A Tale of Two “Weeds” in Valley Creek Preserve

It has been so dry here in Tredyffrin – barely an inch of rain in the last month – that it’s difficult to imagine any vegetation growing heartily.  But a walk in Valley Creek Preserve quickly gives the lie to that, and points us to emergency planting maintenance work required!

First the good news, though. Alongside the creek towards the very southern end of the Preserve is a brilliant patch of Vernononia noveboracensis, New York Iron weed. The photo here barely does it justice – zoom in on those brilliant purple flowers, but see also the terrific write up by Ashley Kulhanek in Buckeye Yard and Garden Online:

https://bygl.osu.edu/index.php/node/2226

A couple of extracts from her article: 

• The U.S. Forest Service notes that there are 17 species of ironweed in North America.

• New York ironweed can be distinguished from its cousins by the presence of hair-like tips on its flower bracts.  Even when the flower opens, those stringy hairs remain under the flower head.

• Its habitat is much like that of giant ironweed, often found in wet soils in full sun along streams, or in prairies and pastures.  (That’s the Conservancy!)

• These beautiful, tall, vibrant purple native flowers are a welcome sign of late summer and a BOON to many insects. They are a valuable late season nectar source for many insects and butterflies, and their pollen is a required resource for specialist long-horned bees.

Ashley says that “You can never have too much IRONWEED”, but the other weed that has flourished in the disturbed conditions of last year’s tree planting is BURNWEED.  So much so, in fact, that it threatens the growing space of our new trees and shrubs, and demands a little preventative maintenance.  And at the same time, we were able to free up any trees already pushing out of the tubes and getting tangled in the bird netting – a good indicator that the plants are thriving!

But first – Burnweed, Erechtites.  Again the internet is a wonderful resource for information and lyrical language – here’s Nancy Lawson, writing at https://www.humanegardener.com/burnweed-life/

• American burnweeds are free spirits, throwing caution and seed to the winds and popping up irreverently in new places each year.  And why shouldn’t they?  Life is short when you’re an annual plant who must sprout, flourish, reproduce, grow old and die in one season.  It’s especially precarious when you’re an annual plant under constant threat of being yanked and sprayed.

• Burnweeds don’t care what you think, rising above—sometimes even seven feet above—all the insulting remarks made about their worthlessness and unconventional appearance.  They dare to sport bold leaves and tiny flowers, an anatomical combination that seems to have grossly offended the human arbiters of floral and faunal value past and present

• The bees, wasps, and butterflies in my habitat would beg to disagree with those assessments of one of their favorite late-summer plants.  Far from being “useless,” Burnweed flowers provide nectar for many insects.

Which is all very well, but when the plant is overwhelming our precious new trees, it has to be controlled!  Somewhere in the photo below, behind all the Burnweed is a tube with its new tree:

Here it is, now with fewer competitors for sunlight and nutrients:

This next photo gives you an idea of the full planting area:

And to end on a bright note, here is one of the caged Sweet bay magnolia trees from last year’s planting by the Resolution Life team, undaunted by the surrounding Burnweed and proliferation of grasses, and doing so well that it decided to flower in September!

Members and visitors are welcome to get in touch with us (info@openlandconservancy.org) and volunteer for the maintenance tasks that will help transform the habitat in our Preserves.

Lorimer Restoration Continues!

Visitors to the George Lorimer Preserve will have seen the gradual greening of the graded area where the small pond used to be.  Maybe, like us, they will have been amazed at the burgeoning rye grass, broadcast seeded in mid-December 2023 to help control erosion!  While this has been happening and the ground is settling, the Conservancy has been working on the long term planting plan always envisioned as Phase 2 of the project.  On August 1st we took the next step by installing professional fencing to protect that planting from deer browse.

The first step was to decide the overall strategy.  We started from the Conservancy Mission: “to protect and enhance wildlife habitat”.  Board member Margot Taylor spearheaded the process to decide the particular wildlife for which to design that habitat.  We consulted with our friends in the birding community and determined that the Wood thrush would be a desirable target species that could be attracted to the restoration site and surrounding woodlands.  PA Birds of Conservation and PA Action Plan both included Wood thrush, Hylocichla mustelina, as a species to protect and preserve its habitat.  The species has been observed in Lorimer Preserve.

