As promised, here is a longer post on the past weekend’s events. First, we had a chilly but productive Earth Day clean-up in Glen Echo. My allergies only allowed me to stay out for about an hour and a half, but I managed to pick up nearly a full lawn bag of trash. I found a door key plate that I thought might be copper, but alas, it wasn’t. Then I found a beautiful, small, cobalt blue bottle. I was so excited until I pulled it out of the ground, discovering that it was only part of one. Oh well. The rest were mostly plastic bags and Styrofoam.
Our progress is pictures – removing honeysuckle and creeping euonymus:
Honeysuckle branch that put down roots – tenacious!
What the hill looked like when we started…
…what it looked like in the middle…
…and what it looked like after a lot of pulling!
As I went back to the area farther down the ravine where everyone was working on pulling out creeping euonymus, I
got a wonderful surprise: a De Kay’s snake. These snakes don’t usually get much longer than 12 inches and they eat earthworms, slugs, snails, and most other small insects. I loved its orange tongue.
The work that was done was amazing, with so many bags of invasive plants removed. It makes such a difference. As I walked through the ravine, I saw an increase in the number of spring flowers cropping up. I know it’s because we have removed many of the plants competing with the beautiful native wildflowers. I think by this weekend, those flowers might have popped open.
Then the next day, it was off to plant more understory trees in the Arboretum. My thanks to everyone who came out to – we were missing those OSU engineering students! But we had a lot of people answer the call for help, so everything that needed to get into the ground did. There is so much prep work that goes into planting these trees: addresses confirmed, trees delivered, mulch set out and indicated where, supplies brought out, so many things. Thanks to Mike and Pete who worked hard to make it happen. And Sam for his truck. And everyone else for their help, including my first planting partner, Corinne Advani (aka the Root Slayer), and Pete’s friend, David Brown, who, along with his kids, helped me plant my last tree.
David Brown and family
Kid power!
The highlight of Sunday was seeing a fox kit sleeping on a log. So cute! I was in awe of such a lovely creature. He’s a little hard to see in the photo below, but all I had was my iPhone, which isn’t the best for longer distances…look for the brown blob in the middle of the photo!
EVENTS NEXT WEEKEND
- Saturday, 4.27.13 :: 8am – 8pm, BioBlitz at Glen Echo Ravine at the Bird Mural
- Sunday, 4.28.13 :: 10am, tree planting at LOUA kiosk
- Sunday, 4.28.13 :: 2pm, LOUA tree walk at LOUA kiosk
Until next time!
Lower Olentangy Urban Arboretum 