Category Archives: POPULAR INTEREST

Garden for Hummingbirds, Bees, Wildlife. Native Plants…

PASSION, PERTINENT, POPULAR INTEREST

by Toni Stahl, Habitat Ambassador Volunteer, Backyard Habitat

Hummingbird and Cardinal Flower

Hummingbirds are a pollinator. There are a few plants that only they can pollinate, such as Cardinal Flower (photo from my yard above) and Royal Catchfly. We can save hummingbirds with more than sugar water. During the summer, hummingbirds nectar from my plants and rarely use the feeder. They are a woodland bird, so plant native trees for cover and places to raise young. Plant chemical-free, tubular shaped nectar plants for food. Here is a list what I’ve provided in my Ohio yard to save hummingbirds.

Adding native plants to your yard doesn’t need to be weedy. You can landscape them just like you would non-native plants. I was interviewed in the recently updated Ohio Animal Companion articles about going native and how to create a functioning wildlife habitat. Ask native plant vendors to help you with your selection so you can put the right plant in the right place. A link for the Ohio list is in the going native article, but for other state lists, click here.

We can save bees in our yards. They work hard for us by providing 1 out of every 3 bites of our food, so please don’t swat at them. Don’t confuse bees with wasps, hornets or yellow-jackets that sting to protect their nests. Carpenter bees fly beside me and buzz loudly, but they are harmless. If carpenter bees drill holes into your wood that cause problems, paint the wood with polyurethane in early spring right after the bees have emerged. Provide clean water in a shallow dish with rocks, plant the Cup Plant, which holds dew, or make mud or sand puddles. Buy plants from a reputable organic native plant dealer to ensure that the plants don’t contain pesticides that kill bees. Plant a variety of native plants that bloom at different times throughout the season. For a bee plant list, enter your zip code to see your Pollinator-Friendly Plant Guide.

Good news: National Wildlife Federation honors America’s Top Ten Cities for Wildlife. Cincinnati, Ohio is a new one on the list. Be inspired.

Tips for Your Yard

  • Organic Lawn Care: Apply Corn Gluten when the soil reaches 50 degrees (between 3/15 and 4/10 in central Ohio, when crocus blooms) as a pre-emergent broadleaf weed control
  • 5 weeks after using Corn Gluten (if we’ve had enough rain), over-seed weedy or bare areas with a pesticide-chemical-free grass seed, like TLC Titan, available at most home and garden centers; keep seed damp until grass is 2″ high
  • Pull out weeds or spot-treat weeds sparingly with an organic product, only if necessary, such as Iron (a few brands are Whitney Farms Lawn Weed Killer Iron, Fiesta or Garden’s Alive Iron X)
  • Mow high to shade out weeds (3″-4″)
  • Bluebird houses: Transparent fishing line (monofilament) deters house sparrows from killing bluebirds and other cavity nesting birds in their bird houses, except that 20-lb is recommended instead of 6-lb weight
  • Birds love moving water, but it’s easy to trip or mow over the tiny hose for a dripper. Using a shovel, create a slit in the lawn about 3-5″ deep and 1″ wide by rocking the shovel back and forth. Push the tiny hose down and close the soil over it to make the soil flat and protect the hose for the season. The hose will be easier to remove when the ground starts to freeze than if you buried it
  • Plant native milkweed for Monarch butterflies
  • Leave plant materials in place throughout winter and into the nesting season to supply bird nesting materials naturally. Here are ideas for extra bird-nesting materials
  • When an invasive Garlic Mustard plant is in its second-year, the flowering stage, gently dig out the entire root of the plant. If you can ID the first-year rosette, gently pull it out. Important: Bag the flowering stage plant and put the bag in the trash (not in compost or yard waste) because the plant continues to go to seed even after removed from the ground
  • In spring, invasive bushes become green before most native plants, so they’re easy to see. Cut the invasive plant at or near ground level and cover with cardboard. If it is pesky, cover with black plastic
  • To keep an Invasive Plant away, put an alternative native plant (if a bush: a bush; if a flower: a flower) in its place
  • Cut flower stalks to 12-15″ and leave them standing until summer (late May to early June in the Midwest) after the small carpenter bees that used them for nests have emerged
  • Put out hummingbird feeders April 15 to Oct 15 in mid-Ohio to help Ruby-throated hummingbird migrants and summer residents. Watch this migration map for timing in other areas
  • Contact your Public Health Department to find out if your city does mosquito fogging and, if so, ask how to opt out. These chemicals kill beneficial insects, including bees and Monarch caterpillars
  • Help migratory birds by turning your outdoor lights off or down 11:30pm-5am from mid-March to mid-June to keep birds from being disoriented and having nighttime collisions
  • Apply organic tree fertilizer to the root zone to help trees make leaves
  • Best bets on what to plant by zip code from Doug Tallamy and National Wildlife Federation
  • When you have your chimney cleaned in early spring, close the damper, uncap it and add a cover 12″ above chimney with openings on the sides so that a pair of Chimney Swifts can use it for their summer home and nest for babies. See tips here
  • If you find unattended baby or injured wildlife in your yard, here’s what to do from the Ohio Wildlife Center Hospital

Nature News

Ohio Habitat Ambassador Nature Events

Other Ohio Nature Events

Deer: Remnant Anomaly

POETRY, POPULAR INTEREST

by Elsa Johnson

It pauses me                      this thing     I have found             that

is not of                        the awakening world                    hidden

halfway up the slope                   halfway           up the trail    in

winter’s windfall of       downed limbs        dead leaves       last

year’s dry crushed grass     :     Stiff leather         with battered 

bits  /  tufts  /  patchy-furred       on it          —        a tired thing 

lying     lasting here                                    Some creature’s coat

The wild’s    beasts of prey               have done their work well

This is not the first    part    I have found                           Decay

has long since                     eroded out                  its essence   —

the spirit of what lived             :             its run               its grace

its bound         its bounce      —     all fled                       Toeing it

over                                   do  I not touch            briefly            its

terror    /      the short chase     /     tear    /     the taking down

Thomas Jefferson: Landscape Architect

PERIPATETIC, POPULAR INTEREST, PRESERVATION

by Greg Cada

Gardenopolis editors recently heard Greg speak on this subject at Holden Arboretum, and asked him to share his expertise with our readers.

Shortly after Thomas Jefferson’s 1801-09 presidency during which, much like today, the mud of slander and volatile allegations was slung by both parties, our third president wrote to the mâitre d’hôtel of the President’s (now, White) House:  “I am constantly in my garden or farm, as exclusively employed out of doors as I was within doors when at Washington, and I find myself infinitely happier in my new mode of life.”  Jefferson’s love of architecture and landscape design was a side of his life which also left a footprint on America.  We will briefly look at the influences and products of this aspect of his life.

National Portrait Gallery; Gilbert Stuart

Jefferson was born on April 13, 1743 at Shadwell, near Charlottesville, Virginia, in the backwoods of Virginia to Peter and Mary Jefferson, respectively, a prominent surveyor and a Randolph.  The Randolphs were probably the preeminent family in Virginia, which provided Jefferson easy entrée to the better homes, many of which had elaborate gardens as the Colonial aristocracy favored ornate gardens to impress the populace by demonstrating their control over nature in the rugged New World.  Meanwhile, in England, where the land had long since been denuded, the trend had evolved toward restoration of natural, picturesque gardens.  The wealthy moved untold amounts of soil and rerouted bodies of water to make the land look natural.

