This spring the Nature Center at Shaker Lakes will be holding their 39th annual plant sale. It’s a major fund-raiser for the center, and every year there’s a stronger emphasis on native plants. This year the catalog will be only online, and you can find it here. Orders can be placed until April 17, or until their inventory is sold.
One of the popular activities in the sale has been the “homegrown” section. Local gardeners contribute plants from their own gardens. Last year, and this year, because of conditions imposed by the pandemic, we have offered this as a separate event. This year it will be on Sunday, June 13, from 11 AM to 3 PM, at the center. Sale day will be conducted according to US and Ohio public health social distancing guidelines.
We’d love to see you all there that day. In addition, we invite you to join other area gardeners in dividing and donating some successful perennials from your own garden for this year’s homegrown sale!
We particularly
seek donations of plants that have done well in your yard without being
invasive, including:
Native or non-native flowering perennials
Ferns and other foliage plants that do well in shade
as well as:
Small shrubs or trees
Edibles
Houseplants
The Nature Center reserves the right to discard plants known to be invasive.
Donated plants should be potted up far enough in advance of the Sale to avoid transplanting shock. A supply of empty pots is available for your use behind the Pavilion at the Nature Center. Potted-up, sale-ready plants can be dropped off at the Nature Center Pavilion on Friday June 11 & Saturday June 12, from 9AM to 6PM.
We encourage you to contact us beforehand to discuss your donations. It would be most helpful if you could provide us with an emailed or written list of what you plan to donate, so that we can prepare appropriate labels. Please contact Dick Obermanns at 216-752-9776 or obermanns@aol.com. Thanks for your support!
Plant sale at the Nature Center at Shaker LakesPlant sale at the Nature Center at Shaker Lakes
Steve is a local photographer and birder. His work can be found at his website: http://www.stevecagan.com
Save the date! The City Nature Challenge will be held from April 30 – May 3, 2021.
Cities around the world compete to see who can document the most biodiversity in a single long weekend. The number of observations, the number of species identified and the number of people participating are shared and compared.
I asked our writers/editorial staff to choose a plant they like and write about it. So here is Lois Rose (our Master Gardener) on Abies koreana ‘Horstmann’s Silberlocke’, a lovely silvery evergreen tree, and her Ohio citrus, hardy orange. Lois is followed by Ann McCulloh (once upon a time with the Botanical Garden before its merger but long since moved on), who writes radiantly about Oenothera biennis. Next is our permaculture expert Tom Gibson’s take on little-known gem Indian Pink. I thought I knew what plant I wanted to write about, but then found (sorry!) I couldn’t choose just one. So – here we go:
Lois Rose on Silberlocke Fir:
Silberlocke fir, Abies koreana, is a truly wonderful plant discovered in Germany by Gunter Horstmann. It is a very slow growing conifer, 3”-6” a year, eventually getting to 15 feet. It has fantastic curved upright needles with white undersides. When it is good and ready, it might produce upright cones near the top. I loved it at first sight, and have watched it grow in full sun, very slowly. It is visible from a distance, with its striking undersides and I am honored to have it in my garden.
Silberlocke fir
Lois Rose on Hardy Orange:
This unusual shrub is Poncirus trifoliata, hardy orange, which I have been growing for over a decade. It produces little round oranges, fuzzy at this stage but then less so as they ripen in the fall. They are bitter beyond imagining as they come off of the tree. No, even bitterer than that. And they are filled with seeds, little pulp, little juice. But there are advantages. In England they are used as hedges because no self respecting animal would try to cross through the half inch thorns that are everywhere on the bush. The root stock, being hardy, is used in Florida and other growing areas for more normal oranges because it will not die during a hard freeze. My oranges are now taller than I am and have grown to make a mini-hedge about five or six feet wide. Processing them takes some effort, yes. For example, you place them in the microwave in boiling water, then change it out six or seven times to erase some of the bitterness. One of the recipes calls for doing the boiling seven times, then adding a ton of sugar, and then–putting the resulting marmalade as far back in your cabinet as possible and forgetting about it. I have solved some of this problem by making the recipe with half Poncirus and half normal sweet oranges. Nothing bothers these plants–not disease nor insect nor critter. Dare you to try one.
Hardy orange, Poncirus trifoliata
Ann McCulloh on Common Evening Primrose:
Silky soft yellow flowers open in the late afternoon at the crumbling edge of my driveway. Nobody planted this 3’ tall plant, but I’m notorious for letting weeds grow, at least until I know them better.
I recognize it as a species of Evening Primrose, but the ones I was most familiar with have smaller flowers. (Oenothera cruciata) Hoping to discover that this one, too, was a native species, I first pulled out my well-thumbed copies of Newcomb’s Wildflower Guide and Peterson’s Guide to Wildflowers. I confirmed that this was most likely the Common Evening Primrose ( Why didn’t I already know this???) Apparently there’s a lot of genetic variation in Evening Primrose, enough so that they’ve been the subject of much study.
On to Google to learn whether this charming plant would be a good addition to my pollinator gardens.
Common Evening Primrose, Oenothera biennis
Hooray! Thanks to North Carolina State Extension I learned that Oenothera biennis is a biennial plant widely native in North America. It supplies nectar and pollen to some cool nocturnal hawk moths and native bees, birds eat the seeds and it’s a host plant for the primrose moth and the white-lined Sphinx moth. It readily grows in many types of soil, and is quite drought tolerant. It can seed prolifically, but I prefer that to plants that require babying.
I will be collecting seeds and scattering some this fall and others in spring. I’m delighted to find another showy native summer flower for my wildlife buffet!
