Thursday, August 25, 2016

Herrontown Woods Trail Update

Volunteers with our nonprofit, the Friends of Herrontown Woods, have been doing lots of trail work this summer. One initiative, primarily being carried out by Kurt and Sally Tazelaar, is installing a new, simpler color scheme that will make the trails easier to follow. The red trail loop will now begin and end at the park's main parking lot off of Snowden Lane, and a yellow trail will form an inner loop featuring the boulder field, quarry site, and 19th century farmstead. The yellow trail is now completely marked, and a couple redundant connector trails have been closed off. Sticking with our theme of using found materials, trail markers are homemade.


Another initiative is to reduce trail erosion. With climate change bringing more intense storms, particularly to the northeastern U.S., trails are more frequently turning into streams during heavy rains. Water bars are a way of directing water off trail.

New volunteer, Glenn Ferguson (in photo), helped install the first two waterbars yesterday, between the Veblen House and cottage, using stone donated by a Herrontown neighbor. Glenn is an environmental studies major who discovered the preserve a year or two ago, and liked it so much he contacted us wanting to help out. He mentioned that the Veblen cottage reminds him of cottages he's seen in Batsto, the historic town in the Pine Barrens, which also dates back to the 19th century.

We continue to note how important it is, while doing trail maintenance, not to disturb some of the rarer native wildflowers that grow along the trail edges, e.g. wild comfrey. Trail widening can inadvertently harm wildflowers adapted to the special conditions along the trails' edge.

Whether you want a relaxing walk or a workout, come join us to walk the trails of Princeton's first nature preserve, where Veblen, Einstein and others would find inspiration and room for their thoughts to roam.

Wednesday, August 24, 2016

Bringing Back a Lost Tree Species--the Butternut


(Originally posted at FOHW.org, the official website for Friends of Herrontown Woods)

In recent years, the Friends of Herrontown Woods has teamed up with local tree experts to bring back a little known and seldom seen native tree called the butternut. Also called the white walnut, and sporting the scientific name Juglans cinerea, its numbers have dwindled over the past fifty years due to an introduced fungus that causes canker. Just a few persist in Princeton, discovered by Bill Sachs and arborist Bob Wells. This young butternut was grown by Bill Sachs from locally collected nuts, and planted by FOHW volunteers in a clearing near Veblen House.


Maybe the local deer get their news on the internet, because soon after this butternut's photo appeared in a blogpost about Herrontown Woods, its leaves disappeared, prompting us to extend the fencing higher around the tree. Persistence and followup are everything.

These are the new shoots now protected by the fencing. Another year or two and the tree will be tall enough to survive without protection.

When Bob Wells found a butternut growing near Stone Hill Church, a neighbor of Herrontown Woods, FOHW got permission to plant a couple young butternuts near it, to provide cross fertilization. Those saplings, too, would not survive without followup, and the followup probably wouldn't happen if this wasn't a labor of love, which in this case describes whatever makes one think to take a look and see how they're doing. Leaves eaten but stem still alive.

Some chickenwire laying on the ground nearby proved handy for protecting the resprouts.

With four young butternuts at Veblen House, two in Autumn Hill reservation, two at Stone Hill Church, six at Mountain Lakes, and several more growing at TRI and in Harrison Street Park (Clifford Zink being the catalyst there), our native butternut stands a chance of making a comeback in Princeton.