From 1745-52, the Jefferson family relocated to Tuckahoe Plantation near Richmond on the James River, where Peter Jefferson acted as guardian of his best friend’s son after the friend died.  The Tuckahoe manor had been expanded 1734 such that from the air its footprint looks like an “H.”  This may help to explain Jefferson’s like of buildings with perpendicular extensions like shoulders and arms.

Jefferson attended the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg from 1760-62, and then read law with George Wythe, a prominent attorney and jurist.  His stay in Williamsburg and association with the Royal Governor afforded him exposure to the gardens in Williamsburg, then the wealthiest capital in Colonial America.

Construction of Monticello began in 1768.  The manor was central to terraces which formed shoulders and arms ending at pavilions.  A large west lawn was surrounded by a serpentine flower walk, with oval gardens at the front and back of the house.  This demonstrates that Jefferson had already rejected the formal gardens of the past, but still somewhat popular in Virginia, and adopted the newer, more-English picturesque designs.  He also had orchards, vineyards, berry squares and an experimental 2-acre, 1,000 foot long vegetable garden on a terrace.  He grew 330 varieties of more than 70 species and 170 fruit varieties of apples, peaches, grapes, and more grew in Monticello’s orchards.  Despite his efforts, his wine was never very good because native grapes did not produce good wine, and his imported European grapes succumbed to diseases.  His meticulous records indicate many of the plantings and their locations.

While minister plenipotentiary to France from 1785-89, he observed horticultural matters throughout Europe, beyond his visits to Versailles and Fontainebleau.  During a visit to Minister to England John Adams, he visited 16 English county gardens in 13 days.  After he returned to America and became President Washington’s Secretary of State, he assisted Washington and L’Enfant in the design of Washington, D.C., with some crediting him with overlaying the perpendicular street grid to facilitate transportation.  While in France, he sent various plants and seeds to America in an effort to bolster its agriculture, and conducted exchanges after his return.  He tested plants in his Monticello gardens and forwarded some plants to more suitable climates.

From 1806-12, he constructed Poplar Forest, his home near Lynchburg, often called his “summer retreat.”  Because it was a satellite plantation, it is a smaller home with only one shoulder.  Beyond the octagons incorporated into Monticello’s design, Poplar Forest is an octagon composed primarily of octagonal rooms—even the nearby privies are octagonal.  His writings do not indicate what was planted where, which has hindered restoring the plantings, but advances in garden archaeology have recently provided some guidance.

Jefferson designed and oversaw the University of Virginia’s construction from 1814-23.  It consists of a central rotunda for the library, with two shoulders connecting to arms extending downhill flanking the top of a ridge.  Each arm contained five pavilions in which professors lived and conducted their classes.  Each pavilion was designed differently for architectural instruction.  Student rooms were between the pavilions.  Below these arms, at each base of the ridge, was another row of student rooms separated by three “hotels” in which students would dine and have laundry and other services done.  The hotels lined up with the pavilions near the top of the ridge.  Each pavilion had a garden behind it running down to the lower row of student rooms, but the pavilions aligned with hotels only had half a garden, with the pavilion having use of the other garden half.  There are no records of the original garden plantings, so an eclectic variety of colonial revival gardens have been planted.

Father of the University of Virginia was among the three accomplishments he directed to be recognized on his grave marker.  The other two were author of the Declaration of American Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom.  He died on July 4, 1826, fifty years after the Declaration was approved.

Throughout his life, Jefferson found peace in the garden.  As he wrote to Charles Wilson Peale on August 20, 1811, “I have often thought that if heaven had given me choice of my position and calling, it should have been on a rich spot on earth, well watered and near a good market for the production of the garden.  No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden.  …”

This article is extracted from a Speakers Bureau presentation of OSU Extension’s Master Gardeners of Cuyahoga County Program.  For presentations, go to cuyahogamg.org/MGSpeakersBur/MGSpeakersBur.html.

LEAP!

PASSION, PERTINENT, POPULAR INTEREST, PRESERVATION

by Elsa Johnson

These days everybody’s gotta have an acronym –  something catchy to remember you by. Well LEAP is catchy. But LEAP where?  What do the letters represent? The short version: Lake Erie Allegheny Partnership. The long version includes two more words whose initials don’t make it into the acronym: for Biodiversity. But there are two more P’s that play a part in this alliterative game I’m playing – Plain, and Plateau.

photo by Laura Dempsey

As in the Lake Erie Lake Plain, and the Glaciated Allegheny Plateau (that area that, thousands of years ago, was covered by glaciers). These are ecoregions lying along the southern shore of Lake Erie, covering an area that stretches from just east of Sandusky to Buffalo, New York. On the western end it dips down in a narrow extension toward Mansfield and Columbus, then back up again before it swoops down at its widest to include Youngstown, before narrowing increasingly and tightening as it pushes up against the Allegheny Mountains in Pennsylvania and New York. It’s an area where northern boreal biome remnants rub up against mixed eastern hardwood remnants, which rub up against more southerly Appalachian forest remnants. Because of all this biological jostling, it is a rich place of diverse and unique habitats and ecosystems, examples of which are to be found within a network of public and private lands throughout the glaciated region of northeastern Ohio, northwestern Pennsylvania, and western New York. The LEAP publication, A Legacy of Living Places, presents an overview of those habitats and where to find them.

A partnership is, of course, a group of people or organizations that come together around a cause or issue. Founded in 2004 and housed within the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, as of January 2018, the LEAP partnership now includes 56 members. Counted among them are cities, park districts, museums, universities, research labs, conservancies and land trusts, watershed districts, nature centers, arboretums, native plant societies, local businesses, and more. Your community or organization could belong, too. What brings all these diverse organizations and entities together, and in sustained communication, is the shared mission of protecting and supporting the LEAP region’s natural biological diversity. There are not a lot of partnerships like it.

photo by Laura Dempsey

Such a broad membership helps dedicated conservation professionals and educators, and enthusiastic conservation nonprofessionals and volunteers, to document and to disseminate information.  LEAP does everything from sponsoring invasive garlic mustard pulls in the springtime, conducting counts of West Virginia White Butterflies at the same time (the butterfly unwittingly lays its eggs on garlic mustard, to their detriment), to tracking the spread of beech leaf disease, or the Hemlock Woolly Adelgid in the region’s forests. There is a Conservation fund that attracts and distributes funds for conservation and protection projects. In conjunction with and through its partners, LEAP offers workshops, events, and public programs that encourage environmental awareness.

photo by Laura Dempsey

LEAP meets every two months at a different location each meeting. Each meeting is centered on a topic speaker. The next meeting will take place on Wednesday, March 20 at 10 am, at the Nature Center at Shaker Lakes; the topic will be the proposed removal of the dam blocking the Cuyahoga River in Cuyahoga Falls, where the river begins its turn to head north.

Grand River; photo by Laura Dempsey

The yearly publication of the 3 native plants of the year postcards is an example of a LEAP initiative. This card is produced with the intention that it will encourage the use of native plants by landscape designers and property owners, while simultaneously partnering with the nursery industry to create an adequate supply of these plants.

