransohoff, GC contributor and Catherine Feldman, GC editor 😉

Shaker Heights High School’s Audrey Stout Learning Garden

June 7, 2016GENERAL INTERESTCatherine Feldman

by Catherine Feldman

The Audrey Stout Learning Garden at Shaker Heights High School is a hidden delight that we were fortunate to discover. Until 2012 the central courtyard of the school was entirely lawn, unused and ignored. Over the past four years students and staff have worked hard to create unique gardens there.

Students started with a few raised beds, but soon had wishes to cultivate a larger garden. Landscape architect, Jim McKnight, was called upon. After meeting with students to determine their needs and vision, he designed a formal hardscape within which the students’ burgeoning creativity could grow. The beautiful formal hardscape allows for different foci in different areas of the Garden.

Individual beds are devoted to plantings of African, Asian, European, and American origin, as well as customary modern vegetable farming: in total the Garden reflects the diverse population of the school.

Other features include espaliered apple trees along one face of the courtyard,

mushroom logs,

potato-buckets planted by the various elementary schools,

a raspberry hedge, a nascent hosta collection and more.

All gardens are a work in progress, but this one is especially so. Since it is a student project, it will always reflect the changing interests of the current population and programming. So far, the high school’s International Baccalaureate program, the Special Education program, Science, Art, Politics and Literature classes (see the Ophelia garden), capstone projects and personal projects have all left their mark upon the space. Students also have participated in the local county fair and won ribbons for garlic, potatoes, cosmos, marigold and sunflowers. In total, about 500 students have their “hands in the dirt.”

The garden has also provided improved nutrition to students. Last year the garden produced 140 pounds of fruits and vegetables that was served by the school cafeteria to students and staff!

We can thank the family of Audrey Stout , a Shaker teacher, gardener and mother, who are the benefactors behind this very special garden.

Great credit goes to Paula Damm, School Nurse, and Stacy Steggert, Special Education teacher, who have shepherded the project from its beginning. Over the past four years they have inspired teachers and students to ever greater enthusiasm and participation in the garden and they hope that this integration of the garden into the school’s curriculum will continue to increase.

You, too, may see this garden on June 19^th between noon and five in the afternoon as it will be open to the public during the the 2016 Gracious Gardens of Shaker Heights tour.

Special GARDENOPOLISCleveland Alert!: The Devil’s Parakeets – coming soon, to treetops near you! (But not to dine)

May 24, 2016GENERAL INTEREST, PERTINENTAnn McCulloh

by contributing editor, Ann McCulloh

The Locusts are coming! The Locusts are coming! Scary-looking, strange-sounding insects will soon be descending on Northeast Ohio in large numbers any day now. LATE-BREAKING NEWS – a few were spotted in Hudson on May 23 rd ! But unlike the Biblical plagues of locusts, and the hordes which devastated settlers’ crops on the Great Plains, this invasion is expected to have minimal impact on our gardens. Small fruit trees and newly planted trees and shrubs are somewhat vulnerable.

Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=695129)

The short version: a brood of periodical cicadas is just about to emerge from their 17-year dormancy/pupation underground. These are large (1-2” long) shiny black insects with bright orange wing veins and big red eyes – spooky-looking! The adults crawl out of holes in the ground in the morning, crawl up the nearest tree or shrub to dry out and harden their wings and bodies, then fly off to begin mating rituals which include a deafening chorus of keening from the treetops.

They emerge in LARGE numbers in late May when soil temperatures 8” below ground reach 64 degrees Fahrenheit. The adults fly, sing and mate (but don’t eat plants) until around the end of June. They can literally carpet the ground in places where they are prevalent, and the males’ song is incredibly loud, especially during midday. Outdoor weddings and graduation ceremonies may be memorably disrupted by these unearthly looking and sounding visitors.

Protecting your plants: The adults feed minimally, sucking a small amount of sap from twigs. Damage to plants is caused when the females scratch slits into smaller twigs on trees and shrubs, in order to lay their eggs. According to an article on the Morton Arboretum website https://www.mortonarb.org/trees-plants/tree-and- plant-advice/help- pests/periodical-cicadas , the trees most frequently affected are oak, hickory, apple, peach and pear. Young trees, especially fruit and nut trees, can benefit from protection during the June egg-laying period. Wrap fine-mesh netting over the branches, securing it tightly to the trunk to prevent the cicadas from crawling under it. Some insects may be discouraged by wrapping the trunk smoothly with a band of aluminum foil, but the majority will just fly to the branches instead.

There’s plenty of information about the fascinating 17-year cicada in a booklet produced by the Ohio Biological Survey. In Ohio’s Backyards: Periodical Cicadas (Gene Kritsky, 1999) includes detailed biology, historical accounts, superstitions, maps of various emergence years all over Ohio, and a recipe for Cicada Pie from a 1902 issue of the Cincinnati Enquirer! I’m putting my fellow foragers on notice! If I can collect enough recently-emerged cicadas (they need to be collected early in the morning before their shells have fully hardened) I plan to try pan-roasting some. Recipe-share, anyone?

