Life has been complicated for all of us over the past three years, but we’re hoping to create some new content for our readers.
Until we can share some original insights, here are a few links from other sites.
First, Holden Arboretum is hiring! The Horticulture & Collections department seeks a Director of Land & Collections Management. The Director of Land & Collections Management is primarily responsible for performing a variety of functions related to proper land care and environmental management of Holden Arboretum’s Living Collection trees, grassland & meadows, trails & fence, waterbodies & irrigation. This role combines practical hands-on groundwork and core safety values while also providing management and supervision to teams to achieve agreed goals. Other positions include seasonal and garden positions, as well as several internships. View the full list here.
Next, we wanted to share some information BUGS! ODNR recently published an article asking arborists, gardeners, and hikers to report sightings of the Hemlock Woolly Adelgid. HWA poses a significant threat to eastern hemlocks forests as feeding by HWA at the base of hemlock needles depletes the trees’ stored energy, causing decline and eventual mortality after several years. Elsa also wanted to warn readers that the Baslsam Woolly Adelgid may be moving into our area due to climate change.
Finally, we came across this Permaculture To-Do List and thought our readers would also appreciate it. There’s a Stewardship through the Seasons chapter in Dani Baker’s book Home-Scale Forest Garden excerpted on Practical Self Reliance. It breaks down what gardeners should do each season. Hint: Winter includes more than sitting by the fire, watching it snow!
If you’re missing warmer weather, we’ll soon be sharing a piece by Elsa about her September trip to Ocean Isle Beach in North Carolina. We hope you stay tuned!
GardenWalk Cleveland Heights is a free, self-guided tour of 60 gardens throughout Cleveland Heights on the weekend of July 17 and 18 from 12 to 5 pm each day.
A guide to the gardens and access to a map, you can download, can be found in the July edition of the Heights Observer or on the website www.GardenWalkClevelandHeights.com starting July 7.
GardenWalk Cleveland Heights is free, no reservations or tickets needed.
Gardens on the tour range from large, landscaped vistas to small pockets. You can rest in an adult treehouse, explore the concept of a co-housing cooperative, see a permaculture edible garden or marvel at the variety of perennials, yard art, water features, vegetables and child friendly spaces in the gardens.
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.
Our 55-gallon rain barrel is my gauge for how long it has been since it rained. A good thunderstorm or two fills it. I dip out watering cans full as needed, when the container garden gets droopy, and to water my various recent transplants. It seems like lots of water for the first few days I use it, but after a week of dry weather, I start handling the watering can with care, trying not to spill too much. Nine or ten days and I am scrapping the bottom of the barrel.
This is a bit of a game, since we have city water and I could easily use that. I am no farmer, and, when the barrel runs dry, we are not in danger of starving or dying of thirst. Still, it is satisfying to get full use of our roof water, and it is good for us to remind ourselves how precious water is. My grandparents, and my wife’s grandparents, just a few generations back, experienced dry wells and needed cisterns, and prayed for rain to save crops. All over the world people live with extreme water anxiety, living where you can’t go down to the corner and buy a Slurpee when you get hot and thirsty.
When my son was in college, a couple decades back, he volunteered at a national monument in Arizona, where I visited him. We walked into the ruins of the Anasazi villages near Flagstaff. I remember an archaeologist telling me about their farming methods. Instead of one big field, they had little fields here and there, scattered over a wide area, so that some might catch one of the fickle scattered showers. This is a region where you can go a whole season without a drop while your neighbor gets flooded. The Anasazi also built tanks: rock cisterns in little mountain gullies to catch the rain off a hillside the way my rain barrel catches the water from our roof. It is easy to romanticize the past, but when you see the abandoned rock shelter and cornfields, like the played out farms of 1930’s American dust bowl, you get a sense of how marginal life can be, how much we humans, like all living things, are subject to chance variation and shifting long-term patterns of rainfall, snow, and temperature.
Ohio, where I am writing this, is blessed with plenty of rain, but it does not always fall when you want it to. In July, with the late spring soaking rains over, the thunderstorms can be fickle too. It clouds up for a few days, and you even hear thunder, then it rains just north of you, or just south. THis can be annoying at first, when you are hauling buckets of water to thirsty plants beyond the reach of the hose. But, when this goes on for days, you start to wish and gesture and pray and WILL the clouds to let loose above you.