Recent work: Over the past year the LEAP Regional Biodiversity Plan Committee has been working to create a vision document to help guide regional conservation-related activities ranging from land acquisition and conservation easements to policy-making, restoration, and mitigation. It will identify core habitats and supporting landscapes. Gardenopolis Cleveland will write more about this soon.

photo by Laura Dempsey

There are 14 ecoregions recognized in the LEAP area. You can find all these communities listed and described in A Legacy of Living Places. Many example of each are listed, many of which are to be found in area parks and are thus freely open to the public. Others are part of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History’s collection of protected properties, with restricted access only through the museum. Trips are offered throughout the year. Become a member of the museum, if you have not already done so. Check museum scheduled offerings.

photo by Laura Dempsey
photo by Laura Dempsey

Ready for a Break from Winter?

PASSION, PERIPATETIC, POPULAR INTEREST

by Lois Rose

Ready for a break from the winter blahs??  Consider planning a four hour drive to Cincinnati this year to see two horticultural gems. 

Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden

The zoo is the second oldest in the country.  It resulted from an infestation of caterpillars in 1872.  Residents created the Society of the Acclimatization of Birds, purchased 1000 birds from Europe and housed them, then released them in 1873, hoping they would eat the caterpillars.  The group changed their name to the Zoological Society of Cincinnati.  So what happened to the caterpillars?

first view of the botanical garden and zoo

Traveling with the Master Gardeners, we were given a guided tour by Director of Horticulture, Steve Foltz. (Tours are available for groups with a donation.)  You approach the zoo and gardens across an impressive bridge over the road, from the parking lot at a lower elevation.  One of the first things you see at arrival is a large sculpture of Fiona, the hippo, who is a kind of mascot and advertising mainstay for the zoo.  The zoo is known for the baby animals born on site, and Fiona is the best known.

Fiona the Hippo

The botanical garden is visited, along with the zoo, by 1.7 million visitors each year. The Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden has held annuals trials and displays for 17 years. Over 48,000 annuals are planted and then evaluated by professional staff, volunteers as well as by visitors.  Some of the top ten for 2018 included Begonia Babywing Bicolor, Begonia Megawatt series, Canna Cannova Bronze Scarlet, Coleus Main Street Wall Street, Euphorbia Diamond Mountain and Helianthus Sunfinity. View 2018’s top performers here.

gorgeous mass plantings of annuals

Annuals are used as mass plantings throughout the zoo and in containers. They are a magnet for pollinators, providing nectar and pollen through the season.  (There is ongoing controversy about the relative merits of natives versus cultivars (nativars) for best pollination success. E.g., Monarch butterflies might benefit from pollen or nectar from non-natives but need native Asclepias (milkweed) to lay their eggs.)

In addition to its outstanding displays of annuals, the Horticultural staff has made a serious effort to include hardy plants as well as tropicals that add a flavor to the areas surrounding the animal displays. Bamboo for example is used extensively, as well as perennials and bulbs like Colocasia (elephant ears) with large and interesting leaves to simulate tropical growth.  Large leaved magnolias are used effectively in this way.   Water features, rock outcroppings—natural and artificial, wandering paths that twist and turn, elevation changes, surprises around the next corner—this is an interesting and for those with limits on walking, a challenging tour.

lots of annuals and tropicals
flamingoes passing by

Smale Waterfront Park

For its first 50 years Cincinnati was a village on the river, between Fourth Street and the Ohio. In the 1830s, a building boom expanded the so-called Bottoms neighborhood into a crowded area with the Public Landing as its center.  By the start of World War 1, the area was deteriorated and undesirable.  Until—a few years ago, the space close to the John A Roebling Suspension Bridge (am I in Brooklyn?) brought adventure playgrounds, gardens, swings for grownups—in short, a dramatic and welcomed transformation.

Smale Riverfront Park

As of February 2015, almost $97 million in funding had been secured to construct Smale Riverfront Park, a $120 million project: 20 million was given by John Smale in honor of his wife. The cost per acre to construct was estimated around $2.7 million, compared to Chicago’s Millenium Park at more than $17 million per acre.  An early estimate was that upkeep per year would be around $600,000.

Chosen as designers in 2001, Sasaki Associates were inspired by input of citizens at a series of public meetings and focus groups beginning in 1998. Their design plans fitted into the Park Master Plan, created by Hargreaves Associates and approved in 1999 by pretty much everyone in power.

From a tourist’s point of view, the most impressive feature of the park is probably the John A Roebling Suspension Bridge which was created by the same designer as the Brooklyn Bridge.  Its blue towers stand out over the riverfront, visible from everywhere in the park.  The riverfront baseball stadium, The Great American BallPark, home of the Cincinnati Reds (oldest franchise) is right next door. In fact, on a previous trip, I was able to watch the big screen in the ballpark during a game while I was standing half way across the bridge from Covington. (Pete Rose was there. Wow.)

The park splays out along the river with wandering paths, water features, gardens, playgrounds—in short, much to do for children and their parents.  Away from the river and a roadway, and up some impressively designed stairs with water rushing down beside them, the carousel sits in a fine spot for looking down over the park.  Nearby is a Ferris wheel with great views from the top and further up there are shops and restaurants nearby.

Be sure to try the rope bridge—a little intimidating but worth it.  There are some rocks to climb, a large piano which you play with your feet, stones to leap on in a man-made stream, and many flower beds throughout.  The rose garden is lovely with annuals full of butterflies and bees as well as a variety of well-kept roses.

The swings under a handsome trellis offer a respite and a great view of the river. Speaking of the river, it flooded last year and the park was once again the Bottoms of old. But it seemed very well maintained and as good as new when we were there.

Gardenopolis Around Town

PERTINENT, POLLINATION, POPULAR INTEREST, PRESERVATION

The snow may be keeping us out of our gardens, but it’s not keeping us home! At least one representative of Gardenopolis will be attending each of the events listed below. Hope to see you there!

Bringing Nature Home

Garden as if life depends on it – Doug Tallamy, entomologist/author

This free series of talks about ecological gardening is presented by Friends of Lower Lake and Doan Brook Watershed Partnership. Partners include Gardenopolis, Gardenwalk Cleveland Heights, 2019 Cleveland Pollinator and Native Plant Symposium, and the Nature Center at Shaker Lakes.

Go Wild in your Own Yard!
Date: Thursday, February 21, 7-8:30 pm
Location: Brody/Nelson Room, Heights Library, 2345 Lee Road, Cleveland Heights
Discover what local native flowers, ferns, sedges, and shrubs will thrive in your yard to benefit insects, birds, and life on earth.
Presented by Friends of Lower Lake co-chair Peggy Spaeth.

Plant This, Not That
Date: Thursday, March 21, 7-8:30 pm
Location: Room A-B, Heights Library, 2345 Lee Road, Cleveland Heights
Learn how to deal with garden thugs that take over your garden and our natural areas. Why are non-native plants undesirable? Where did they come from and why? Examples of what to plant instead will be discussed.
Presented by Friends of Lower Lake co-chair John Barber.

Not the Last Children in the Woods!
Date: Thursday, April 4, 7-8:30 pm
Location: Stephanie Tubb Jones Community Center Room 114, Shaker Heights
More than 100 children are growing up growing native plants in the Garden Clubs of Onaway and Lomond Elementary Schools in Shaker Heights. Tim Kalan, their art teacher who planted this idea, will talk about how a community as well as healthy habitat has grown up with the gardens.