Tom Gibson on Indian Pink:
My favorite plant is one I have never seen outside my own yard! It’s Spigelia marilandica, or “Indian Pink,” and it arrived by accident from a Kentucky native plant nursery. (At least I don’t remember ordering it.) My Indian Pink loves a wet, shady area of my native plant garden and produces long-lasting red and yellow bicolor blossoms in June. Whenever I see it and its unusual shape, I’m surprised it isn’t a standard in more conventional gardens. Isn’t one of the most commonly asked questions of garden columnists: “What can I plant in wet shade?”
Part of the reason may be that it has not grown natively much or at all in Ohio. Map. It is officially a plant of the American southeast—including such nearby states as Indiana and Kentucky. Yet with climate change and Northheast Ohio’s ever warming weather it seems like the perfect plant to anticipate our future. It’s been trouble-free for me and even attracts hummingbirds.
Indian Pink, Spigelia marilandica
Elsa Johnson on Phlox divaricata:
I love our native Phlox divaricata, the fragile, delicate woodland phlox that blooms in open moist woodlands in spring, and because I’m partial to blue, I especially like ‘Blue Moon’. The front third of my front yard has three small multi-trunked serviceberry ‘trees’ (tree being a misnomer) close to the sidewalk, and under them grow ferns, soft grassy carex pennsylanica, oenothera speciosa (more on that in a moment), Solomon seal, and Phlox divaricata ‘Blue Moon’, which grows here and there in small clumps. The plants and flowers look like a strong wind would dissolve them, but the flowers actually last several weeks. It’s taken a while to get established, I’ve had to nurse it along, but at long last seem to have gotten past that hurdle.
Phlox divaricata; Wooster Memorial Park, Wooster, Ohio; April 2016. Credit: Wilson44691 / CC0
A little further away from the serviceberry ‘trees’ grow clumps of Oenothera speciosa, another in the evening primrose family, also a dainty looking plant, with small elongated leaves, and flowers the same shape as the yellow flowers on the Oenothera biennis mentioned by Ann, but in a lovely, lightly veined pale pink. Supposedly it is a robust spreader, though it has not been for me, but again, finally, seems to be getting happy. I am not fond of the red splashes that appear on the leaves as the summer wears on, but I’ve learned to live with that. If not fussed with, this plant reseeds, and sometimes re-blooms lightly in the early fall.
Elsa Johnson on Amsonia hubrichtii and Pycnanthemum muticum
There are two more natives I especially like. The first is Amsonia hubrichtii (native, not native to Ohio), for the soft cloud-like texture created by its thread-like leaves which turn marvelously gold in the fall. Plant en-mass for best effect, but be patient; this is another plant that at first is slow to develop.
Amsonia hubrichtii, Sedum spectablis, and carex
Then there is Pycnanthemum muticum, our native mint, which contributes a silvery tone to the garden. Although it is not aggressive like so many other non-native mints, be prepared for it to wander.
Pycnanthemum
Pycnanthemum is a great pollinating insect attractor, which brings me to what I was originally going to write about, the non-native Oreganum laevigatum ‘Herrenhausen’. This small, low growing, robust (i.e. – spreading) oregano is a magnet to a multitude of small flying insects. When I say small I mean as in, if they were any smaller, I wouldn’t be able to see them. And also small bees – honeybees, and others even smaller. On a warm day this little patch is buzzing.
Oregano Herrenhausen
Which brings me back to native phlox, this time to Phlox paniculata, of which I have much, and at this time of year, in full bloom, it is much visited by big black-butt bumblebees (probably carpenter bees) and Monarch and Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterflies.
Ironclad refers to a durable group of Rhododendrons that have proven reliably hardy in Northeastern Ohio. My favorite among the ironclads is R. Nova Zembla. I have my reasons. First, the color in medium shade is a deep passionate remarkable red. No orange tones. Not overly purple or pink. Personally, I think it would make a great lipstick color for women of distinction. Within the broad blossoms are dark subtle speckled throats and long lashes that beg closer inspection. I like to enjoy the blossoms in a bowl of water on the kitchen table. Second, this is a tough performer with deep evergreen foliage that remained unmolested even through our recent -30 degree winters. Finally, it blooms at the perfect time for me to enjoy!
Rhododendron Nova Zembla
You may have noticed that nursery folks escape to their own self-enforced witness protection program each year from late-March through mid-May. We resurface for a breath of air and an afternoon off around Memorial Day. The great thing about Nova Zembla is that it is always waiting for me when I arrive! We enjoy such an engaging and amicable community of landscape plants here in Northeast Ohio that it’s easy to flit about from flower to flower, overcome with this bounty and the buyer’s paradox of so much beauty, without forming long-lasting relationships with a single performer. Nova Zembla has been my BFF in a neglected yard for over thirty-five years. Each Memorial Day we reconnect and rekindle our friendship.
I started with a lanky, one-sided leftover from our garden center and planted it in dry sandy shade beneath a limbed-up spruce. All these years later it remains awkward, lanky, rising to a six foot ridge line with color and healthy foliage on all sides. Meantime, the spruce is dying a slow death as the brown bottom limbs ascend toward the apex. I never water (at home). I might have thrown a handful of Osmocote under the Rhody in some years. My wife calls the yard a killing zone. And yet my Nova Zembla prospers and dominates the space.
The variety was developed by Koster & Sons in Boskoop, Holland, and introduced in 1902. They crossed R. ‘Parsons Grandiflorum’ with an unnamed red, which sounds intriguing and vaguely scandalous to me.
