Greenbelt: The Woods Trail — Eastward, Ho!

Greenbelt: The Woods Trail — Eastward, Ho!

by Amy Martin, Greebelt Guild coordinator

A merry band of five — Hala, Katherine, Keith, Rudy, and I — gathered on Sept. 7 Sun. to work on the easternmost section of the Woods Trail. Take the Creekmere Meadow Trail from the big pecan by Overglen and as it turns left/west, you’ll see the entrance. It was overgrown by vigorous river oats (aka inland sea oats) and plagued by invasive shrubs and trees.

I cleared a path through the river oats and took out about half the invasive shrubs and trees, incurring four yellow jacket bites (mental note: check shrubs for nests before cutting).

It begins with a shallow fold where some meadow water drains during storms. It’s at a creek bend, so the bank usually has challenging flood debris to navigate.

The section of the Woods Trail from there to The Knoll had been barely used in the last year. One section was literally sliding into the creek — a dangerous situation, especially for kids.

Steve, a North Texas Master Naturalist working on his own, rerouted the trail away from the creek by removing privet and bush (Amur) honeysuckle, braving a lot of briar as he did.

Sunday Session: From Entrance to the Knoll

The Sunday crew widened Steve’s trail a bit.

We discovered a fabulous grove of yaupon or possumhaw (will know if it’s yaupon if it retains its leaves this fall).

It’s really a lovely shady trail.

Right after it joins the old trail, there’s a fabulous rusty blackhaw viburnum bent by floodwaters.

Further down is an ever-growing privet bush that’s eating the trail by The Knoll. It’s gotta go.

Look at the fabulousness of this 75-year-old aromatic sumac at The Knoll entrance, thanks to Katherine’s work a few months ago.

Sunday Session: Continuing East

Seeing a gap in the woods, we decided to continue pushing east. We had stumbled upon the old trail that Francis mentioned!

Hala was delighted about it.

Being on a bend of Dixon Branch, the powerful current during high water impacts the trail in a big way.

We’ll need to leave some large big-leaf privet (glossy-leaf ligustrum) standing to catch the debris.

Look at how beautiful the new trail is!

It passes through an oak grove that’s regenerating.

There’s a rusty blackhaw viburnum here, too. It’s the easternmost discovery in the greenbelt of this uncommon plant so far.

And some monster Virginia creeper vines. (Yes, it looks like a poison ivy vine, but those aerial roots are much shorter.)

Keith did some serious privet clearing. That him behind the mountain of cut brush.

But look at the trail that emerged from it!

We used up both reciprocating saw batteries before we finished. So the end still needs a bit of work. Then one more push to extend it to Creekmere and hopefully find the Dixon Branch Druid!

Trail-making debris pile 1.
Trail-making debris pile 2.
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