The Powerful Partnerships of Plants and Pollinators
Date: Thursday, April 11, 7-8:30
Location: Room 1-2, University Heights Library, 13866 Cedar Road, University Heights
Learn what native plants are needed to supply a rich foraging habitat for pollinators and wildlife, in addition to plant communities that provide nest sites for native bees, host plants for butterflies and overwintering refuge for other beneficial insects.
Presented by Ann Cicarella, gardener, beekeeper, and landscape architect as well as the organizer of the annual Cleveland Pollinator and Native Plant Symposium.

Stewardship in our Backyards
Date: Monday, April 22, 7-8:30 pm – Earth Day
Location: Nature Center at Shaker Lakes, 2600 South Park, Cleveland
Join us to learn how the Nature Center maintains our natural areas in an urban environment and easy steps you can take at home to be a good earth steward. In our modern day, leaving nature “to take its course” isn’t enough to preserve healthy habitats. Mother Nature needs a little help from her friends. We’ll talk about the challenges, tools and techniques used to keep our habitats healthy. We will also discuss recent and upcoming projects at the Nature Center.
A Q&A session at the end will provide you with the opportunity to ask Nick Mikash, Nature Center at Shaker Lakes Natural Resources Specialist, your stewardship-related questions. A short hike will follow the presentation.

Other Ohio Events

Garden History: Thomas Jefferson – Landscape Architect
Date: Sunday, February 24, 2-4 pm
Location: Holden Arboretum
Cost: $5 members, $20 nonmembers
Speaker: Greg Cada, OSU Extension
A garden history presentation using the life of Thomas Jefferson to illustrate the horticultural influences that shaped him for producing his landscape architectural and garden projects. Extensive pictures include Colonial Williamsburg, Monticello, Poplar Forest and the University of Virginia. Historic garden restoration and design considerations are included.

Crooked Chronicles: A Century of River Clean Up in Cuyahoga Valley
Date: Friday, March 1, 7-9 pm
Doors open at 6 pm with drop-in tables about current environmental projects.
Location: Happy Days Lodge, 500 W Streetsboro St, Peninsula, OH 44264
Free admission; advance registration preferred
How was the Cuyahoga River transformed from a health hazard to the centerpiece of a national park? A panel of experts piece together the 100-year story within Cuyahoga Valley using historic photos, archival documents, and personal memories. Come join the discussion.
Moderated by the League of Women Voters Akron Area. Supported by West Creek Conservancy, Xtinguish Celebration, Ohio Humanities and Cleveland Humanities Festival.

Ohio Woodland Water and Wildlife Conference
Date: Wednesday, March 6, 9:30 am to 3:30 pm
Location: Mid-Ohio Conference Center, 890 West Fourth Street, Mansfield, OH 44906
Cost: $60 Early Registration, $80 Late Registration
Presentations for the day will cover a wide range of topics and include:
Missing Trees: Effects of the Loss of Ash and Chestnut on Forest Ecosystems
Glyphosate and Pesticide Safety Update
Harmful Alga Blooms in Ponds: Concerns and Mitigation/Management
The Ohio Credible Data Program: Certification Requirements and Training Opportunities
Bird Conservation in Ohio: Past, Present and Future Challenges
Using Social Science as a Tool to Inform Wildlife Management

Author Andrew Reeves Discusses the Asian Carp Crisis and Its Threat to the Great Lakes
Date: Monday, March 25, 7 pm
Location: Hudson Library and Historical Society, 96 Library Street, Hudson, Ohio 44236
Cost: Free with registration
Award-winning environmental journalist Andrew Reeves discusses his book, Overrun: Dispatches from the Asian Carp Crisis. In his book, Reeves traces the carp’s explosive spread throughout North America from an unknown import meant to tackle invasive water weeds to a continental scourge that bulldozes through everything in its path and now threatens to reach the Great Lakes.

Ohio Botanical Symposium
Date: Friday, March 29, 8 am to 4 pm
Location: Villa Milano Banquet and Conference Center, 1630 Schrock Rd. Columbus, OH 43229
Grasslands of the eastern United States, Huffman Prairie, Ohio Pollinator Habitat Initiative, bogs and fens, endangered species conservation, rushes, and best plant discoveries will be highlighted at the 2019 Ohio Botanical Symposium on Friday, March 29. The event also features a media show and displays from a number private and public conservation organizations, as well as vendors offering conservation-related items for purchase. More than 400 botanical enthusiasts attend this every-other year event.
Hosts:
The ODNR Division of Natural Areas and Preserves
The Cleveland Museum of Natural History
The Nature Conservancy — Ohio Chapter
Ohio State University Herbarium

Next Silent Spring?
Date: Sunday, April 28, 2-4 pm
Location: Cleveland Museum of Art Recital Hall
Cost: Free
The Northeast Ohio Sierra Club is holding this event to commemorate Earth Day 2019.
Rachel Carson raised the red flag years ago. Pesticides were not only killing insects, but also disrupting the delicate balance of nature. Now history is repeating itself.
Laurel Hopwood, Senior Advisor to Sierra Club’s Pollinator Protection Program, will show the outstanding documentary Nicotine Bees.
Pollinator populations are declining. How does this affect our food supply? How does this affect our entire ecosystem? A panel of experts will discuss how everyone can help move things forward.
● Dr. Mary Gardiner, Associate Professor in the OSU Department of Entomology, and her graduate students have been introducing pollinator pockets throughout vacant lots in Cleveland.
● Tom Gibson, principal of Green Paradigm Partners, uses his soil building and community organizing skills to help revive neighborhoods.
● Elle Adams, founder of City Rising Farm, helps people in underserved communities learn to grow fresh local food and create opportunities in their own neighborhoods.
For more info, please contact Laurel at lhopwood@roadrunner.com

Revisiting Rockman, and Other Exhibits Concerning Art and Nature

PERIPATETIC, PERTINENT, POPULAR INTEREST

by Elsa Johnson

Community

Recently several of Gardenopolis’ editors traveled to the Toledo Museum of Art to see the installation by Rebecca Louise Law.  Composed of a vast multitude of infinitesimally thin wires of natural and artificial materials hanging/descending from a two story ceiling, this was a magical experience, as the pictures show.  Originally installed when most of the materials were fresh, by the next to last week of its run, when we saw it, the flowers, seed heads, and leaves were desiccated, but still entirely recognizable, and often still quite colorful. It was quiet inside the hall in which they hung. If people talked to each other, it was quietly, as if it would be wrong somehow to impose on what was a kind of meditation. There were subtleties to be enjoyed, such as the muted mysterious shadows of the plant materials reflected on the walls by the muted lighting.

Re-visiting Rockman

About a month or so ago we ran an article on the Alexis Rockman art exhibit at MOCA Cleveland: The Great Lakes Cycle (also now closed). That article spurred a query from one reader about why fertilizer contamination is currently a problem in the agricultural lands of northwestern Ohio. To whit: “I thought there were regulations in place.”