Rhododendron Nova Zembla
The name translates as ‘new land’ in some languages. There is a series of islands high up in the Northern Seas, between Russia and Finland, known as Novaya Zemlya. The islands are mostly glacier and tundra. I doubt there are any Rhododendrons there. The Soviet Union used the islands for nuclear testing for almost fifty years, including the Tsar Bomba in 1961, largest weapon ever detonated. In February, 2019, herds of polar bears left the ice and invaded what was left of the islands. Some blame global warming. I suspect the bears were out for Tsar Bomba retribution.
Rhododendron Haaga; reliably hardy in North Perry, Ohio; Blooms with R. ‘Nova Zembla; developed in Helsinki.
I had a nursery friend who told me years ago that they only achieved about 10% successful rooting on their R. Nova Zemblas. The fact that they kept sticking them year after year offers a keen insight into the nursery thought process. I toured Roemer Nursery, Madison, Ohio, back in 2009 when the founder, Gied Stroombeek, was still around. His propagator was sticking Rhody cuttings that day. She gathered tip cuttings from the stock plants, trimmed each leaf judiciously to reduce transpiration and save space in the rooting bench, then dipped the moistened cuttings in rooting powder. I imagine it was a strong formulation of IBA with about 98% talc. She let them air-dry on the worktable until the powder adhered like dried toothpaste. Then she stuck them in the raised bench of an ancient greenhouse using a long indexed board to keep the rows straight. The rooting mix was mostly fresh pine bark, similar to a modern container mix. They looked like orderly soldiers arrayed row on row. With all this labor required of a highly trained professional from the ever-diminishing ranks of the local propagator ‘guild’, perhaps it is not surprising that many Rhododendrons are produced via tissue culture these days.
My wife’s favorite Rhododendron is ‘Edith Bosley’, a classy deep purple, the best purple Rhody in our estimation. For Mother’s day last year I purchased one for her from Klyn Nurseries. Through no fault of theirs, it perished within a month. (Did I mention I never water the yard?) Knowing her affinity for ‘Edith’, someone purchased for her a small ‘Edith Bosley’at a Big Box store in Mentor (located on land previously cultivated by Paul Bosley, Sr. and his wife, Edith!). But the promising bud yielded not purple, but deep majestic red! I was overjoyed! Let the buyer beware of horticultural serendipity.
(There is an entertaining article by Paul Bosley, Sr., regarding how he met his wife, Edith, and how they selected the nursery property on Mentor Avenue: The Bicentennial Edition Lake County History, Lake County Historical Society, 1976, pages 296-300, ‘Stop 68’.)
What were the highest and lowest temperatures on your trip?
Highest was in July in New York — around Great Barrington, I think was the town. It got up into the nineties, approaching one hundred. It was high enough that the Conservancy sent out notices to all hikers to stay inside for the next few days. Hikers were have heat stroke. It was a hard section to have that happen. It was right when a lot of hikers and myself were facing sticker shock, because once you got to New York, all the hotel prices skyrocketed. That was one of the times when I had to spend the night at a hotel. I was exhausted. I needed to rest, and it was two hundred dollars a night, and it wasn’t even that nice a hotel — on top of the fact that so many hikers were trying to get off the trail that all the hotels were taken. The heat affected me, but I was able to manage through it. Some hikers, it bore down on them and slowed them down dramatically.
Maine
And the lowest temperature?
That was at the beginning of the trail, and the end of the trail. The beginning was the coldest day, when I was hiking with my friend. We were going up into the Smokey Mountains. Fontana Dam is there. It’s a cool spot because it’s the tallest dam east of the Rockies. We were in a kind of limbo because there were a lot of storms moving through. We thought — we’ll have one bad day and then it will be pretty clear. You do have to be careful because you’re going so high up, if you have any thunderstorms, you can get into a precarious situation. A lot of hikers did, but we lucked out with our timing. This was our first day, as we were going up the mountain. It started snowing, and by the time we got up to our shelter, the shelters were full. So we tented out overnight. Luckily they had a Ridge Runner. That is someone who is paid to hike along and check on people and talk about best practices, specifically Leave No Trace.
Fontana DamRidge Runner
The Smoky Mountains have an interesting system. People who are doing section hikes have to reserve the shelters they’re going into, while thru-hikers have a general pass – it’s a little cheaper and you’re able to go for a longer period of time, while the section-hikers have maybe three days, at most for that section. They have to reserve specific spots. Thru-hikers always go in the shelter. But if the shelter is full, and you’re in that shelter, and a section hiker shows up, you, the thru-hiker, have to go out of the shelter and tent up. Section hikers are not allowed to tent. Again, you can find yourself in a precarious situation, especially if it’s cold or raining, when everyone wants to be in the shelter. That was when it dipped into the low thirties, mid-twenties. It was cold enough that, sleeping in my tent, the only thing that kept me warm were hand-warmers. A twenty degree sleeping bag just means you’ll survive at twenty degrees, not that you’re going to be comfortable. I was frigidly cold and the only way I was able to sleep was by holding the hand-warmer to my chest and letting my heart circulate the warmth to the rest of my body. I had all of my clothing on — two pairs of clothes – and anything else, like two warm hats, gloves. I had all that on. I was bundled up, so I was able to sleep. The following morning when we got up there was snow on top of the tent. Taking down the tent was extremely cold. My hands were extremely cold. My friend had a form of hypothermia, a condition where if your extremities get too cold you get nauseous. She had to go sit in the shelter for a while. She was worried she was coming down with something, but the Ridge Runner, who’d spent the night there to help out hikers, informed us what was going on. This was at the first shelter in the Smoky Mountains. That was the coldest night. It was absolutely miserable. But we lucked out.
