Habitat for Humility

What an exquisite time of year. 

The stripped-back landscape draws attention to the trees that are reluctant to let go of their leaves. As with beeches, oaks can retain their leaves throughout the cold months; this trait is called “marcescence.” It is the time of year when I can best assess the number of young oak trees; an indication of a healthy woodland. These are now silvery half-tones of maroon, umber and apricot, colors that humans would be hard-pressed to reproduce.

It was a critical year for the oaks. On our property, almost a dozen of the largest oak trees succumbed to the spongy moth infestation of the past two years. This year’s rains were essential to the recovery of the remaining oaks compromised by past seasons’ drought and pestilence. While the hickory and northern cherry trees had mast years, producing an abundance of seeds, I suspect that next year — barring a catastrophe — will be the oak trees’ turn at producing a mast year of acorns.

In contrast to the orange-red shades of the oaks, the blue-red leaves of burning bush stand proud in this muted palette, making them easy targets — same for the yellow-green of the remaining nonnative honeysuckle. Invasives tend to not only blossom earlier than native plants in the spring but lose their leaves later in the fall. We are working quickly to pull and cut them before they lose all their leaves and again become camouflaged next to their naked neighbors.

The animals for whom, in part, we have created this patch of native habitat are trying my patience. Beavers have had their way with several small trees in the river garden. A witch hazel and a white birch were among the casualties. Both had been flourishing after we transplanted them a couple of years ago from crowded stands in the woods. The beavers do a tidy job — now you see it, now you don’t.

A small woodpecker that I was admiring from the kitchen window has just about girdled the Florida dogwood it was feeding on. I have now wrapped it — the tree, not the bird — with tree tape and have fitted plastic tree protectors around some of the small bank-side tree trunks to deter the busy beavers. Then there are the voles who have dug under and through the remaining lawn as if to mock my environmentally sensitive efforts to even have such a thing as a lawn. Yet our habitat also includes Scout, who lives for playing fetch. Our lawn is for her and for our joy playing together.

Thanksgiving is over; the ground is starting to firm up, which is the sign that certain tasks, such as weeding, will need to be resumed in the spring. Other tasks such as seed planting need to be quickly wrapped up. Over the past few years, I have spread the collected seeds of native plants without much thought and was not able to monitor any seed growth except to note that there has not been much germination of new seed. Could it be that the invasive jumping worms have so degraded the soil that germination is more difficult? According to a white paper by the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, “Many native trees and plants (including garden plants) cannot germinate or develop in this altered soil.”

This year I made sure to tamp down the crumbly worm-chewed soil before sowing the seed, but that may not be enough to do the trick. I have made a list of the places where the seeds were sown so that I can monitor any spring success. I have also repurposed empty plastic milk jugs and salad containers, filling them with potting soil and adding seeds. And I have sown the seed of my favorite native perennial — Silene regia, or royal catchfly — in the stone-surrounded beds at the side of the house.

There is joy. There is frustration. Creation and destruction. It is a privilege to witness Nature and to participate where and when it is needed.