Around the same time that I visited the Rockman show, I also attended a panel discussion held at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History on Lake Erie. Two of the participants in particular spoke to this issue, Dr. Laura Johnson, Director of the National Center for Water Quality Research, Heidelberg University, and Dr. Jeff Reutter, former director of Ohio Sea Grant and Stone Lab. They were two of four panelists. The following is my attempt to corral their part of a discussion — that necessarily jumped about a good bit — into a single organized presentation. Any errors are entirely my own.

What we know: Our lake is a finite resource. It is the 13th largest lake in the world. It is the shallowest of the Great Lakes, and because of that, it is the most productive as a fishery. But this shallowness also makes it extremely vulnerable. The lives of 3,500 species are tied to the health of the lake. Many are now endangered. What happened?

We know that the highly productive farmlands of northwestern Ohio are the result of draining what once was called the Great Black Swamp, a formidable wetland monster that was tamed for agriculture by a system of underground drainage that carries water off the land into ditches, and thence into the natural watershed (primarily the Maumee River). We know that modern farming involves fertilizers, both natural and chemical, being applied to the land at the start of the growing season. But fertilizer doesn’t stay put. Inevitably some of it gets into the watershed. In the late 1960’s people realized the shallowest part of Lake Erie, the Western Basin, was, as a result, becoming a giant cesspool. Regulation followed, and, for a time, it was better. Around the year 2000, however, the quality of the water again took a turn for the worse. Here are two of the panel members explaining this.

Dr. Jeff Reuter: Mid 1990 to the present has seen an increase in dissolved phosphorus entering the lake, which is a form that is very easy for the harmful algae to use. In 2008, 3,800 tons of phosphorus entered Lake Erie from the Maumee watershed, the largest of Lake Erie’s tributary watersheds.  To reduce phosphorus from agriculture entering Lake Erie, we are using a system of voluntary incentives and disincentives meaning that we are offering only carrots, not sticks. We are also seeing the impact of climate change, with more severe storms producing more run off. The system sets up a false dichotomy of farm economy against lake economy (that lake economy is valued at 14 billion dollars).  We want both.

Dr. Laura Johnson: It does not take a lot of phosphorus in the warm shallow waters of the western basin to cause a nuisance problem…. i.e., a lot of farms, leaking a little bit. Most farmers now apply at recommended rates and data suggests that application of phosphorus and removal via crops is largely in balance. The best reasoning for the losses is that phosphorus application on the soil surface associated with broadcasting in the fall combined with the massive system of subsurface tile drainage is allowing for excess dissolved phosphorus loss. Thus efforts should be focused on nutrient management- that is applying phosphorus at the right rate, time, and place.  For instance, some studies suggest inject phosphorus fertilizer deeper than 2 inches in the soil could reduce losses by 60%. However, there needs to be more incentives to provide the appropriate technology to farmers to increase the use of this practice. 

We’ve had some extremely large blooms since 2008, some of which were very toxic.  The toxin produced by these cyanobacteria, Microcystin, is more toxic than cyanide. Although these toxins are filtered out at the drinking water treatment facility, the costs have increased drastically and can be over $10,000 a day in Toledo during bad blooms years.  The high level of toxins entering this plants could get to a point where it overwhelms filtering capabilities.   At the present time the western basin is the most affected, but the blooms in the western basin move over to the central basin threatening water intakes there as well.  The central basin also has different blooms that prove challenging for the region.  Clevelanders will be relieved to know that, unlike Toledo, Cleveland has multiple water intakes, thus, Cleveland’s water supply is not as vulnerable.

An artist of our own

The artist Charles Burchfield was born in Ashtabula Harbor (I am taking this from explanatory material from the exhibit – and I don’t know about you, but upon reading this I found myself hoping he wasn’t literally born in Ashtabula Harbor), and studied at The Cleveland School of Art (now CIA). After WWI he returned to northeast Ohio. Burchfield, like Rockman, was a watercolorist, but to a very different purpose. Both are representational painters, but where Rockman uses his considerable skill to create hyper-realistic paintings that are muralistic, that tell a story of environmental purity and degradation over time, Burchfield used color and form in small paintings that express personal emotion and mood through landscape. For example, in the picture of the tree with the branches reaching up to a glowing sun, Burchfield suggests the divine influence he saw in nature.

In another painting, the accompanying sign explains, an orange stream divides an area of barren yellow from an area of lush green, suggesting the impact of mining – often abandoned after the resource had been depleted — on the eastern Ohio landscape.

Even Burchfield’s pencil drawing of a chestnut tree, while explicitly representational, seems deeply imbued with mood.

The Burchfield exhibit is current and can be found in the small gallery opposite the gift shop at the Cleveland Museum of Art. A reminder for seniors: if you are a member, parking is free on Tuesdays.

Habitat Restoration by Friends of Lower Lake, a Doan Brook Watershed Partnership volunteer project

PASSION, POPULAR INTEREST, PRACTICE, PRESERVATION

Peggy Spaeth and John Barber, co-chairs
Article by Peggy Spaeth

Many of us have been walking, running, bicycling, birding, and botanizing in the Shaker Parklands for decades, in all kinds of weather. These man-made lakes are a treasured place embedded within the residential cities of Cleveland Heights and Shaker Heights, and are a regional destination as well. 

We are very alarmed by the condition of the habitat around the lakes. We know that a healthy ecosystem is complex.  Yet here the habitat is increasingly simplified by grass and invasive species that do not feed native birds and insects, that outcompete native plants, and that spread throughout the watershed.  Please remember that these parks are designated an Audubon Important Bird Area.  How are we feeding the warblers that migrate on this route twice a year if their native food sources are disappearing?

Conventional thinking about leaving public parks to naturalize is misguided.  The complex balance of native plants, insects, and mammals is now too disturbed to “let nature take its course.” There are several overlapping entities involved in the management of the lake, including the cities of Cleveland Heights and Shaker Heights, who hold leases from the city of Cleveland; the Shaker Parklands Management Committee; Doan Brook Watershed Partnership; and the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District.  It is typical, efficient, and economical for cities to “mow and blow” rather than create and maintain habitat and our cities are no different.  But we can do better if we want to live in a place healthy for insects, birds, and ourselves.

So we asked, “Whose responsibility is it to restore and maintain a healthy habitat at the lakes?”  In the end, we realized it is ours. 

Although our intention is habitat restoration, we have inadvertently discovered rich local history by simply starting to remove porcelain berry at the concrete canoe launch. This history has been one of the most fascinating parts of the project, both to volunteers working at the site and the ever-present stream of people and dogs coming by while we’re working. Here is what we found out about the lake, and what we are doing:Why is there even a lake there?  Before settlement, this site was a forested ravine. (Ohio was 95% forested in all.) When European settlers arrived in northeast Ohio, they made claim to land occupied by Native Americans through, as one author wrote, “unwelcome treaties and paltry payments.”

Surveys were completed during the period of 1790 – 1807 that focused on laying out townships and inventorying trees for logging.  The most common trees found in the Doan Brook watershed (as its called today) were Beech, Oak, Maple, and Chestnut.

The Shakers formed the North Union Colony in the 1820’s in this area.  They constructed several dams, the largest of which was built in 1836 to form today’s Lower Lake, for the purpose of having a water-driven sawmill. They cleared the trees in the ravine, then used those trees, clay, and rocks to build the dam. 