Calling Cards and (Wild) Life in the Inner Suburbs

May 17, 2016GENERAL INTEREST, POETRYElsa Johnson

Calling Cards

by Elsa Johnson

They take one full cycle of the light to

cross as they return to the park through the south

east gate after visiting the neighborhood —

as though knowing well brought up geese cross at

lights and cross-walks use proper entrances :

today they are just two car lengths off No

mystery why they are returning to

the park the lake the safe island where coyotes

can’t go But why do they go in the other

direction ? to the houses with manicured

lawns on the park periphery — escorting

the goose children through traffic to come calling

leaving behind the soft rich calling cards

home owners should be grateful to receive

(Wild) Life in the Inner Suburbs

by Elsa Johnson

Walking to my car parked in the street I find

urban livestock grazing the sidewalk — two of

them — studies in dun Looking like big dun dogs

Looking like someone opened the closet door —

found moths in all the good dun suits the no

color suits of shadow Looking patched up and

lean with long dun bodies a-top legs like twigs :

gazing at me with soft brown eyes a bit anxious

like there’s a name on the tip of their tongues

— if they could remember everything

would be all right — like they think I’m thinking

there goes the neighborhood when all I’m really

thinking is up to now you haven’t eaten

my daylilies Dammit : Don’t start now

How I Learned to Like (Though Not Love) Lush Lawns

May 10, 2016GENERAL INTEREST, PERMACULTURETom Gibson

by Tom Gibson

My property doesn’t have a lawn like this. It’s all native plants and/or permaculture Food Forest.

The crowd I hang out with doesn’t much like lawns, either. Why grow grass, my Food-Not-Lawns friends say, when you can raise and harvest your own vegetables and do your small bit toward saving the planet?

This attitude can fall a bit on the humorless, rigid side, of course. Where are young children (e.g. my grandchildren) supposed to play catch or turn cartwheels? Certainly not in the potato patch.

My views on lawns softened still further this spring when I had the good fortune to take an Ohio State University course in “Soil and Climate Change” with Prof. Rattan Lal.

Dr. Lal, winner of multiple awards, is one of this state’s great treasures—a world leader in soil science, a driving force behind the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (the organization that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore); incoming president of the International Soil Association; and a prime source of the science behind the new Paris Climate initiative to transfer carbon out of the atmosphere into agricultural soils. Dr. Lal’s co-teacher of this course, Dr. Berry Lyons, Director of OSU’s School of Earth Sciences, (no slouch, either), put the climate in geophysical perspective.

The course is required for all graduate students in OSU’s School of Environment and Natural Resources.

So, wow, what an intellectual adventure! (and under Program 60, I could take the course for free!)

Our main task as students was to make class presentations that related our current scientific research into climate change. Since I’m not a science graduate student—far from it!—I chose, as best I could, to evaluate other people’s research into the question of carbon capture by suburban landscapes. Plants, of course, breathe in carbon dioxide (CO₂), turn it into sugars, and send those sugars into the soil via root growth and microbial interaction. And that holds just as true for home landscapes as it does for rain forests.

Has research advanced enough, I asked, so that we could easily estimate how much carbon each home landscape—grass, trees, perennials, etc.— captured from the atmosphere and “sequestered” (the technical term) carbon in the soil? What if homeowners could erect a small sign in their front yards that said, “This landscape sequesters 1 ton of carbon annually?”

In other words, could homeowners consciously start measuring and saving carbon and make their own individual contribution to reducing Greenhouse Gas-induced global warming? There’s plenty of social pressure, especially in “neatnik” suburban neighborhoods, to keep every blade of grass trimmed. How about creating an alternative social pressure that’s aimed at saving the planet?

WARNING: TO SKIP THE “SCIENCE” SECTION YOU CAN SCROLL DOWN TO THE SECTION BELOW ON “BOTTOM LINE FOR PLANET-SAVING LAWNCARE.”

Actually, research into home landscape carbon capture and emission is extensive. For example, a 2012 study compared a landscape with grass, two trees and six bushes….

…..with a landscape with less lawn, but 4 more trees and 17 more bushes…

The landscape with more trees and bushes (and, of course, deeper carbon-filled roots) sequesters more carbon, but the grass roots sequester carbon, too. According to this study, the latter landscape could sequester up to a quarter ton of carbon annually.

But there are tradeoffs, too, which other studies make clearer. What if the homeowner fertilizes the grass with artificial fertilizer? And how about the Greenhouse Gas effect of power mowing with gasoline?

