This year, I have been invited to many people's houses to come and look at their natural areas and help them identify plants, and so far, I've had the opportunity to get to 3 of them. All 3 were so amazing, I just had to write a post about them!
The first was a property in Mount Penn. Contrary to my assumption that Mt. Penn was basically just Perkiomen Avenue, and perhaps a side street or two, I soon discovered that there is an entire village built right into the side of the mountain, which really shows how sheltered I've been that I didn't know this existed! Winding my way through the narrow streets, passing house after house that seemed to have been carved right out of the bedrock, each different and unique, many extremely quaint, I really had the sense that I wasn't in familiar territory. J. greeted me on the steps of her house, which had to be at least 30 ft. above street level, but was only about 10 feet from the street. Considering the extreme slope of her front yard, I vowed to never complain again, EVER, about my terrain. You saw it in writing here.
Turns out her property continued up at the same extreme angle in her backyard, so walking to look at plants felt a little like climbing Mount Everest. I was frankly amazed that J. managed to plant anything at all, considering how precarious it would be to set foot on one of those hills and attempt to dig a hole, but plant things she had. She chuckled when we passed the spicebush she'd paid $20 for the previous year, only to realize later that her property was covered with mature specimens already!
J.'s property, like the other 2 properties I visited, was a beautiful woodlands property, with a canopy of mature chestnut trees and an understory of - yes! - spicebush, but invasives were lurking everywhere. J.'s major problem plant appeared to be multiflora rose, but we also saw a new stand of mile-a-minute weed dangerously close to some beautiful colonies of Jack-in-the-pulpits. Our major discovery was a young paw-paw tree, which J. first thought she recognized, and then we confirmed - and not only that tree, but several babies all around it! J. was overjoyed, and we determined that her first priority would be to keep the multiflora rose away from that small stand, to let it continue to grow and develop. J. was fanatic about the invasives, and described to me her continuing efforts over the years. Even as we walked along, she was pulling them here and there. In addition to keeping close tabs on the invasives, she had industriously planted many natives throughout her property, including a hazelnut most recently.
The other 2 properties I visited were even closer to home, just a few minutes away in Robeson township. However, they could have been a world away for all I could recognize of the landscape - these two properties were like fairylands, yet they were inhabited by real people. Perhaps the feeling I was in fairyland was heightened by the amazing, sinuous cob wall at the front yard of the first property - a hand-made earthen wall, with a slate-tiled roof, and beautifully gnarled branches accenting and forming the windows and doors. Now that's just something you don't see every day!
But, back to the properties. Here was a situation where two neighbors, with contiguous properties, realized they were gardening soulmates, and have been jointly gardening and caring for their two properties ever since. Their properties were also on a hill - one at the top, one at the bottom - making for another steep descent and climb, although not nearly as extreme as Mt. Penn. And it was yet another example of people who have managed to coax the beauty back into their landscapes, which had been completely taken over by invasive plants when they first moved into the houses. D. described the property thus: "It was like the forest around Sleeping Beauty's castle - so dense, you couldn't even see your way in." D. also called the tree of heaven the tree of hell (just like I do!), and from her description, she and her husband had taken out hundreds of them, big and small, over the course of many years. The same with the multiflora rose, which undoubtedly was a major contributor to the Sleeping Beauty effect. And their efforts paid off - the understory was lush with Christmas fern, lady fern, cinnamon fern, spicebush, massive rosebay rhododendrons, pinxterbloom azaleas, and white wood aster.
The other D.'s property, nestled in a small valley at the bottom of the hill, boasted a babbling brook running right alongside the house, with a steep slope of mountain laurel, in full, gorgeous bloom, directly opposite. It really seemed like the kind of place that people would pay several hundred dollars a night just to have the opportunity to see that vista when they woke up. Everywhere we walked, they talked about their ongoing projects - here a native meadow border, there a new cob cottage, here planning to put some natural stairs near an amazing-looking rock formation, there clearing away the plants to reveal an old stone wall, nestled deep in the woods - and everywhere, how to best control the invasive plants encroaching from all angles. We identified a few plants they were dismayed to learn were invasive plants, which were in their woods - barberry, burning bush, and the first-year form of garlic mustard, which is just an attractive looking mound of leaves with pretty scalloped edges - in addition to commiserating about the ones they already knew about and were dealing with.
Coming away from these visits, I felt more invigorated than ever in my own small battle to take back the woods around my house, and the Sugarbush property, which is also a nearly impenetrable thicket of invasive plants - because these 3 homeowners had showed me what was possible, with some extreme dedication and time committment, to the task of managing the invasive plants. Perhaps my property doesn't have the same "wow!" potential that theirs do, even with lots of work, but I'm sure it can at least be a decent Pennsylvania woodlands, which is really all I want, since a decent PA woodlands is one of the most beautiful landscapes going. And if they can do it, so can I - and so can you!
Now would be a good time to mention a few good invasive plant websites that can help you ID your own invaders:
Weeds Gone Wild: http://www.nps.gov/plants/alien/factmain.htm
DCNR Invasive Plants Tutorial: http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/Forestry/invasivetutorial/List.htm
Wishing us all good luck!
Friday, June 5, 2009
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