Dear Friend:
In this difficult time, it’s been wonderful to see how many people have found a place for outdoor activity and mental solace at the Mountain Lakes recreation area. Visits are way up, and the great majority of people are observing social distancing, wearing masks when near others and leashing their dogs, all important to protect each other.
Despite the constraints imposed by Covid-19, our board members and other volunteers have accomplished a lot! Here’s a sampler of what we’ve been doing, starting with an update from Anna Corichi, our Natural Resource Manager, on the 18-acre forest restoration project in the Billy Johnson Mountain Lakes Nature Preserve.
We thank all our members for their continuing support. On our website you’ll find out about our Donate-A-Tree program and can make a gift for the species of your choice. A gift of general support helps us to maintain trails and buy caging materials, stakes and tools for the forest restoration project and underwrite educational projects.
Thank you for your interest, and stay well.
Best regards,
Wendy Mager
Board President
NEWS FROM THE FOREST RESTORATION SITE
PLANTING UPDATE
We have been busy planting! 2,500 native trees and shrubs were planted in the Forest Restoration site this spring. In total, 34 species have been planted to date consisting of 2,000 bare-root saplings and 500 containerized plants. These species include a variety of oak and hickory trees, flowering dogwood, persimmon, pawpaw, chokeberry, spicebush, and many others—that’s what all those multi-colored little flags are on the western side of Mountain Lake! Among the volunteers who have helped are two people enrolled in the Rutgers Environmental Stewards program.
An especially exciting milestone has been the planting of eight 100% American, non-GMO, third-generation blight-resistant American chestnut trees inside the deer exclosure fence. These chestnuts are part of an effort to restore the magnificent trees that dominated the Eastern forest from Maine to Georgia, before a blight destroyed over three billion of them in the early 20th century. Near our trees, artist Susan Hoenig will be creating a chestnut leaf sculpture that you can enjoy in the fall.
BUDBREAK AND EMERGING LIFE
It has been a great joy to see the Forest Restoration site come to life! So many of the bare-root saplings are pushing buds and leafing out. We have also observed many spring ephemerals pop up across the site including bloodroot, trout lily, spring beauties, jack-in-the-pulpit, and false Solomon’s seal!
Spring ephemerals are native wildflowers that bloom for just a brief window of time in early spring when the sunlight hits the forest floor, just before the canopy has leafed out. Their early-season blooms are a welcome sign of spring and serve as an important food source for early spring bees.
The photo above on the left shows an existing stand of bladdernut blooms adjacent to the Forest Restoration project site. This is an area that volunteers spent a lot of time clearing in 2019. The photo to the right is the ‘after’ photo. Bladdernut was planted higher on this same slope within the Forest Restoration site. Here it will help to mitigate erosion and stormwater issues, and work to protect the water quality of Mountain Brook. Its early blooms and shade tolerance make it a great candidate as well.
NEXT STEPS/MOVING FORWARD
Now that the woody planting phase is complete, our management focus shifts to targeted invasive control and plant care. We will be battling a lot of stilt grass and Japanese honeysuckle, as well as caging native saplings to protect them from deer browse. Come spring of 2021, we are hopeful that we will be able to invite volunteers out to plant the remaining 5,000 herbaceous plugs to complete the project, for a grand total of 7,500 native plants.
IN OTHER NEWS TRAILS
Our trails crew has had lots of work to do clearing fallen trees this spring. They have also almost completed a beautiful flagstone trail section at the bottom of the lawn below Mountain Lakes House, and are working with the municipality to secure repairs to the historic stone footbridges in the park. A segment of the trail along the border with Coventry Farm will be relocated due to erosion of the slope.
LAND ACQUISITION
FOPOS is thrilled that in partnership with the Municipality of Princeton, the Watershed Institute, the Ridgeview Conservancy and D&R Greenway Land Trust, we were able to preserve in April a three-acre tract containing headwaters of the Mountain Brook, which flows into Mountain Lake. This property on Ridgeview Road will be a great spot for birding and observing other critters; we plan to install a couple of benches and a very modest foot trail to them.
Love spending time outdoors in nature? Volunteer with us! Email info@fopos.org with “VOLUNTEER” in the subject line.