The rain dance is, perhaps, part of that overly romanticized past, or worse, a racist trope, something done by primitive natives, ignorant of science and ruled by superstition. I think we hang on to the notion of dancing for rain because we all secretly believe it deep below our rational minds. We see clouds gather and pass us by and we try to bargain with them, pull them and influence them like ball players waving at a long foul ball, trying to make it fair, to wrap inside the foul pole for a home run. We may be lucky to have clean water piped into our homes, but we still feel that need to influence the heavens. If butterflies can start earthquakes, why can’t we bring home the rain?
Witch hazels arrive early to garden parties in the Midwest, too early for some gardeners! Put on your winter coat and muck-boots to catch their colorful shout-out, mostly in early March, before the forsythias and hellebores! Although their early-spring blooms may be inconvenient for the faint of heart, they are delightful, fragrant, fascinating and well worth the trip outside!
How does a winter flowering shrub become pollinated? Actually, this occurs through the efforts of a ‘shivering moth’ that makes its rounds on cold nights. Earnest palpitations raise the moth’s internal temperature by as much as fifty degrees!
We are lucky to have a plantsman and wholesale nurseryman in Madison, Ohio, who makes it his business to collect and grow these under-appreciated shrubs: Tim Brotzman, Brotzman’s Nursery. Tim invited us to his nursery on a cold muddy Saturday in early March 2019, a perfect day to witness this private pageant! At the beginning of the long spruce-draped drive leading to the house that Tim built with his father, we find two bright yellow sentinels, Hamamaelis xintermedia palida. My wife and I were unescorted at this point and thankful for the labels! Each blossom on a Witch hazel is remarkable, only an inch or two wide, tiny colorful streamers exploding like party-poppers from tight centers all along the woody stems. Flowers may accompany dried fruit capsules that popped the seeds up to thirty feet in the previous fall. Tim says horticulture makes us better observers. As we catch up with him and hike through the orderly fields, he introduces each new plant, witch hazels and other friends, as treasured personal companions, with stories of their idiosyncrasies, temperament and original collection. For an hour, we were fortunate to be the ‘shivering moths’ visiting each plant in the collection.
Tim Brotzman. (photo by Mark Gilson)
Tim began his horticultural education working for his father, Charlie, a renowned nurseryman, story-teller and poet. After earning a degree from The Ohio State University in the early 1970s during the golden age of OSU Horticulture, Tim studied in England and Germany. He worked with David Leitch, local world-famous hybridizer of rhododendrons, as well as distinguished plantsman at The Holden Arboretum and local nurseries. Somewhere along the way, he traveled to Tibet on a plant-gathering expedition. Among the legendary International Plant Propagators Association, Tim is recognized as a ‘fellow’ for his years of attendance and service. The best thing about Tim is that for those with any connection to horticulture, he celebrates and extracts any knowledge and experience, no matter how limited! Talking with Tim, whether a plantsman, local grower or master gardener, you are elevated to a revered place in a fundamentally important industry and pastime.
The fall-blooming Hamamaelis virginiana is native to the Eastern and Southern US. Find it in shady woods on your autumn hikes, sometimes clinging to the side of woodland ravines. Native Americans utilized it for treatment of various inflammations and tumors. A derivative is used in Witchazel’s Oil. Hamamelis Mollis is more common in the nursery trade than the native fall-blooming form, although that is changing with renewed interest in native plants. H. Mollis was crossed with H. japonica to form many cultivars of H. xintermedia common to the trade. Red-flowering varieties were selected by early developers, including Hamamelis xintermedia ‘Diane, ‘Livea’, and ‘Jelena’, all of which Tim pointed out. ‘Arnold’s Promise,’ brilliant yellow, remains one of the popular cultivars (although Tim discounts any connection to the body builder and former governor of California!). Other varieties include ‘Glowing Embers,’ ‘Strawberries and Cream,’ and ‘Orange Peel.’ There are also vernalis types, including H. v. ‘Kohankie Red.’
H. x. Arnold’s Promise outside a nursery office in Madison. (Photo by OSU-Extension Lake.)
Tim shares detailed origination data on all his plants, including one he collected from within an armored gunnery live-fire range in Louisiana (Tim’s friend, Tony Debevc, Debonne Vineyards, flew him there in his own plane). As we walk among the rows, Tim trims flowering branches with his well-used Felco clippers for us to enjoy in our home. We comment on the odors of each, from cinnamon to apple to a pleasing but obscure vernal scent. As so many plants in our gardens are bred these days for color and other characteristics, it’s great to put our noses to work again!