The Pennsylvania Heritage Program website’s PA Community Prediction Tool for Site Restoration was used to assist with selection of a target restoration vegetative community and plant species list based on common species found in similar natural communities.  This led us to zero in on the Red maple/Blackgum Palustrine Forest community.  Hopefully our blackgums will look as magnificent in future Falls as the one below:

We also decided early on, based on the successful growth in the deer exclosure at the old scout cabin site in the Airdrie Forest Preserve (take a visit to check it out!) that the best strategy for getting that community established in the face of the pressure from deer browse, was to

• Enclose the planting in a sturdy, professional deer fence

• Invest in larger plants, typically the #5 and #7 container sizes

We then looked for professional partners to help implement such a strategy.  Thanks to advice and references from our contractor friends and from organizations like Natural Lands, we found restoration contractor Land Studies and fencing contractor ProFence willing to work with us to scope a project based on virtual assessments of the site.  These estimates then formed the basis of grant applications.

The Conservancy is hugely grateful to the Marshall Reynolds Foundation, the generous funders of the transformative 2023 signage project, for continuing to support our ambitions.  Together with the balance of the Valley Creek Trustee Council funding (saving largely due to Board member Scott Bush’s environmental engineering expertise), we have secured the funding to make this next phase possible.

Our first step was to engage our trail mowing stalwarts from Dave Ludwick Landscaping to mow the area.  Then, two fenced deer exclosures (one of each side of the stream) were installed by an excellent ProFence team on August 1st.  The fence consists of 96 inches tall High Tensile Woven Wire, with posts of 5-6 inch round, 12 feet long Southern Yellow Treated Pine, spaced every 15 feet.  Each exclosure includes an 8 foot gate for planting and maintenance access.  Here is a photo of the team and their tool cart finishing up the project after a ten and a half hour day in 90 degree heat, with supervisor Lester and installation experts Wendell and Travis.

Board member Margot Taylor, Preserve Manager Greg Sprissler and Conservancy Vice-President Ray Clarke met on site with Andrew Miller, Land Studies Project Manager and Arborist, seen in the photo below taken by Margot.  Standing by the project sign, they discussed the excellent results of the project so far, and considered the details and refinements required to coordinate with the fencing and to establish the desired community.  Planting is expected in October/November.

Habitat for a Tiny Conservancy Resident!

The Mission of the Conservancy includes the purpose “to protect and enhance wildlife habitat”. That responsibility includes not only acquisition and maintenance of open space, but ensuring responsible use. When that habitat is right under our – and our dog’s - feet, we have to be especially careful! This is why it is so vitally important to keep your dogs leashed in the Nature Preserves, as modeled by visitor Elizabeth Potter below.

The ground level habitat is especially valued by ground-nesting birds. One such species that might not immediately come to mind is the Song sparrow. During this year’s Spring breeding season we were lucky to spot a successful brood right next to a Valley Creek Preserve trail.

One of the least appealing plants in our Preserves is the Stinging nettle Urtica dioica.  It’s a major nuisance – giving visitors and volunteers that irritating, but transient, sting by overhanging trails in the wetland Preserves and impeding our attempts to plant trees in the riparian buffer (ask the students from our Center for Families teams!).  On the plus side, nettles have some benefits: they are the larval food plant for several species of butterflies and moths.  Which in turn are food for our avian residents.  

It turns out that they also provide cover for ground nesting birds.  This little friend was agitated by a Preserve visitor and flew up from the undergrowth alongside the trail.  This is a song sparrow; you can check out the alarm call (and its song and other cool facts) here:

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Song_Sparrow/overview

This prompted a careful foray amongst the stinging nettles, when the source of the parental concern became apparent.  Tucked at the base of a false indigo (Amorpha fruticosa) shrub and protected by those natural hypodermic needles on the nettle stems was this tiny nest with brown speckled eggs:

Even well-hidden, that nesting strategy seems high risk, and maybe loss of safe habitat partly accounts for a population decline of about 27% between 1966 and 2019, according to the North American Breeding Bird Survey.  In general, though, song sparrows are widespread and common across most of the U.S. and are common in our area.

So, the curious visitor returned a couple of weeks later, to a twofold relief: 1) at least two well-grown song sparrow nestlings, and 2) sparrows, not the often-parasitic brown-headed cowbirds.

A week later, those babies had taken flight and were beginning their life alongside Valley Creek!

THE SONG SPARROW

He does not wear a Joseph’s coat of many colors, smart and gay

His suit is Quaker brown and gray, with darker patches at his throat.

And yet of all the well-dressed throng, not one can sing so brave a song.

It makes the pride of looks appear a vain and foolish thing to hear

In “Sweet, sweet, sweet, very merry cheer.”