Coldest night on Smokys
There are certain places in the Smokys, like at New Found Gap, where a road intersects the trail. There is a heated public bathroom there. When it snows, the rangers send word that you have to get off the mountain — only the rangers are allowed to drive up that road. It’s dangerous. Hikers can’t get off the mountain, so they have to sleep on the floor of the bathroom. There was one hiker who got her trail name, Queen of Thrones, because she was trapped there for a couple days. Another important factor in a situation like that is, if you need to get food for the next section of trail, you are going to have to wait there, because you can’t do the next section without food. There was an instance where a group of around twelve hikers got stuck there and needed to resupply, but they couldn’t move because of the snow, and they all got sick because they were sleeping on the floor of the bathroom.
Were you mostly alone?
Yes
Was that true of most of the hikers?
That kind of depends on people’s personalities. What happens on the trail is you gain a ‘tramily’, a trail family. My friend and I hiked a little under half the trail together. We found we had different hiking styles and were starting to argue about things, so we split up at that point. But other trail families were really starting to congeal by that point. I’m thirty five. I wasn’t there to meet new friends. I had a lot of great friends at home. I wasn’t looking to bond with a bunch of people. It kind of depends on what you’re trying to get out of the trail. A lot of the people who were in their early twenties, they were still in that high-school/college age mentality of looking to find kinship and friends, make new ones on the trail, party – stuff like that. But toward the end of the trail I did have a fun scenario on the Hundred Mile Wilderness. It’s essentially a hundred miles of trail with no side trails in between. You can’t get off, so you had to provision that amount of food for that time span. Everybody’s nervous about that section, but it’s really not that bad a section to go through because, overall, it was a gentler section. I happened to get on pace with tramily of about twelve people, and they were really very nice people, but it made it hard for me because if you lined yourself up with that family, you knew twelve spots in the shelter and camp site were going to be taken. I was kind of juggling back and forth with them. That was the last leg of the hike. You do the Hundred mile Wilderness and then you’re about ready to go to Mt. Katahdin, which is the very end of the trip, and it was nice to hang out with people. I was trying to find a balance. Some of the people in that tramily were people I’d met at the very beginning of the trail. It just happened that we lined up, that we saw each other again at the end.
What is your take away from this trip? …The important thing?
I’d say the one thing I really liked about the trail was the sense of minimalism, having everything you need in your backpack, not having a home. You kind of get a sense of survivalism. Up to that point I’d always had a home to go back to – of course, don’t get me wrong, I always had a home to go back to while on the trail – but it did play into that factor, of feeling “oh hey, I have everything I need here.” The sense of independence you get doing it — that was very nice. Another aspect that is also a favorite part is the idea of getting yourself out of your element, of breaking yourself out of going to a nine to five job, away from sitting in front of a computer every day, of getting a different perspective on life. There are definitely a lot of people who hike the trail, and it changes their whole perspective.
Original halfway point
Did You?
No. And that’s where I would highly recommend, if you’re thinking about doing the trail, and you’re younger – just out of high school or college – those are the peak times to hike the trail, because those are your formative years when you’re deciding what you’re going to do as an adult. For them, it really does inform their perspective. But for me, it reaffirmed how good things were at home, that I really enjoyed the way I was going. I had been just miserable at my job, and once my job was gone I was perfectly happy! And these past months when I’ve been staying home and looking around for a job, I’m still happy. It’s reaffirming for me. Whereas, for some, it changes their whole life. They go into the van life. They just want to live in a van for a while, become nomadic. They get drawn to the appeal of these trails. It’s not very expensive to hike the trail. You can do it for as little as three thousand, or as much as ten, depending on what luxuries you want, what food you want to eat, those little factors. I’d say it was the cheapest I’ve ever been, hiking the trail. You’re getting your enjoyment out of walking. Which is free.
Ah Ha moments?
Sure — ( l o n g p a u s e ) — I thought I might find some sort of extra spiritual connection, or something about myself, but really, it just affirmed how happy I am at home and with what I have. It did push me into thinking “I just can’t wait to get towards retirement, where I don’t have to work anymore!” (laughing). OK. I know my goal! One of the things I was thinking about throughout the trail was: What do I really enjoy doing? Am I on the right career path? Should I change at all? I was doing system administration. Currently I’m trying to get into database administration. It’s not quite the same field, but it’s in a similar vein. I think I’ll enjoy that a lot better, even if I get paid less. What I’m thinking about is – you can have a high stress job, and get paid a lot, and retire early, but will you have your health if you do that? Or do you want a lower stress job that might not pay as much, but you’ll be happier over time? That was the balance I was thinking about on the trail. That was partially why I did the trail. I wanted to take the time to do that thinking. It was very informative for me, because until hiking the trail, the last time I’d taken more than a month off from work was in high school. It was very different to not be working.
Did you take pictures?
Oh, lots! It’s important, once you’re off the trail, you can get depressed when you’re not seeing new sights every day, and not working out twelve hours a day (laugh) – which I’ve staved off so far. I was lucky to have a lot to come back to, my wife was at home, a house, my cats, and my family – all those things that I really missed. Those were the things that midway through the trail got me really depressed. I’m finding, more and more, that I’m really happy when I’m home; happy with what I have. Where, the young high school and college graduates, with only what they have on their backs , they are coming back to “what do I want to do?”, “where do I want to go?’ — to a whole new world.
This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks, Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight, Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic, Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms. Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest. Evangeline, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
A friend of ours — young by our standard, but not his own — spent last summer hiking the Appalachian Trail. We thought our readers might enjoy this conversation with him about his experience. The lead-in question was:
So — How many pairs of shoes did you go through?
I went through four pairs of shoes. The trail is around 2,200 miles, so I went through a pair of shoes every 500 miles.
Drop-offHiking Gear
Clothes?
No – just some holes.