Recent cold winters were hard on the Witch Hazels. One year the local temperatures dropped to 30 below zero, followed by a wet year, followed by a March with a precipitous drop to minus eight degrees. Some of the casualties remain evident in the field. Others returned to life amidst a bundle of low stems. Each cultivar seems to require its own regimen, some seed-grown, most grafted. We wonder how all this hard-won knowledge will be transferred on. Tim is no longer a young man, despite his customary energy, wit and positive engagement. Documentation of our horticultural experiences remains a challenge for our entire industry!
Other gardening treasures abound along the edges of the Witch hazel trials…columnar white pine…a beech seedling from China that has proven unsusceptible, so far, to the mysterious ‘beech blight’… unusual pines…dogwoods…many one-of-a-kind specimens.
Tim Brotzman gathering Witch Hazel stems for Kris Gilson (photo by Mark Gilson)
As a businessman, Tim is consumed with inventory matters, how to record, promote and price the myriad wholesale stock in his fields. We value the time he took from his busy day to provide these precious moments…always too few in the day-to-day chaos of our chosen fields…for horticultural observation, appreciation and instruction!
#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.
The Thursday before Thanksgiving, co-editors Heather Risher and yours truly, Elsa Johnson, got up in the wee hours of the morning and drove to Pittsburgh to attend the Three Rivers Urban Soil Symposium at the Phipps Conservatory. As these things go, the presentations were densely presented, structured to have 4 segments, each segment with three to five speakers giving short presentations on aspects of soils (you didn’t know there were so many, did you) followed by a question and answer period. The structuring topics were: Composting in Urban Soils; Growing Food in Urban Soils; Storm Water and Resilience in Urban Soils; and Urban Habitat, Trees, and Greenspace.
It is hard to take that breadth of material and make a coherent essay out of it. What we present here is more bullet points and notes rather than full-out report.
First Session: Composting in Urban Soils.
Take away-s: Speaker #1, Rick Carr, Compost Production Specialist, Rodale Institute: Twenty one percent of our landfills are food waste. Managed aerobic decomposition is important for soil regeneration. Use the plant as your measure of success.
Steaming compost, photo from the Rodale Institute
Speaker #2, Marguerite Manela, Senior Manager of Community Composting and Compost Distribution, NYC Department of Sanitation: Curbside composting works like curbside recycling. Alternatively have sites where food can be dropped off for composting.
Speaker #3, Anthony Stewart, President and Environmental Director, DECO Resources: Useful tool – XRP — an x-ray florescent “ray gun” that measures contaminates in soil.
Speaker #4, Travis Leivo and Laura Todin Codori, vermicomposters, Shadyside Worms and Worm Return: Cold composting is slow, taking up to 2 years. Thermophilic composting is fast – only two weeks.
Heather’s notes: NYC hosted a workshop on dyeing fabric with food scraps. I’d like to see something like that locally. Is anyone else interested?
Second Session: Growing Food in Urban Soils.
Take away-s: Speaker #1, Dr. Kirsten Schwartz, Associate Professor of Environmental Science and Director of the Ecological Stewardship Institute, Northern Kentucky University: coming from a social ecological focus. She spoke about contaminated soils, such as with lead and the distance it resides in soil from house being both patchy and widespread. Soil itself is more than what is grown in it. A social ecological focus sees both bio-physical legacies and social legacies, such as farm to fork “doesn’t include us”. Community involvement is complex. One needs to find points of common interest.
Speaker #2, Dr. Patrick Dronan, Associate Professor of Pedology, Penn State University: Wealth is urban. Presented about Hilltop Farm, a planned community that failed and was abandoned and part of which has been converted to a community garden. Common problems of urban soils – compaction (hard pan, clay), high pH, low organic matter, debris, under-farming, and under-funding.
Speaker #3: Adrian Galbraith-Paul, Farm Manager, Heritage Farm: Spoke on Heritage Farm, a baseball field turned to farm lot to teach kids and give food away. Its goal is to be environmentally and economically sustainable using the Korean Natural Farming method to improve fertility, the microbiome and micronutrients: Healthy plants “power” healthy soil and photosynthetic efficiency. Flavor and nutrient density are closely linked. Waste is a resource.
