This photo is not of Pleasant Valley Conservancy but of my back yard, which may explain why I have not had any posts lately. The snow is beautiful but it…

Last year we had an "open house" at Pleasant Valley Conservancy on New Year's Day. It was successful (the snow was good!). We are hoping to make this an annual…

Since 2002 I have been keeping careful field notes of plant species, their locations, phenology, and any other characteristics of interest. At the end of each season, I have been…

A question has been raised about why we are trying to control native shrubs such as sumac and gray dogwood. Good question. I need to be reminded occasionally that our…

One of the problems of cutting wood in a natural area is keeping the ecosystem from getting disrupted. Clearing the East Basin resulted in lots of wood, mostly of firewood…

In my last post I discussed our current work eradicating sumac clones. These clones were all located while they still had brilliant red leaves, and were mapped with our Garmin…

Sumac is one of those native species that can become a major problem in prairie and savanna restoration. Some folks simply let it exist, which is a mistake. It is…

Mullein (Verbascum thapsis), also called flannel plant, is a large sprawling weed that loves to colonize bare ground. It is a biennial which in its second years sends up a…

We are getting near the end of our seed collecting. Today, Kathie collected heath aster (Aster ericoides) and I collected Tinker's weed (Triosteum perfoliatum).Heath aster is interesting because it is…

I am slowly learning the capabilities of ArcGIS, the widely used mapping software that has elements of database and graphics arts. I have been able to bring in two air…