The colony disbanded in 1889 and the gristmills, sawmill, woolen mills and buildings were torn down (or blown up in the case of the biggest gristmill) and today only a few foundations remain.

Developers then purchased the lands around Lower Lake for housing.  The lakes have been considered an asset to the residential community since then, often featured in real estate ads.

Canoeing was a popular activity on all of the lakes at the turn of the century. A group of boaters was particularly attracted to Lower Lake, the largest inland lake in the vicinity, safer than Lake Erie, and lately accessible by trolley.  In 1907 a group of men formed the Shaker Lakes Canoe Club. They built a temporary one-story boathouse at the Canoe Club site, replaced in 1914 with the pictured two-story building.  It was leased to the Shaker Lakes Canoe Club for $1 per year from the City of Cleveland.  Its members paid $15 a year in membership dues, and did all the building maintenance themselves.

They held regattas with races and jousting matches, often witnessed by 3-5,000 people sitting on the lake’s (then) grassy banks. There were moonlight carnivals and canoeing lessons for Boy Scouts, resulting in Lower Lake having boats on it often. Today Lower Lake is a popular passive recreation park, and we have no intention of building a canoe club and hosting regattas attended by 5000 people!

The Canoe Club was active in the 1960s but would have been destroyed had the Clark and Lee Freeways been built through the Shaker Parklands.  As you know, the Freeway Fight saved the Shaker Parklands and our neighborhoods, and resulted in the founding of the Nature Center in Shaker Heights. However, the clubhouse was razed in 1976 after membership dwindled and the governing city (now Shaker Heights) cited the Club repeatedly for code violations including the lack of running water and no sewer hookups.

Friends of Lower Lake and our project began at a meeting convened by Tori Mills in March 2018.  Several people interested in volunteering to restore habitat on a regular basis had approached DBWP. We were frustrated to volunteer at a once-a-year service day, only to watch the invasive plants re-sprout with renewed vigor.  John Barber and Peggy Spaeth agreed to chair a project involving regular volunteers and Friends of Lower Lake was created.

Our vision is simply that Lower Lake is a habitat rich with native plants that support insects, migrating and resident birds, and people and other mammals. The project fulfills the DBWP mission to “facilitate and support conservation and restoration projects within the watershed” and “increase public engagement and awareness of the watershed.”

Our goal is to remove invasive plants, replace them with appropriate natives, and create an ongoing stewardship plan.  Let’s be clear: this is a project with no end. We can’t let nature “take its course.”

We initially attacked the Canoe Club site because of the huge amount of invasive Porcelain Berry vines dropping seeds into the lake every year.  We removed many loads of vines, roots, and seed-infested soil and ended up discovering the foundation.

Doing this work we found 19 species of non-native plants in and around the foundation, all thriving because the site was left “natural.”  Invasive plants have few pests to hold them back, and will always out-compete native plants if left alone.

All of the non-native plants we found are on the Ohio banned and invasive plants list and many were first introduced through the nursery trade without realizing the aggressiveness of these species. This includes not only the flowering plants on the site, but also the vines, trees, ivy, and shrubs. 

The challenges of our restoration project are complex. 

Regional:  Here we are removing invasive plants in the middle of the watershed at the Canoe Club site, while upstream Horseshoe Lake has rampant Japanese knotweed and other aggressive invasive species spilling downstream. Fortunately in between we have the Nature Center at Shaker Lakes with Natural Resource Specialist Nick Mikash onboard, and he has been an invaluable ally in our shared project. 

Resources:  We are a small band of residents who came together to literally dig up decades of invasive trees, shrubs, groundcovers, and vines by hand.

A core group of 8 to 12 peoplehas been working on Sunday mornings since May 20, 2018.  A total of 50 have worked at the site, and we welcome people of all ages and abilities.  We would love to have crews working around this lake and throughout our community at sites that connect with each other to create a rich unified habitat reflecting our respect and love of the natural world in our community.  For the watershed, we need a master plan with a timeline, funding, and resources.  This could lead to volunteer crews working under the leadership of a professional natural resources manager. 

This has been a truly heartwarming experience to work with people with a shared vision for a healthy environment.  We’ve watched eagles, osprey, kingfishers, and other wildlife as we’ve worked. Clearing the foundation has activated the space, with people coming to photograph, talk, do tai chi, tally birds, or just sit.  It’s obvious that the Canoe Club was sited at one of the most scenic places on the lake, with friendly prevailing winds pushing canoes west to east back to the launch.  Our hope is to create a larger vision for our environment that educates and partners with city government and active residents so that we all take responsibility for a healthy habitat, upstream and downstream.

Please join us!  We need more volunteers! Sign up for our newsletter here to stay informed, or email friendsofLowerLake@gmail.com.

about our project
Canoe Club photo album
Plain Dealer pictures 1909-1976
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I hate multiflora rose

PASSION, POPULAR INTEREST, PUNCHY

by Heather Risher

I hate multiflora rose. Hate it. With a passion. Why? In the summer of 1998, I was a field technician in a Phase I Archaeological Survey on property owned by the Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. The land had been residential in the 1950s, and after the airport purchased the land, the houses were razed and the area fenced in. Thanks to the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, federal projects require an Environmental Impact Statement to be prepared before construction can begin. Part of an EIS is a survey for artifacts, both historic and prehistoric.

We were looking for anything of cultural significance. What we discovered were jungles of multiflora rose so thick that machetes were necessary to hack paths between our shovel tests. We spent more time traveling the fifty feet to our next test site than we did digging each pit. Crawling was frequently more efficient than walking.

Photo by Ohio DNR

For those of you blessedly unaware of multiflora rose, it is a species native to Asia, imported to the United States in the 1700s, and misguidedly provided to landowners as a conservation measure in the 1930s. Now, depending on the state you live in, it is classified as a noxious weed, a prohibited invasive species, or banned. It had been planted in the area ignored by the airport, and spread like the weed that it is.

If the vines and thorns of multiflora rose weren’t trouble enough, the mosquitoes were brutal. The ground was swampy enough to provide thousands of stagnant puddles, perfect for mosquitoes. We spent most of the summer filthy, scratched, and bleeding, surrounded by swarms of bloodthirsty beasts. Even the nonsmokers resorted to carrying lit cigarettes or cigars in an attempt to ward off the airborne attack.

That’s not to say we missed the beauty in the abandoned land. Occasionally we discovered fields of day lilies that had naturalized into a brilliance of yellow. I discovered the secret hiding place of a young fawn – twice, as the first time its terrified stumble led it directly along my transect. The air was filled with birdsong, and I’m sure I would have counted dozens of species if I had stopped cursing the thorny vines long enough to look.

Photo by Ohio DNR

Lunches were eaten outdoors, along one of the roads, usually providing a welcome respite from the mosquitoes. We sometimes spent hours waiting for airport employees to unlock the gates so we could enter or exit the property, and if we’d attempted to leave for a midday meal most likely no work would have been done that day. There is great contentment in a mushy peanut butter and jelly sandwich eaten in the sunshine after a tough morning’s work.

Despite screening the dirt thoroughly, we found very little of cultural significance in our test pits. We did, however, find things that held our interest. I once spent a long afternoon sketching a map of a foundation and a well while my very manly male coworkers cut down saplings in an attempt to determine the depth of the water.