Heritage Farm, image from their website
Speakers #4, Robert Grey, Farm Education and Outreach Coordinator, and Nick Lubecki, Braddock Farms Manager, Grow Pittsburgh: Grow Pittsburgh, founded 2007, to grow food and sell to the neighborhood, a food desert with limited access to fresh vegetables. Provides a work-trade program where participants receive produce for 4 hours of labor. Also has an education outreach/apprentice program. (Note — Seems not unlike Rid-All, in Cleveland).
Heather’s notes: Inclusivity is important. Community engagement and buy-in is key. Some of the speakers mentioned setbacks when creating new programs/gardens without talking to the residents of the community to be “helped.” Having the support of a non-profit organization allows urban garden projects to survive while working towards self-sufficiency.
Third Session: Stormwater and Resilience in Urban Soils.
Take away-s: Speaker #1, Dr. Dustin Herman, Research Scientist, ORISE Research Program with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency: Evidence of a universal urban soil profile. Urban soils have fewer horizons. What is lost is the B horizon, which is unique to each place. Big equipment determines soil properties (excavation/fill) and changes water infiltration. Pre-urban soil evolved with climate and ecosystem. The convergence theory for urban soils – urban homogenizes heterogeneity. The simple needs of infrastructure and those of complex ecological support are opposites.
Speaker #2, Zinna Scott and Mike Heller, Community Activist and Director of Policy and Outreach, Nine Mile Watershed: Rain gardens built/incorporated into infrastructure were used in the Nine Mile Creek stream restoration, a buried stream/storm sewer.
Rendering from Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority
Speaker #3, Beth Dutton, Senior Group Manager, PWSA: there were 27 one inch rain events in the last decade creating excess stormwater. Green infrastructure is planned that ameliorates this problem. (we assume you know what is meant by green infrastructure – see speaker #2).
Heather’s notes: Urban soil functioning no longer matches the climate and ecosystem. Also, I learned about snakeworms (Amynthas agrestis). I knew that the European earthworm was invasive, but hadn’t realized that their Asian cousins were nearby and causing so much damage. More info here.
Fourth Session: Urban Habitat, Trees, and Greenspace.
Take away-s: Speaker #1, Dale Hendricks, President, Green Light Plants: Anthropogenic (man-made) charcoal acts like glue and sequesters carbon in the soil long term. Biochar is charcoal made in a low-oxygen environment and is added to soil. U.S. prairies were originally up to 40% pyrolytic – not all fire is destructive. Hardwood makes more char than soft wood. The Stockholm Biochar project is large scale biochar processing, making biochar from food and yard waste.
Speaker #2, Miles Schwartz Sax, Arboretum Director, Connecticut College: The Urban Horticulture Institute (Cornell) — soil conditions outweigh tree selection. First thing to do is a soil assessment. Recommended book – Trees in the Urban Landscape. Soil remediation is a scoop and dump process by which compost is added to soils beyond a trees drip line, not directly under existing trees.
Speaker #3, Stephen W. Miller, Bartlett Tree Experts: Root invigoration helps restore health to existing trees. First do assessment. Then air channeling under the tree is done to loosen soil. Then add nutrients, including biochar.
When we were there, Phipps was in the midst of setting up their Holiday Magic Winter Flower Show and Light Garden. In my (Heather’s) opinion, it’s well worth the visit. Protip: Go on a weeknight after 7:30 pm, and dress warmly so you can enjoy the outdoor garden.
Gardenopolis Cleveland’s editors are looking forward to tomorrow’s event: Sustainable Cleveland’s 2019 Summit. Every year, 500+ community and business leaders, government officials, students, and residents work together to help transform Cleveland into a “green city on a blue lake.”
Sustainable Cleveland launched in 2009, and on Wednesday they will celebrate 10 years of progress and build their future.
The one-day Summit at Cleveland Public Auditorium will start at 8am and last until 5pm, followed by an evening reception. The Summit will include remarks from Mayor Frank Jackson, keynote presentations, recognition and awards, facilitated discussions on key priorities going forward, and much more. Sustainable Cleveland will:
Celebrate Cleveland’s progress in sustainability and share stories of collaboration and action inspired through the SC2019 initiative
Recognize individuals, organizations, and businesses leading by example to advance sustainability in Cleveland
Feature keynote presentations focused on taking climate action, transportation equity, and creating a circular economy
Advance Cleveland Climate Action Plan priorities that depend on the whole community, such as reaching 100% renewable electricity, access to trees and green space, sustainable transportation, clean water, and waste