A 2013 study of home landscapes in Nashville shows some of the impact:

1.Fertilization of grass creates lots more soil organic carbon (SOC):

2. But at the cost of lots fertilizer-induced emissions of nitrous oxide (N₂0), a Greenhouse Gas with almost 300 times the potency of carbon dioxide (CO₂)

3. Add in the effects of gasoline-powered mowers and you can see that conventional lawns emit more Greenhouse Gases (vertical axis, called CO₂ equivalents) than they sequester carbon and have a net positive Global Warming Potential (GWP):

So where’s the problem and what can we do about it?

A final study sheds some light (and hope). It looks at ornamental lawncare in San Diego and reveals the main culprit: gasoline-powered mowing. Look for the heavy black section in the right box. That’s how much fuel contributes to Global Warming Potential. Without gasoline-powered mowing, lawns would capture more carbon than they and their fertilization emit.

For all the research I located, I still felt I lacked complete information. I found no similar studies that addressed organic lawncare—compost instead of artificial fertilizer, aeration that increases root growth and carbon capture, etc. Nor could I find studies that measured carbon capture in temperate food forest systems—the kind we permaculturists might construct. In short, nothing that could be reduced to a simple sign that says “This Landscape Sequesters X Amount of Carbon.” (If any reader knows of such studies, please let me know.)

“BOTTOM LINE FOR PLANET-SAVING LAWN AND LANDSCAPE CARE.”

What does science tell you about how maintain your landscape in the most planet responsible way? Mainly, at this point, generalities:

1.Leave your lawn clippings in your grass and make them the sole source of fertilization. (If you want more fertilizer for your lawn, use compost instead of artificial fertilizer.) What you lose in N₂O you’ll more than make up in carbon capture.

2. A hand mower is best, but if you must use a power mower, use an electric mower and contract with your utility for only renewable power (possible in Northeast Ohio, but not advertised). By the time those utility-provided electrons get to your house, they won’t know whether they were generated by coal or wind, but at least you’ll be supporting the renewable contribution to the system. Your lawn will become a net sequesterer of carbon, at least on paper, in anticipation when you’ll have your own home-generated renewable electricity.

3. Still, growing as many trees as possible, especially food forests, is your most responsible option.

Spring Plant Sales 2016

May 3, 2016BEAUTY, GENERAL INTERESTAnn McCulloh

by Ann McCulloh, contributing editor

The great plant grab is on! Suddenly it’s May, and the best and freshest of plants are offered in all corners of our region. There’s always a sense of urgency about getting around to the various sales (many on the same weekend) and making your selections before they sell out. My best advice: 1) look at offerings online ahead of time (when available) and make a realistic list 2) Plot a route that lets you visit several on one day 3) Go early 4) Bring cash (and set a budget) 5) line your car with a tarp or old shower curtain.

This is a list of 2016 plant sales by not-for-profit groups in Northeast Ohio. Some of them emphasize annuals and vegetables, others focus on native plants, perennials or shrubs, others offer some of everything. Despite my best efforts, this list is not comprehensive, so additions are welcome in your comments. Please do keep it to promotions to not-for-profit organizations, though.

Sat May 7 9am – 4pm Larchmere Community Association http://www.larchmere.com/new-events/

Corner of East 127^th and Larchmere Blvd

Sat May 7 9am -1pm, Shaker Lakes Nature Center http://www.shakerlakes.org/

May 7 and 8, 10 am-4pm, Cleveland Metroparks Native Plant Sale http://www.clevelandmetroparks.com/Main/EventsProgramsCalendar/Native-Plant-Sale-9044.aspx

North Chagrin Nature Center Auditorium 3037 SOM Center Road, Willoughby Hills, OH 44094

Sat May 7 2-4pm, Lakewood Earth and Food Community http://www.leafcommunity.org/

Lakewood Garden Center 13230 Detroit Rd., Lakewood. Several local seedling vendors, local food and craft vendors, too.

Thurs-Sat May 12-14 10am – 4pm, Rockefeller Park Greenhouse http://www.universitycircle.org/events/2016/05/rockefeller-park-greenhouse-sale

750 East 88^th St., Cleveland, just off Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive. Free, secure parking.

Fri-Sat-Sun, May 13, 14, 15, Holden Arboretum www.holdenarb.org/home/plantsale.asp

Sat May 14 10-4pm, GardenWalk Cleveland http://www.gardenwalkcleveland.org/

12541 Cedar Road, Cleveland Heights, OH. Parking in the Cedar Hill Baptist Church lot.

Sat May 14 9am-1pm, Secrest Arboretum www.secrest.osu.edu/calendar.asp

(Sat May 20 and Sun May 21 are scheduled pickup days for Cleveland Museum of Natural History’s member’s only native plant sale. There’s still time to join and pre-order. More info at https://www.cmnh.org/native-plant-sale)

Sat June 4 9am-2pm, Master Gardeners Plants in the Park www.cuyahogamg.org/

City of Independence Complex, 6363 Selig Drive, Kiwanis Pavilion