We hosted our YES Prep North Central students this week.   While the morning started cool, it warmed up enough for the kids to be comfortable outside.  We had two crews working:  one in the ponds, another crew potting up sprigs.   Over 200 pots of Narrowleaf plumegrass were potted up and  safely placed by the grow-out ponds, while over 1,000 sprigs were planted into Pond Bittern.  Thanks to everyone for getting the job done!

We salvaged the Narrowleaf Plumegrass seedlings from their trays and bumped them up into one-gallon pots.  The seedlings were hard-pressed so it was imperative to get that done.  The crew (Diane, Ray, Lana, John E., and Glenn) worked diligently to get them staged as well by the grow-out ponds where we have interesting “friends” hang out with us—like the green tree frog pictured.

This week we hosted Kingwood High School Aquatic Science students.  These guys were seniors and easily could have passed on the work to plant the sprigs, but nope!!!  The students worked hard and planted all 2,000 miscellaneous sprigs with our mentors (Chatt, John Egan, Glenn and Cullen).  Our illustrious Seed/Sprigging Crew (Diane, Gail, Ray and Lana) stayed behind and worked on re-potting the Iris from the previous week.  Thanks to all for your effort.  🙂

This week we helped Kelly Norrid (Park Ranger) by clearing out the vegetation from the left side of the parking lot “ditch”.  We collected numerous Iris virginica, Crinum lillies, Spider lillies, Burhead and a few Beakrushes.  We ended up salvaging over 500 Iris sprigs which will be either planted or potted up next week.  Thanks to everyone for helping….I know it was a mucky mess.  🙂

I think we all weren’t expecting the extra chill in the air, but nonetheless, it was chilly and every little bit of sunshine helped the Diggers (John, Chatt and Diane) stay warm.  Spriggers (Gail, Ray, Lana, John H, and Susan C) divided up the material gathered locally and ended up with a huge variety of plants:  Arrowhead, Rush, Sedge, Spikerushes, and Water primrose.  Nice job everyone….work is paying off as the ponds are really growing!

Truly a messy week, but our diggers (Alan, John and Chatt) manage to dig up some great specimens including lots of pickerel weed and arrowhead.  The spriggers (Gail, John H, Ray and Lana) also slogged through the mud–albeit to count and sort the material by species.  Thanks to all for tolerating the mud!  I walked out to Ponds Anhinga, Bittern, Cormorant and Dowitcher….and was impressed with the plant coverage.  We could do more work but the plants we have installed are becoming more established.  It was also heartening… Read More →

Seeding crew welcomed guest Anna (chatting with Ray above) and we weeded our Iris, Plumegrass and Cordgrass pots today.  Messy work, but very necessary as the pots were getting choked by weeds.  The planting crew took the extra time to supplement ponds Anhinga to Dowitcher with some necessary Sagittaria and miscellaneous wetland plants.  Thanks all for your hard work!

Well, we didn’t make it out to Pond Egret, but nonetheless, plants were planted in Pond Dowitcher, including Spartina, Panicum, Juncus, and Carex.  Our seeding crew worked on all the narrow plumegrass seedings–which seemed endless–but manage to get 630 seedlings transplanted to slots in trays.  Assuming we don’t lose too many seedlings, we will be ready for planting once Phase 4 is ready to go!  

Today, the Seeding Crew began the long process of transplanting the Narrowleaf Plumegrass sprouts into trays to continue their development.  The sprouts were so thick in the original tray we ended up with almost 500 transplants and only went through about 1/3 of the original tray. The Planting Crew headed out to Pond Dowitcher to get more plants in the ground–615 plants specifically of mixed species.

The Seeding Crew worked furiously on weeding the Lizard Tail for the day. It was still pretty cool temperature-wise, I was told, but the work was worthy as the Saururus sprigs are really shooting up now (as of 3-21-14). Mr. John Egan was the planting crew this week and got about 150 Juncus effusus in the ground at Pond Dowitcher. Thanks to all for coming out–despite the weather and it being Spring Break.