by Amy Martin

Great restoration day last Saturday. Cade Lobodzinski dispatched the dangerous limb blocking the trail. Basically, the entire top of a large tree, probably from the high winds a while back.

Then he tackled the hanging limb at the trail entrance at the knoll. Now you can see the trail entrance and there’s a nice place to plant a tree this fall, perhaps bald cypress or catalpa. We have some sizable saplings. 

I helped Cade a little while Katherine Trotter trimmed the trail up to the Hidden Meadow. Hala Huchoweckyj collected Queen Anne’s lace plants and seedheads in the meadow. There were lots! 

It was so inspiring to see the hanging limb gone, Katherine and I cleared out a bunch of invasive Chinese privet, bush honeysuckle, and Chinese pistache where it used to be. In that area and down the trail a bit, there are still a few more honeysuckle and a couple of giant big-leaf privet to take down. If we get a coolish spell, I may call another short workday.  

Once we clear that, it creates a beautiful open palette to work with. Michael Parkey gave us a bunch of dwarf palmetto (Sabal minor) seeds. The native plant is bold and exotic-looking, grows in shade, and likes an occasional inundation. In the fall, we can poke holes with hiking sticks and drop in seeds. It’ll look grand someday! 

Because we’re crazy, Katherine and I continued to tackle the knoll and liberated a huge aromatic sumac and smaller elbow bush. That whole area will be a showplace someday.