This post was orginally published April 22, 2008.
A sitarist at downtown’s Earth Day festivities and Sunday night’s rainbow.
Flower Power!! Here are some local beauties to follow up on the Asheville post.
Purple dead-nettle at Lassiter Mill. Leaves can be just as pretty as petals.
(I originally called this henbit).
front yard volunteers. bluebells of a sort?
Lady Banks blossom on ferns
Buttercups beside Hodges Road
Atamasca Lily stand on Buckeye Trail.
Happy Spring, Katie & Russ!
This post was originally published on April 4, 2008.
I believe the parent/predecessors of this green frog came to us in a large potted water plant from that amazing aquarium store on west Hillsborough. We have bullfrogs in the turtle pond at the top of the yard (see below), but these smaller, more active individuals inhabit the unfenced pond at the bottom of our garden. Although we do bring in a few tadpoles each year as live treats for the turtles or general pondwater/biota additions, I consider these frogs to be voluntary residents and a compliment to the micro-ecosystems we try to maintain in our sloped Oakwood backyard. Below is this frog’s view of our garden.
Below is a bullfrog peering into the ivy that rings our pond turtle grotto. Bullfrogs have larger ear spots and usually green noses and no small spots. But you get such furtive looks at them they are hard to identify with total confidence. One reference I use a lot is Dorothy Hugh’s wonderful nature website. She is honest about the difficulty and ambiguity of amateur sightings, and yet goes ahead and provides excellent information in a beautiful format. Her page on frogs is a great example of comprehensive, efficient tools for comparision of the surprisingly varied but similar species present in the area.
Below are more garden images from this rainy spring break. I didn’t go canoeing above Lassiter Mill with my buddy Clyde as I had planned. You can check out some preliminary photos, but the mill post will have to wait. Our brand new rain barrels are definitely up next! Buy yours soon.
This post was originally published on March 23, 2008.
The equinox on Thursday and the warm weather have us all thinking about getting out into the dirt – right? Maybe your kid doesn’t like to get out and garden with you. Consider sending them to the Green River Preserve this summer. This environmental camp for rising second through ninth graders, with expedition programs for all high schoolers, is located on several thousand acres in the Blue Ridge Mountains. They have an outstanding program. They also promote a book, Last Child in the Woods, by Richard Louv, which centers on a concept to consider: nature-deficit disorder, which can affect any of us if we’re not careful. Plant those seeds, take that walk, mount that expedition! Have a great one!
The flowery driveway of a street that edges Fletcher Park. This time of year, it’s one of the prettiest sights in central Raleigh. You can glimpse the new construction on the right. More about that below.
The Fletcher water garden project is really moving along and needs more coverage. One of the primary functions of the water garden will be to capture, slow and filter the water from this drainage as it makes its way down to Pigeon House Creek, across the railroad tracks by Capital Boulevard. There are plenty of other tributaries to that troubled creek that need help more than this heavily wooded glen, but it definitely will provide some much-needed quality control. We will watch this project carefully, and use it as an entrance to the many issues surrounding Pigeon House Creek.
This post was originally published on March 19, 2008
As well described at New Raleigh, a new water garden has been approved for Fletcher Park. This controlled, even manicured, piece of urban wilderness was a Methodist orphanage most of my childhood. Now it is a heavily used recreational area with a friendly hillside picnic area and a gorgeous, richly planted plateau overlooking a really intriguing amphitheatre. The south edge used to be more or less thickly shrubbed and ignored, but now the environmental model project will dress up and bestow structured access to that area. For now, it’s a mess, but it sounds nifty.
Above, the flowering trees of the plateau and the amphitheatre. Below are two wonderful tree specimens that are nearby. Last are two pictures of the water garden construction.
Above a red oak, below a white.
Fletcher water garden site
This post was originally posted on March 6, 2008.
The destruction of the bike trails described by Joe Miller is not just significant for these bandit bikers: all users of the greenway between Atlantic Avenue and Capital Boulevard should mourn the loss of this old farm site, whose naked hillsides (and future clapboard townhouses) are easily visible from the greenway. Riparian buffer is the term for the ecological value of these wooded areas contiguous with the greenway: the trees absorb rain as well as pollution, shade and cool the waters of Crabtree. Of course, the wildlife appreciates wooded areas next to the creek as well.
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This is a rich and variegated section of greenway with lots of interesting features in addition to the old farm site. If you park off Capital Blvd. at its intersection with Yonkers Road, you will have to jump the barrier that tells you this problematic section of greenway deck needs shoring up. The risk seems minimal, and I’ve done it many times. From this deck you can see the naked hillsides, and then follow that section of greenway as it heads toward Atlantic Avenue.
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A view from the greenway of what Joe Miller describes as the mohawk look.
Above is the view from the new development at the south end of Six Forks.
This lovely path begins at the base of the hillside deck and heads straight toward the southbound ramp off the beltline for Capital Boulevard. If this stretch survives the development, that will be significant for this greenway section.
From the west end of the problematic deck, you are looking toward Atlantic Avenue. This stretch parallels Hodges Road and looks across Crabtree at the old site for the State Farmer’s Market. Below you see a bog visible to the right of this stretch.
Now just across this bog we have an interesting situation. Several fellows have set up a tent just behind the Atlantic Ave marsh area and are creating quite a trash pile nearby. The trash is visible from the greenway, but won’t be long as things green in. I have observed these camps and also the urban “nesting sites” downtown and under bridges for many years and almost never gotten bad vibes from them. But that is some nasty trash! We’ll end the post with the sunset cattails which are literally within sight of the tent and trash. Be careful out there!
The marsh below has been short of water since well before the drought. It appears to me that the greenway construction changed the drainage somehow. What you’re looking at used to stay under two feet of water most of the year. I guess the incoming water and sedimentation will re-adjust things over time. Anybody know?
This post was originally published Feb. 24, 2008.
This meadow off Sunnybrook is surely doomed, but it is sure fun to browse for now. I have seen deer and gray foxes, lots of butterflies and a wonderful diversity of plant communities that range themselves around the various landscapes contained on this old farm. It is the remnants of the very large farm bisected by the eastern stretch of the Beltline and displayed in all its historicity at Oak View County Park right across the highway. This privately owned portion contains two ponds, one large enough to be called Jones Lake, an abandoned farmhouse, and a small grove of pecan trees. The main pond is dammed at an unusually deep cut into sandstone that makes for an imposing ravine just below the dam, which then delivers the water to Crabtree, close by. You can walk from the Sunnybrook meadow down a hill to the pipeline cut that parallels the beltline, and follow that water all the way to the pumping station , to see where those teenagers flung their Dad’s sports car over the guard rail, and you can see the memorials left at the site, which is still slightly blackened and scarred from the conflagration. This floodplain zone is wet and full of animal tracks. The soil is sandy and obviously derived from the sandstone bowl which helps form Jones Lake. Or you can walk across the top of the dam, jump past the ravine, and walk around to the upper pond near Poole Road. Here you see the pecans and the upland plants that are taking over from them. Whatever subdivision gets created here will surely make some benefit out of the water holes and the many mature trees. You would hope, at least. I also used to park on Poole Road just past the fire station and walk in from that direction, but that end, between the upper pond and Poole, is now already under construction. The clear cut for that part is not promising. See below.
The meadow ends at the slope down to the creek that drains Jones Lake.
The upper pond and pecan grove.
And the clearcut.
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