Starting: Arch at Amicalola
Why did you do this?
Originally I was looking for a way to channel something outside of work that wasn’t my day to day, and I’d always been into hiking; it was a way to disconnect. I’m a technology person. I wanted — wilderness. That was important, to have something that was completely separate from technology. I was stressed out from technology. I started realizing how there’s kind of a gear-head culture around hiking, where you’re trying to get your gear as light as possible, and it specifically pertains to these thru-hikes. That’s what got me thinking about the Appalachian Trail. I had two friends who’d hiked the trail – a section, not the whole thing – so I started thinking about the trail and what gear should I purchase and how could I get it light? There are these luxury items that you don’t really need, but want to have with you, like a large battery pack. It’s not really necessary and mine was heavy at 12 ounces, but it adds a lot of convenience, like always being able to charge your phone. Then I just got the Big Rosy Glasses about the trail. I liked that it was a long linear hike, a point A to point B destination. I wanted to do something that broke up the monotony of what I had been doing, working thirteen years right out of college. I wanted to change that up, make sure I was not missing out on something — not just work until my 50’s or 60’s, and then think “oh shoot, I lost that opportunity.”
Why do people start in
the south and hike north?
What I hear is it’s a little bit easier that way. Hiking the whole trail depends on timing. If you want to start in the spring, then you want to start in the south. But if you are only available to start midsummer, then you will want to go southbound. What enticed me was that supposedly it eases you into the harder part – you’re getting what they call your trail legs. By the time you have your trail legs, you’re getting into harder terrain.
How long did getting
your trail legs take?
(laughing) It depends on the person. It took me about two months before I was hiking at a good pace. The other thing to balance out was calories, how much food one can carry, because carrying food is heavy. You want to be sure you keep your energy up and nutrients correct because that can cause issues as well. I eased into the trail. At the beginning I was doing 8 to 12 miles a day. Then every few weeks I’d go a little further, or it was an easy day.
Typical five days’ worth of foodWeighing his backpack
What’s the longest
mileage you covered?
Twenty seven and one half miles. That was in the Shenandoahs in the northern end of Virginia; they are known for being relatively flat and easy, so that was the section where I was pounding the miles. I found out after the Shenandoahs that I was very calorie deficient. At that point I was prepping for what’s called the half-gallon challenge, where you eat a half-gallon of ice cream in one sitting. I discovered that instead of getting burnt-out and a stomach ache I was getting a sugar rush, and I’d hike a lot further when I put in all those ‘empty’ calories.
Half-gallon challenge
Where did you start?
That was in Amicalola Falls, Georgia. That’s the approach
trail in and it is about 9 miles. Then you get to Springer Mountain and that’s
the official start of the Appalachian Trail.
Springer Mountain – Official start of trailCamp shelter
What struck you about
the early stages of the trail?
The biggest thing that struck me early on was how crowded it was. There were a lot of people on the trail. Back home people were thinking “oh – John’s alone in the wilderness. Anything can happen. It’s scary, and he’s stuck there.” I think the least amount of people I saw in a day was three, and typically more like ten to fifteen. At the beginning, at every camp that we stopped at there had to be twenty plus people. There were day hikers, section hikers, and thru-hikers. It was to the point where we were concerned we’d find good spots to camp out. You can also do what’s called stealth camping, which is, in certain parts, you can camp off the trail. But we wanted to stick to the shelters. They have conveniences, like bear boxes to put your food in, instead of just hanging it up. Yes, bears may be attracted to the shelters because there are so many people leaving things, but also there are so many people that a bear wouldn’t mess around.
Did you see bears?
Yes. About nine. My first bear experience was scary. I think it was in North Carolina. I’d just set up my tent. I’d sat down in my tent and was ‘exploding’ my backpack, taking everything out and getting arranged for the night, when I heard this person-sized thing coming up behind my tent. I knew there were no people behind me – so I slipped out and stood up, and there was an adolescent bear staring at me. We both got spooked. He went about ten feet away, and stopped, and stared at me. At that point I’m like “what do I do?” I took out my backpack and food and left my tent completely zipped open, and walked away from him. He sat there awhile. We tried to make loud noises to get him to go away. Eventually he sauntered off.
Tent camping
You had a friend with
you?
Yes. I wasn’t entirely alone. That was the thing about being in a camp with so many people. That bear was a little nerve-wracking. We went around the camp and told all the people to hang up their bags on bear cables – that’s a rope system that’s provided. Some people still didn’t hang up their food, but it was so early on that people were just getting used to being in the wilderness, and hiking, and a lot of people were still sleeping with their food, which is the opposite of what you are supposed to do, because bears are going to be curious about you. Luckily, that night we had no disturbance, but I didn’t sleep well. I didn’t move my tent. It was one of those things; once I ran into that first bear I realized that I had to accept that there are going to be bears in the wilderness, and I had to get word to them, and be on the alert. Luckily I had no bad encounters with bears, but that definitely was a near encounter. When I’d get the most anxious was when we’d go into popular areas that day hikers or weekend hikers used, who would not be as mindful about storing their food properly. If they lost their food they didn’t care, and that was when bears would get habituated and start to associate people with food. I know they did have to kill one bear while I was hiking the trail. The story goes that the bear had gotten to the point where a hiker had put down his pack and went off-trail to go to the bathroom, and when he was coming back to his pack on the trail the bear rushed it and tore it open, ate all the food he could, and then puked up all the food on the hiker’s backpack. At that point your backpack is your home. It has your tent and everything in it — and at that point you know that bear is going to be a problem. Or sometimes you’d hear from people going to or from certain locations that there were bears in the nighttime, slowly getting habituated. That was what I was scared of.
