LOUA has a strong connection with The Ohio State University. We have OSU professors and students on our steering committee, and there is no way that we could have planted all of the many trees within the Arboretum or cleared out tons (or so it seemed!) of invasive honeysuckle without the help of Ohio State students.

But there are some other things that Ohio State has been doing on its own to help out our environment. The biggest thing (in my humble opinion) is the fact that Ohio State wants to purchase 25% of its energy needs from an Ohio wind farm. This will help put Ohio State in the lead for buying renewable energy, continuing the university’s commitment to sustainability. Pete keeps saying that he wants to put a windmill in our backyard. As long as it looks like it should be located in Holland, I don’t have a problem with that!

Check out this video about OSU’s Green Initiative:

Secondly, Ohio State announced its new network for environmental professionals. Students as well as community professionals can learn more about the network at epn.osu.edu. The network hopes to provide a place where environmental professionals can get together to better serve their constituents, exchange ideas, have questions answered, and share information.

Finally, OSU’s wetlands have provided research on how man-made wetlands compare to natural wetlands. Turns out the man-made wetlands aren’t quite up to efficiency of wetlands that just happen. Plants that were thought to be invasive, such as cattails, worked very efficiently to capture more carbon dioxide, more so than other native plants.

Go Bucks!

Until next time!

I love fall. I think what I love best is the promise of winter. I could live, year-round, in wool and thermal tops. I love snow, even shoveling it. Travelling up north this past week, I was blown away by the fall colors. It seemed that each tree I pointed out to Pete and my mom was the most beautiful I had ever seen…until I saw the next tree that was even more glorious. The day was perfect – sunny and a blue sky that complimented all of the amazing colors. I even saw a tree that was a wonderful shade of orange. Not red orange, but a true orange that grows on a tree orange. It took my breath away.

But alas, the trees can’t hold onto their leaves, just like fall can’t hold on when winter starts its pull. As a kid, I was charged with raking the leaves, mostly from a huge pin oak in our front yard. I enjoyed it because I am very visual, and raking leaves allows you to see what you’ve accomplished. I also enjoyed piling the leaves up and jumping into them or throwing my dog Spooky’s ball into the middle of the stack. He’d jump in, and being a rather small Cocker Spaniel, would disappear from view. We could only tell where he was by the shaking of the leaves from his wagging tail as he moved through the pile in search of a rather soggy tennis ball. Mom didn’t always like that Spooky destroyed her neatly piled leaves, but as long as I cleaned up afterwards, he could play to his heart’s content. And from the picture above, Kitty likes leaves, too!

Leaves were made to be enjoyed and played with or walked through. While I lived in Florida, I missed a lot of things from up north: my family, leaves and snow. There just wasn’t that fall color because the oaks down south didn’t turn. There was one tree in Tallahassee that turned a bit, and each year, Pete and I would drive into the back of the parking lot to gaze at it in wonder. Or at least I did! And because the trees didn’t lose their leaves, that meant no leaves to fall or walk through. There is something so inherently wonderful (at least to me!) about walking through leaves. No picking up of my feet for me – I drag them through, kicking the leaves into the air, enjoying the crunch and crackle.

We used to have two silver maples in our front yard in the tree lawn. Both were badly damaged by an ice storm several years ago. I called the city to inspect them, and next thing I know, there were blue “x”s on the trees. Within weeks, they were gone. It was so strange to not have them around. Pete liked to put the leaves into the woodland garden in the backyard. Of course, the maple leaves weren’t the best; he preferred oak leaves that are much sturdier. He even would go up to homeowners lucky enough to have oak trees with bagged leaves, asking them if he could take away the bags. After a few strange looks, the bags were freely given. If you think about it, what Pete did made sense. In a forest, the leaves would have fallen to the ground, broken down, enriching the soil. He called it leaf mold. I looked on line, and there are a myriad of ways to make leaf mold: pile leaves in a corner, or put them in a bin. If you shred them, the leaves will help provide nutrients as well as hold water in the soil come summer. I’m sure they also would be great at helping to break down Ohio’s sticky clay. Pete also adds the leaves to our compost to counterbalance all the nitrogen-rich grass in the summer. So instead of bagging those leaves, put them into your garden. Just avoid black walnut (their leaves can be toxic to other plants) or diseased leaves.