One notable find was a field where marijuana had been grown. We notified airport officials, who called the DEA, who visited and left business cards scattered around the site. My boss had worked on other airport projects, and shared that the crew had discovered pot on each one. As airports are unwilling to shut down air traffic for helicopter surveys, flight paths are perfect places to grow marijuana. Possibly the airport employees were so reluctant to grant us access in the mornings because they knew their growing operation would be discovered.

We also discovered that the dirt near the I-X center smells of bubblegum. Decades of deicer had soaked into the ground, saturating it with an odor that wouldn’t dissipate. If the I-X center soil was disturbing, it had nothing on that of NASA-Glenn. The crew chief, a new father, asked the men to cover that segment of the survey, as he had no idea which chemicals had been dumped, and what exposure to them might do to the reproductive systems of the twentysomething childless women on the team.

We crisscrossed airport property all summer, and eventually moved on to another airport, another pipeline, another renovation. I loved that job, and cried when I left. My paycheck wouldn’t cover my student loans plus a car payment and rent. I always wanted to go back to the field, but my grandmother got sick and died, I found a better-paying office job, got married: life happened. I planted roots, which made it difficult to walk halfway across New York State, stopping to dig a hole every fifty feet. Or to drive to Maryland on a moment’s notice because the Navy wanted to remodel a golf course.

But even though that summer’s tangle has since been bulldozed and covered with asphalt, I still hate multiflora rose.

Addendum from Elsa Johnson : Multiflora rose and other prickly things  —  removal

It’s true. If left undisturbed, invasive multiflora rose takes over. In Connecticut near where my granddaughters live, multiflora rose has taken over along a power line right of way; it is wall to wall multiflora rose — and where it’s not rose, there are blackberries. Both like growing in open, sunny conditions. Meanwhile, in the woods there, growing under the tree canopy, there is barberry, which is known to harbor ticks – and, as I discovered when I had one growing under a front window, also fleas.

The multiflora rose and the barberry are both invasive, non-native species and should be removed. How do you eradicate a plant that eagerly bites back? The answer, of course, is very carefully.

This is how I do it. First, armor your body with densely woven clothes. Wear gloves. Cut the canes back in short manageable sections. I yard-bag them. When you have cut them back all the way to the ground, this is the time for the careful and limited application of glyphosate directly to the cut cane surface at ground level. All it takes is a tiny, tiny  amount. Check back later in the growing season for regrowth. If there is regrowth that is the time for application of glyphosate to the leaves of the plant, since, having minimized the plant’s footprint, the plant is now much smaller, and weaker. You can spread plastic or newspaper under the leaves at ground level to avoid killing anything other than the prickly thing you’re trying to kill. Again: wear gloves. Check back in a week. It can take a while for the glyphosate to reach the roots. Use the minimal amount of glyphosate necessary. Wait. Be patient. Use the same system to remove barberry. Do not spray glyphosate on rose or barberry fruits. Animals eat these. 

See the Ohio Department of Natural Resources site for more on invasive species and their removal. Fire is another option.

As for blackberry, which, although native, can be invasive: blackberry can usually be controlled by mowing early in the season, before it gets tall. If you want it to produce berries, don’t mow. It fruits on second year canes. Repeated mowing weakens the plant.

Conservation Report from the Front Lines: Recent Land Acquisition Work of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History

PASSION, PERTINENT, POPULAR INTEREST, PRESERVATION

by Garrett Ormiston, GIS and Stewardship Specialist, Natural Areas Division, The Cleveland Museum of Natural History

The Museum’s Natural Areas Program

The Cleveland Museum of Natural History is home to a unique conservation program which has protected some of the highest-quality natural sites in Northeast Ohio. This program, known as the Museum’s ‘Natural Areas Division’ was formally created in 1956 with the purchase of a portion of a small bog in Geauga County known as ‘Fern Lake Bog’. This preserve acquisition was conducted under the leadership of Museum Director William Scheele. The natural areas program has since grown to include more than 10,000 acres of land that have been conserved through either direct land purchase by the Museum, or through the purchase of conservation easements held over privately-owned land.

In total, the Museum has conserved 58 distinct nature preserves that are as far-flung as Kelleys Island and the Huron River watershed to the west, the Ohio-Pennsylvania line to the east, and the Akron-Canton metropolitan area to the south. These preserves contain a plethora of different habitat types that are wide-ranging and include peat bogs and fens, glacial alvar, forested wetlands, and sand barrens. Indeed, each preserve is a unique example of a particular habitat with distinct plant communities that existed naturally within our region before European settlement.

Natural Areas of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. Map by Garrett Ormiston.

The Museum is very focused in its mission to conserve sites that contain unique habitat or that harbor rare species. In Ohio, rare species are listed as endangered, threatened, or potentially-threatened based on the number of populations in the State. The Museum’s program is unique in that its conservation efforts are largely steered by the research and inventory work conducted by the Museum’s staff. For instance, inventory data that is collected from field surveys conducted by the Museum’s various departments is compiled in Ohio’s Heritage Database which is managed by the Ohio Division of Wildlife. It is the data from this Heritage Database that helps determine which species are considered ‘rare’ in the State, as opposed to species that might simply be overlooked or not studied. Indeed, a rare species list is only as good as the data that is fed in to it, and the Museum is the main contributor in Northeast Ohio to the State’s Heritage Database. It is true that the Museum’s collections and research are literally driving its conservation efforts in Northeast Ohio.

The Museum ramped up its conservation efforts significantly around 1980 under the leadership of its Curator of Botany and Director of Natural Areas, Dr. James Bissell. Between 1980 and 2005, The natural areas program more than doubled in size. And between 2006 and the present, the program has more than doubled a second time. Over the last year, the Museum has seen the acquisition of several important tracts of land, which are described in detail below.

Expansion of the Mentor Marsh Preserve

One of the Museum’s oldest natural areas is the Mentor Marsh Preserve which is dedicated as a State Nature Preserve in Ohio. This 780-acre preserve was once a sprawling swamp forest system. Rich silver maple-dominated swamp flats and vernal pools covered the landscape, interspersed with small areas of open water, and emergent wetlands dominated by Greater bur-reed (Sparganium eurycarpum), a species that was likely one of the largest components of emergent wetlands in our region before invasive species like narrow-leaf cattail and canary grass became dominant.

The Museum took ownership of Mentor Marsh in 1965 after a grassroots effort to conserve the site was carried out between 1960 and 1965.  The Museum owns the site through a combination of a land transfer and a long-term leasing arrangement with the State of Ohio.

Unfortunately, the biological integrity of Mentor Marsh was dramatically altered in 1966 with the influx of salt contamination from an adjacent site. The water in Mentor Marsh became excessively saline, and caused the trees within the swamp forest to perish and to be replaced by a nearly 800-acre monoculture of giant reed grass (Phragmites australis), a non-native invasive grass that is salt tolerant, spreads quickly and aggressively, and can reach heights of more than 15 feet in a single season, displacing all manner of native vegetation. What was once a diverse ecosystem was transformed in to a landscape dominated by a single invasive species.