Bear hang
Did you see any other potentially
dangerous wildlife?
I saw a lynx. I’d stepped off the trail to go to the bathroom, and as I was walking back to the trail I saw, about 20 feet ahead, the back end of a lynx walking away. It was stalking me, most likely, because I was the only thing that was there. I was on high alert, because with cats you can’t back off if they attack you. But really, there was no danger. The trail itself was the dangerous part.
The little section in the Tennessee Balds that my husband and I hiked, in the Smokies in 2018, was like trying to hike up a waterless waterfall — the steep pitches were so rocky and uneven. Is most of the trail like that?
GA/NC border
Yes. But it depends. Going from the southern to the northern end, it gets harder the further north you go. The southern end — this is the rosy glasses part – really wasn’t that bad, overall. Sometimes you had to get used to parts that you were hiking up, and sometimes it was really wet. I think my wettest day was in Pennsylvania when the trail became a stream, because it was raining so hard. Pennsylvania is known as the rocky state. That was where I got most depressed on the trail. There are so many rocks on the ground that are a little bit bigger than fist size, all along the trail — It’s a section where a lot of people twist an ankle, and there aren’t so many spectacular views in that state, either. I didn’t feel like I was working myself forward toward something rewarding. I felt like I was just passing through this brutal trail, and the higher mountains were fewer and farther between than in the earlier states (Georgia/North Carolina/Tennessee/Virginia). They are mostly in the east of the state, where you leave Pennsylvania and enter New York. That’s where you begin to get into the real mountain climbing part of the trail — which I was expecting, but it’s different when you’re there in person. My first taste of that was in Pennsylvania at Lehigh Gap. It was the point where you had to put away your trekking poles (I used trekking poles the whole time; I recommend them). It was just hand over hand climbing up these big boulders up the side of the mountain, and you have your backpack pulling on your back, and then there was one point where you can look back, and it’s like looking down a cliff — very scary. I’m not fond of heights. But I knew that going into it. That was my task that day. I wanted to get off that mountain as quickly as possible, from point A to point B, and just keep going.
One of the nice resources that I got very used to, where techno influences hiking now, is an application called Guthooks. Essentially it uses the GPS on your phone to figure out where you are at any time along the trail. You can see where the next shelter is, how far you are away from water, and it allows people to leave comments on key points, so it was a good way to figure out “how hard is this next section of trail?” Once the north-bounders and south-bounders were intersecting, you got a nice sharing about how hard something would be – but also you could be thrown off a bit. A south-bounder could think a section was hard, because they were going up, but a north-bounder would think it was easy because they were going down.
Though sometimes down
is harder…?
Yes! In New Hampshire and Maine the trail became very fond of these forty five degree rock faces. Going down it was a whole different ball game. Scary. You’d have to brace yourself – sometimes scoot on your butt and hope you don’t tear open your pack, or hurt your hands. That was the safest way.
What were the prettiest parts of the trail?
I have two favorite parts. One held the favorite spot for the longest time, until I got to the other. That was Roan Mountain, North Carolina. That’s the area called the Balds – just a gorgeous area. I loved those trails, when you can go up on top of the mountain and can see the trail across large expanses – huge expansive views — as you’re walking along. It was a complete reward to be hiking. That was my favorite until I got to New Hampshire, in the White Mountains. The Whites were extremely difficult. I’d be going through a difficult area, and there would be a family of four with a ten year old and a twelve year old; it kind of put you in your place. Mt. Lafayette – that was my high point of the trail. It was absolutely gorgeous up there. It was three thousand feet up, in a relatively short period of time. But once you’re up, the views are gorgeous. You can see from one mountain to another, to the Presidentials in the distance. The Whites in general are very gorgeous. It was much like in the Smokey’s. As a hiker going through, you almost get a little dulled.
Roan Mountain, NC/TN BaldsMt. Lafayette, NH
How long did it take you to hike the whole trail?
It was a little over five months. I started April first on the approach trail and finished on September 9th. Which was about right, because when I was at home, planning, doing my spread sheets, I was trying to average thirteen miles a day, not accounting for what hikers call zero days, when you stay in town and don’t hike at all. Based on that, I ended ahead of my schedule. It was about half way, at the Pennsylvania mark, where I started to feel I’d had enough hiking. I still wanted to see all the sights – take that opportunity – but I also wanted to get back home. Most people don’t get the opportunity to take a hike like that. Anybody you talk to who has only been able to do a part of it and gets off, for other than physical reasons, regrets doing that. They wish they’d pushed harder for it. I knew going in that even if I felt miserable, I was going to push myself to the end.
When you were hiking how did you and Corey (John’s wife) manage? Did she drive to visit you?
Luckily Ohio is kind of central to the Appalachian Trail. Yeah – She drove me and my hiking friend to Georgia, and hiked the approach trail with us, and then drove back home. She was just a trooper. She drove a lot of miles to visit me throughout the trail, and she picked me up at the end of it. Other times were scattered, when she had time off, and I had a town I was going to that was convenient for her to drive to.
Corey and John
Does the trail go through any towns?
Most of the time you have to get off the trail. Typically it’s only a mile off the trail, but sometimes five miles off. In the south the popular hot towns that the trail goes through are Hot Springs and Damascus, as well as a college town in New Hampshire (which I should remember but don’t!). In the northern states when you go into town you’re like a fish out of water, especially going into big towns, because when you’re hiking the trail you can smell people from a mile away. A lot of the smaller towns, the trail towns, kind of flow with the seasons. A really good gig to be in is the hostel business. In the north the hostels have both a hiking season and a skiing season that offset their costs, and the off-season, when they have time off. It works out well for them.