I prefer just walking through them.

Until next time.

My husband, Pete, has a fascination with tropical plants. We have a whole room of plants that would seem more at home in a jungle. Unlike most things, Pete and I differ in the kind of plants we like: Pete is the jungle guy with great huge vines and plants with vibrant flowers. I much prefer delicate plants such as ferns, which my cats love to chew on. So the number of plants I can have is limited by the space that I can find that isn’t within the range of my cats. Are the cats interested in Pete’s plants? Of course not!

One of the plants that Pete has had forever is a night blooming cereus (Epiphyllum genus). The plant is sometimes called the Queen of the Night. It grows in southern New Mexico, southeastern Arizona, western Texas and parts of Mexico and his came from Belize. Pete had given one to his mom, Jo, many years ago. I remember when it had its first flower bud, she stayed up all night to wait to see the flowers, which tend to open at night. Jo called that morning to say that when it bloomed, the flower filled her entire house with its scent. So I was excited when Pete brought one home.

Now the plant isn’t all that much to look at, at least in my opinion. When I look at ours, I’m reminded of a Christmas cactus on steroids. Lots of steroids. It has these long branches that don’t just hang down, they sort of stick out. You can see a picture of our “lovely” plant above. But I was willing to put up with the crazy plant because it would have a beautiful flower that filled the whole house with its scent. And apparently, many of our friends wanted – and took – cuttings.

Well, years went by and nothing much happened with the plant except that it got more out of control. And no flower appeared. Ever. But finally, this year, it decided to bloom. We had three buds that we anxiously watched each night to see if they were getting ready to open. When one finally opened, the flower was amazing to see. But although it smelled nice, the scent wasn’t all that strong. Pete said that the plant his mom had was a different species so that would explain why the flower wasn’t as fragrant. But the flowers were so beautiful to look at and very intricate. They sort of reminded me of a passion flower. You can see them to the left and below.

Until next time!

As I contemplated Friday afternoon what I was going to write about for the blog this weekend, I felt like I wanted to talk about fall, even as the temperatures were in the 70s. It seemed that fall had crept up on little tiny feet while I wasn’t looking…although you wouldn’t know it from stores, who have bypassed Halloween and Thanksgiving and placed Christmas decoration out!

I had a hint of fall way back in August when the maple across the street started turning the most glorious shade of crimson. Pete assured me that the tree was only doing so because it was stressed. He was quite right, as the tree is now, as Shakespeare would say, “Dead as nail in door” or something like that. I really started to notice fall has arrived when Pete pointed out all the ash trees a few streets away from us, noting that they most likely wouldn’t be around much longer. They provide one of Pete’s favorite fall colors; he says that no other tree has that same combination of yellow and wine. They are very unusual.

So that got me looking a little bit at the trees in our neighborhood. Yes, they were slowly changing color. I wasn’t sure how the crazy weather of this past summer would affect the colors. To me, it seems that the leaves aren’t quite as spectacular. What do you think?

The other way I know it’s fall is LOUA planting more trees. We had quite the turnout on Saturday. A HUGE thanks to Laura Fay and all of the OSU students and others who braved the cold to come plant 57 trees. We had an unbelievable number of volunteers: 50! We’ll do the same next week with about the same number of red buds, dogwoods and other smaller trees that will do nicely in the tree lawns that aren’t as wide.

Until next time!

plant

some

trees!

Hope to see you there! (Call Pete at 261-0092 if you have any questions!)

Until next time!

Here are a few more photos from the festival! It really was a great time!