Since 2015, the Museum has been engaged in an ambitious project to rid Mentor Marsh of the invasive Phragmites, and to restore the site to native vegetation. This effort has been led by Museum Restoration Specialist, Dr. David Kriska, and has involved the aggressive treatment and removal of the Phragmites at the site, as well as the planting of native plant plugs and seed mixes to re-establish native vegetation. While the site may never return to the swamp forest it once was, the Museum envisions the 800-acre marsh basin returning to a rich diversity of native wetland plants including swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata), and Greater bur-reed (Sparganium eurycarpum), among other species.

Native plants being planted at Mentor Marsh after Phragmites removal. Photo by Dr. David Kriska.

At the start of the restoration project at Mentor Marsh, the Museum did not own the entire marsh basin. This created a problem in that large swaths of the marsh were still under private ownership. Those areas would not have been able to be included in the Phragmites removal efforts. The Museum addressed this problem through a combination of land acquisitions and management agreements with private owners within the marsh that allowed for invasive species treatment of the entire Mentor Marsh basin.

Sections of the marsh were seeded by a helicopter with a mix of native plant species. Photo by Dr. David Kriska.

In July 2018, the Museum purchased the 25-acre Fredebaugh Property in the southeast section of the marsh basin, a site that extended out in to the Mentor Marsh basin. This property purchase was funded through a grant from the State of Ohio’s Clean Ohio program. At the same time the Museum acquired a 20-acre conservation easement in the far-western section of the Marsh basin.

Consolidating the Museum’s land ownership of the marsh basin through such acquisitions is the best way to insure that the Museum is able to manage the site in the long-term. If isolated stands of invasive Phragmites are allowed to persist in the marsh basin, they will remain a seed source that will allow continued invasion in to the preserve.

The Windsor Woods Preserve

In August 2018, the Museum purchased an additional 572 acres of land at its Windsor Woods Preserve, creating a sprawling 643-acre preserve nestled in the heart of the Grand River lowlands region. This purchase was funded through two grants, one from the State’s Water Resource Restoration Sponsorship Program (WRRSP), and a second grant from the Ohio Public Works Commission through the Clean Ohio program. The WRRSP grant was utilized as matching funds towards the Clean Ohio grant. The Museum had worked to protect Windsor Woods for more than 10 years, and had engaged in discussions with various landowners over the years before finally sealing the deal this year.

Large beaver-flooded open water wetland at the Windsor Woods Preserve. Photo by Trish Fox.

The ‘lowlands’ region of the Grand River watershed is a wild place, where the Grand River and its many tributaries weave in great arcs within the flat valley. Historic meanders of the Grand River eventually transform in to ‘oxbow’ channel ponds, which provide outstanding breeding habitat for many amphibian species. The preserve is home to at least 11 different species of salamanders and frogs. Some of the old channels of the Grand River are now high-quality peat wetlands and the preserve harbors a population of the native wild calla (Calla palustris) that grows within one of these peat systems. Beavers have also exerted a heavy influence on the landscape at Windsor Woods. Through the building of dams, beavers have engineered expansive open water wetland areas, and have contributed to the habitat diversity at the site.

Wild Calla at the Windsor Woods Preserve. Photo by Trish Fox.

The Grand River frequently breaches its banks in this part of the Grand River lowlands which can lead to large sections of the preserve being temporarily inundated with flood waters, and can even necessitate the closing of certain roads in the area due to flooding. Visiting the preserve at different times of year can therefore provide very different landscape views.

Windsor Woods is also unique in that it is situated in a large block of land that is absent of any major roadways. The Museum’s preserve is located in the interior areas of this swamp forest block and is largely buffered from the influx of invasive species that often invade preserves from roadways. The Museum certainly envisions continued expansion of this preserve in the future if the opportunity should present itself.

Swamp Forest at the Windsor Woods Preserve. Photo by Trish Fox.

The Minshall Alvar Preserve on Kelleys Island

The Cleveland Museum of Natural History has a long history of conservation work on Kelleys Island, located in the western basin of Lake Erie. The Museum has a total of nine nature preserves on Kelleys Island presently, including several preserves with frontage on Lake Erie. Kelleys Island is essentially a large limestone block in the middle of the lake, and it is home to many limestone-loving plant species that are not common in the Cleveland area, and are typically more prevalent in areas west of our region. The topsoil layer on Kelleys Island is very thin, with a limestone rock substrate very close to the surface.

Alvar plant communities on the shore of Lake Erie at the Minshall Alvar Preserve. Photo by Dave Vasarhelyi.

Limestone erratic on the Minshall Alvar Preserve. Photo by Dave Vasarhelyi.

The Museum has long considered the Minshall Alvar property, located in a less-developed area in the northwest corner of the Island to be an important conservation target. Through a partnership with the Trust for Public Land, the Museum finally acquired the Minshall Alvar Preserve in October 2018. The Trust for Public Land (TPL) and the Museum secured funding from the Clean Ohio Conservation fund to purchase the property. The Minshall family generously provided the matching funds that were needed to be eligible for Clean Ohio funding in the form of a bargain sale of the land. The site harbors two globally-rare snakes including the Fox Snake and the Globally-imperiled Lake Erie Water Snake. The preserve’s plant communities are very diverse. Wave-splash alvar wetlands are present along the Lake Erie shoreline at the preserve, and unique microhabitats are perched atop large limestone blocks on the shoreline. The rare mountain rice (Piptatherum racemosum) is among the unique plants that are found on these limestone blocks at the preserve.

Sunken forest area in historically-quarried section of the Minshall Preserve. Photo by Dave Vasarhelyi.

Limestone Blocks on the Minshall Alvar Preserve. Photo by Dave Vasarhelyi.

The preserve also protects the most mature forest present on Kelleys Island, a noteworthy forest dominated by hackberry (Celtis occidentalis), blue ash (Fraxinus quadrangulata), and honey locust (Gleditsia triacanthos). And the honey locust at the preserve are not the thornless cultivars that we are used to seeing in our gardens! They are fully-adorned with long painful thorns that can be both ornamental and agonizing to the touch.

The Minshall Alvar Preserve also contains a formerly quarried area in the center of the property that is home to the State-endangered lakeside daisy (Tetraneuris herbacea). The Kelleys Island State Nature Preserve is located next to the Museum’s Minshall Alvar Preserve, and the lakeside daisy was re-introduced to the State-owned property in 1995, and it subsequently naturalized and spread to the Minshall property over time. More than 200 individual lakeside daisy plants were counted by Museum staff on the Minshall property in 2017. Unique switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) meadows and even shallow buttonbush wetlands are also present in the former quarry area, creating a diverse matrix of different plant communities. And shrublands dominated by Red Cedar (Juniperus virginiana) are also abundant at the preserve.

Lakeside Daisy (Tetraneuris heteracea) which has naturalized at the Minshall Alvar Preserve. Photo by Judy Semroc.

Switch-grass meadow in a historically-quarried section of the Minshall Alvar Preserve. Photo by Dave Vasarhelyi.

Saw Whet Owl in a Red Cedar on Kelleys Island. Photo by Judy Semroc.

Conclusion

The Museum is actively growing its network of nature preserves in Northeast Ohio. Its focus is on expanding existing preserves, especially when it results in the protection of entire wetland systems or other natural features, or when additional acquisitions can be useful from a preserve management perspective. Anyone who is interested in learning more about the Museum’s conservation work is encouraged to sign up for a field trip through the Museum’s website, www.cmnh.org. Several trips to Museum preserves are offered every month.