Town of DamascusTenting at Hostel in DamascusNeels Gap and Shoe Tree
What about the people you’d meet?
Typically trail hikers have a nice mentality to them. Generally they’re kind – everyone is trying to pay it forward. And you run into a lot of ‘trail magic’. Especially in the south, where charities or a church group set up at an intersection where the trail crosses a road, and hand out candy, drinks, soda pops. I ran across one where they were making burgers, even veggie burgers for vegetarians, and fresh cut fries. I went past those countless times. If I lived close to the trail I would totally do that because on a hot day when you see someone with cold pops – that’s the bee’s knees, so wonderful. You really start to crave the luxuries of home, like air conditioning, ice cold drinks. Showers are a wondrous experience when you’re getting off the trail, especially if you’ve had several days of rain. The rain kind of washes you but you feel dirty, especially if you’re going through mud. But yeah – Trail Magic was just the most wonderful thing! I ran into folks who do it because they love to see hiker’s faces when they come out of the forest and see food.
Trail MagicTrail MagicThru hikersThru hiker with dog
Did your phone work the whole trail?
It was spotty. I brought a GPS. A Garman Inreach Mini– light, but it was expensive; it costs about three hundred dollars, and then you have to buy a monthly subscription that runs from ten dollars a month to up to sixty. GPS works with clear skies. If it gets cloudy, it get a little wonky. When it came to the phone, sometimes Verizon would be the best one and sometimes AT&T. You could not be guaranteed to have cell service. It was very problematic when you were trying to go to a town – sometimes you’d be five miles away from it and you’d need to figure out a ride, and you didn’t know, going down the side of the mountain, if you’d have reception to call into to town to get a ride – or if you’d have to walk a road into town, which, after trail hiking, was very painful on the feet. Even though its flat, it hurts quite a bit. One thing people don’t know is that your cellphone GPS works even if you don’t have reception. I’d put it on airplane mode, and then use the Guthooks app to figure out where I was at any time.
When you got to shelters – did any of those have showers ?
Very rarely. There were a few, about four of them.
Smoky Mountain Shelter
…water?
The shelters were typically placed close to a stream.
Water at shelter
And that water was safe to drink?
Yes. And no. In the more popular places it would have been tested. It got a little trickier when I got into the northern states because that was when I got into the peak summer season, and a lot of the seasonal streams started drying up. That was another place where trail magic came into play. As I got into New Jersey and New York, one of the luxuries and pure kindnesses of people was they’d leave out water jugs for people to take and be able to fill up. That’s probably where I had to drink some of the dirtiest water, where you’d filter it and it would still have this murky color to it, but you had to use it, because you knew in advance some of these other water sources were not going to be there, and the last thing you wanted was to go without water. There were some instances – at least two that I can think of – where the Appalachian Trail Conservancy has care takers, who stay and maintain the enclosed structures. Those have water that you can take, and showers. Oh – more than two. I didn’t go to the ones in Maine.
#1 – One of the most effective things we can do to combat climate change and the perils of a warming planet is plant trees. Lots and lots of trees.
#2 – Cleveland has lost 6% of its tree canopy, a recent regional study shows.
Enter the Heights Tree People.
It all began when several Heights residents, who had taken the 2018 Tree Stewards training program given by Holden Arboretum and The Western Reserve Land Conservancy, were looking to put their training to use in their own balliwicks, the inner-ring suburbs of Cleveland Heights and Shaker Heights. Although both communities have significantly better tree canopy coverage than the City of Cleveland, still, the knowledge of canopy loss proved motivating. Furthermore, many of Heights trees (both Cleveland, Shaker, and University) are aging, especially in those areas earliest developed, now 100 years old. Aging trees hold more carbon, but are vulnerable — to insects, disease, and, as recently experienced, to wind damage from climate-change driven micro-bursts. Then too, some specific neighborhoods offer considerably less canopy than others.
A core group of Heights Tree People was quickly formed in the winter of 2019 and a mission established:
1.) To plant and care for trees in our neighborhoods, the Cities of Cleveland Heights, Shaker Heights, University Heights, and the upland areas of the Cities of Cleveland and East Cleveland.
2.) to share knowledge and advocate for an enduring tree culture; and
3.) increase the health, vitality, and happiness of our local habitat, and, through it, the planet.
All noble goals — and the Tree People let no moss grow under their toes – in the planting season the group planted 111 trees: 1 in East Cleveland, 3 in Shaker Heights, 12 in Cleveland, and 95 in Cleveland Heights. Not a shabby start for an all-volunteer organization.
Forty four different species of tree, both native and non-native species, were planted, but considerably more native species were planted than non-native species, and included diverse oaks and maples, as well as birch, blackgum, dogwood, redwood, redbud, hornbeam, locust, cypress, Kentucky coffeetree, sourwood, stewartia, larch, sassafras, and more.
How did it work?
Upon request the Tree People gifted people in the Heights and nearby Cleveland neighborhoods with a correctly planted tree on their property; trees were planted in the neighborhoods of Antisdale and Grosvenor, Potter Village, Fairfax between Lee and Coventry, and East 130th Street, which organized itself and planted 11 trees on their street “changing the landscape of the entire street”. Requests for tree-lawn trees were relayed to the City Forester. In addition, the group planned, with City support, a Reconciliation Tree Planting at the Cleveland Heights Community Center after this fall’s divisive election, and one HTP member worked with Tree Stewards from the Western Reserve Land Conservancy to stake and cage (to protect from deer rub) young oak saplings in the Great Meadow area of Forest Hill Park in East Cleveland.
The Heights Tree People are taking requests for spring planting. To make a request for a tree on your property contact heightstreepeople@gmail.com.
