by Amy Martin, Greenbelt & Gardens coordinator

TOBs for the win! It was a small but mighty restoration crew last Wednesday, just Hala and me, both of us of… a certain age. I call us the Tough Old Broads. And wow were we! Knocked out the final 20 yards of the Woods Trail. It now spans from Peavy to Lippitt/Sylvania, emerging right next to the Deep Tributary of Dixon Branch by the playground.

By the way, orange ties indicate the trail. Red ones are invasives slated for removal. Yellow ties mark native plants to be careful around.

It was no easy feat for sure, but made easier by the start Steve P. made on it a few days before. He swung the trail past what must be the largest chinkapin oak in Eastwood, at least 150 years old.

Across the tributary is a tree that is barely hanging on to the creek bank, but what a work of art its roots are.

The trail slips through a narrow section of trees behind the large pecan at the Creekmere/Sylvania corner.

Now we are headed east.

To reach here, a bunch of two-story-tall privet and robust bush honeysuckle had to go. Also a tremendous amount of vining honeysuckle, which was as strong and rangy as briar, but without the thorns, thank goodness. And all along the new trail’s way, I dispatched a fair amount of poison ivy.

As always, when we take out invasives, we find cool native plants that have been struggling to survive amid the privet, waiting for someone to liberate them.

Finally, here are the invasives we removed. We achieve a complete trail, and the hardwoods and understory can now get the light and rain needed to thrive.

Afterward, I seeded a thick band of frostweed along the wooded edge. The robust native grows over five feet tall and boasts large leaves and big white umbels in the fall that are a crucial nectar source for migrating monarchs. Also scattered some big and big-leaved bear’s foot. Hopefully they’ll provide a privacy screen from the street.

I also seeded inland sea oats/river oats to hold the creekside soil down, and tossed about heartleaf skullcap and spiderwort seeds beneath the trees. We have lots of donated wood fern and Turk’s caps roots that are ready to dig in.

Here’s hoping!

Addendum

Cade and Matt both showed up at the Greenbelt at the same time Saturday morning, so they teamed up to do some major work on both ends of the new trail stretch. Some bush honeysuckle crowding the Sylvania/Lippitt entrance is also now gone, along with some mega privet too big for my reciprocating saw.

Check out these glorious brush piles!

This monster pile below had been behind the playground from when Cade and I took a successful 2-hour privet-slaying foray in what we call the Ligustrum Forest. The guys dragged it to the curb. Yay!

Two happy and tired dudes. We are all grateful!

So when I get all excited about finding cherry laurel when we remove privet, the photo below shows why. Next year, now that they have more sunlight and water, mature ones may reward us with flowers like this cherry laurel in my yard, which the birds strip of berries every year.

And here’s what the coralberry we’ve saved from privet could look like. Lots of armadillos and rabbits can hide under all that greenery. Also from my yard.