Thinking big?– organize your street, like E. 130th did.
A decade ago, in 2009, I attended the first of what was planned to be ten of such forums/summits, one per year, held in Cleveland’s historic Public Auditorium. On October 16, 2019, I attended the last of these forums. And in between? I fell victim to acute avoidance syndrome. Confession: I’ve been a skeptic about whether these kinds of events are meaningful exercises.
In our present political climate, with so many of those in power nationally, and globally, all but declaring war on environmental science and busily pushing environmental rollbacks of crucial legislation and regulations, it’s refreshing, even hopeful, to learn that Cleveland is one of five international cities named for leadership for its sustainability plan. In a situation where intended failure and deregulation at the national level must be countered at the state level, and/or the city level, it seems Cleveland has been quietly rising to the challenge. A lot has changed since the Cuyahoga River last burned fifty years ago, on June 22, 1969…. (and never since) … (and is now designated officially a Water Trail) … (and yes, you can safely eat the fish that come out of it) … (and no, now you won’t die from industrial contamination if you fall in).
But back to the subject at hand. This Summit asked this question: Are we functioning in a way that is best for all the people? Are we achieving the environmental justice and economic equity that must be at the core of sustainability? The answer is obviously mixed (ten years is not a long time for the ship that is government, which Obama noted in 2008, moves oh-so-slowly, to turn) … but the list of cool stuff happening in Cleveland is long: community gardens/urban hydroponic greenhouse/Rid-All – supplying local food in the urban food desert ; Green Corp/Cleveland Community Canopy Program — planting trees (one of the most important things we can do — did you know that Cleveland has lost half of its tree canopy in the last 50 years?); Upcycle (turning throw-away stuff into new stuff you can use); Bike Cleveland – scooters and bikes for public use; advances in renewable energy (now at 13%); the new Children’s Museum 100% LED … and that’s not half of it. Accomplishments.
All this was the lead up to the morning speakers. The first two were of particular interest to this attendee.
Nik Engineer (The Ellen Macarthur Foundation) led. His topic was The Circular Economy, which he set against the linear economy, giving as an example the lightbulb manufacturers “cartel”, who met in 1920 and redesigned lightbulbs to perform worse. Yep, you read that right. The bulb burned up faster and then you threw it away. They designed in obsolescence, a hallmark of the linear economy. Another example is plastics. By 2050, says Nik Engineer, there will be more plastic in the oceans than fish. (Reminder – Cuyahoga County is enacting a plastic bag ban: plan accordingly) (why can’t I remember to actually take my recyclable grocery bags into the store?}
The circular economy designs things to work better. In a circular economy, theoretically, everyone prospers, and damage to the environment is limited (ideally…. parentheses my own). Imagine a circle. At top left put regenerate natural systems for positive effect. At top right put design out waste and pollution. At the bottom of the circle put keeping product materials in use. It seems to me both the linear economy and the circular economy assume unending economic growth, but clearly circular is better because it does less harm, leaves less waste. As the child of depression era socialists, I have reservations about capitalism’s theoretically unending growth, whether linear or circular. Quite possibly you, and my fellow Gardenopolis Cleveland readers/writers/editors, have other opinions.
Engineer was followed by Michael Waas, of Terracycle, a for profit global company that collects and repurposes difficult-to-recycle waste. This was such a good follow-up to the Circular Economy, as the very first thing Waas mentioned was that waste does not exist in nature; output and input are circular. But oil, via the products made out of it, changes that. They are extremely convenient, but they are undisposable, and thus are the largest component of linear economy waste. Only burial or burning gets ‘rid’ of plastics; both with unacceptable consequences.
Upcycling takes them and makes other products, preferably with direct community involvement. The example he gave was ‘the milkman model’ : the product (the bottle) is an asset to the milkman in and of itself. …as opposed to the ubiquitous single use plastics (that are filling up the seas), which are valuable to no one once they’ve been used and pitched. Waas acknowledges that scaling a circular economy is hugely challenging. There are no easy solutions to finding a balance (plastic waste vs. benefits of plastic), and the extractive industries essentially don’t fit into the circular economy. Note that word: essentially.
Other speakers followed (Dr. Richard Zinke, on inequity reduction; India Birdsong on transportation; Michael Shank on communication/conflict resolution) but these were the two who spoke to me.
The afternoon was devoted to breakout groups addressing many finely tuned issues.
This summit gave me perspective and hope. I remembered working for a planning and architecture firm downtown, in 1985, right out of graduate school (landscape architecture), driving the desolate decaying mid-town corridor, collecting data for a study, trying to envision a future for it.
Saturday, July 20 was a 96 degree scorcher, with high humidity as well. Some very brave garden lovers walked and drove around Cleveland Heights for the first day of the two day inaugural GardenWalk. Around 40 private yards and public gardens were available for viewing from 12 to 5, plus three community gardens and ten pocket gardens on Langton, in the four zip codes of Cleveland Heights.
Cleveland Heights covers about 8.13 square miles at an elevation of 935 feet. It was founded in 1903. Forest Hill is one of the historic neighborhoods, north of Mayfield between Lee and Taylor. It was purchased in 1923 by John Rockefeller from his father.
There were several homes in this neighborhood on the tour.
Further south some of the older neighborhoods featured a diverse group of gardens with wonderful water features, native plant havens, and charming displays of perennials and annuals. Friendly gardeners often greeted the visitors, offering refreshments and guided inspections as well.
One home on a small lane had crisply clipped hedges interrupted with white picket gates inviting you in.
charming gate off of the laneswamp milkweed finds a wayHypericumwatering method
Some homeowners placed signs in their gardens to inform visitors about their plants and other features.