A lofty place he does not love, he sits by choice and well at ease

In hedges and in little trees, that stretch their slender arms above

The meadow brook; and then he sings till all the field with pleasure rings;

And so he tells in every ear, that lowly homes to heaven are near

In “Sweet, sweet, sweet, very merry cheer.”

-Henry van Dyke

Residents and Visitors in Valley Creek Preserve

Sarah Monroe is a neighbor to, and frequent hiker in, Valley Creek Preserve.  She brings her Canon EOS Rebel T7 camera and its 300 mm lens along, and we’re happy to share some spectacular shots from her visits over the past months.  We encourage you to visit and check out the Preserve wildlife for yourselves!

The creek and its wetlands are home to a wide variety of aquatic species.  Sarah was examined by a seemingly curious American mink,

and she also spotted what looks like a muskrat creating some beautiful golden ripples.

In the past we’ve shared trail cam photos of a beaver, and the trees and shrubs recently felled with the characteristic teeth marks suggest that it, or maybe a relative, is still around, but it has not put on a recent show.

Sarah has been spotting many juvenile eagles passing through the Preserve, and captured this suitably imperious bald eagle.

And finally, at ground level, her camera got up close and personal with a grumpy male Eastern box turtle.

Lorimer Preserve Project Update

Our update last November reported on the beginning of the dam removal and stream channel regrading.  Preserve visitors and readers of Landmarks will know that our excellent contractor, Flyway Excavating, completed the construction work in mid-December.  It’s time for an update on the status and next steps!

The useful Chester County GIS website Chescoviews. (https://arcweb.chesco.org/CV4/) has just posted an update to its basemaps so we can see aerial views of the site before and after the project.  The photo from March of 2023 vividly shows the eroded by pass ditch and the narrow north wall containing the pond.

The next photo, dated September 2023, but in fact taken after December 2023, shows the stream channel meandering through the site, the stone riffle designed for grade control and passage of trail mowing equipment, and the matting which stabilizes the site until it is planted.  The stream channel looks full in this photo, and indeed it has proved very stable despite the extreme rain of recent months.

The project was made possible with grants from Chester County and the Valley Creek Trustee Council.  The Administrator of the latter program, Jeff Schmid, of the PA Fish and Boat Commission, came from his Bellefonte office to inspect the project.  A photo with Preserve Manager Greg Sprissler (on the left) offers a ground level view from downstream.

We have been talking with contractors and granting agencies about the next steps.  Our approach is guided by the Pennsylvania Wildlife Action Plan, which is designed to improve the scientific basis for making conservation decisions, with special emphasis on wildlife species of greatest conservation concern, specifically birds.  For our site, the Plan and our birding community friends suggest habitat that favors Wood thrush and related species including Kentucky warbler, Ovenbird and Worm-eating warbler.  In order to create a habitat large enough to make a difference, we will not only plant the newly graded area with a mix of herbaceous plants, shrubs and trees, but we will also replace three acres of invasive bush honeysuckle downstream of that site.  If all goes well, particularly with our grant applications, the work will be completed in the Fall.

We are hoping that this project site can become a “restoration laboratory” for all residents to experience according to their interests.  Those good with computers can help analyze the data from the monitoring equipment we will be setting up.  There will be opportunities to plant many trees and shrubs, and to help with fencing.  And we hope residents can stop by and learn from the planned site tours.  Stay tuned!

The removal of the dam widened and deepened the stream channel upstream of the project site, which made it more difficult to step across the water at the foot of the new trail from the parking lot.  Eagle Scout candidate Mats Michlitsch and his team from the Paoli 1 troop came to the rescue with a sturdy boardwalk.  Visitors can now gratefully keep their shoes dry!

This project is a great example of the wide-ranging benefits provided by OLC’s long-standing partnership with scouting and the Eagle Scout program.  The list of Eagle projects is a very long one (bridges, kiosks, fences, erosion control structures, trail construction, tree planting, etc.!) and we are very grateful indeed to all the scouts and their families.

Lorimer Stream Restoration Project Under Way!

As members and George Lorimer Preserve visitors will know, the run-off from intense rainstorms of recent years has eroded the small pond by-pass channel so widely and deeply that we have had to move and fence the trails, and that the pond berm is threatened.

We have been working on a solution with engineers, grant sources and permitting agencies since 2020 - and now the work is about to begin!

The pond will be drained, the earthen walls removed, and the waterway restored to a free-flowing stream.

Our contractor is Flyway Excavating.  They will be preparing the site beginning November 17th, and expect the work to last about three weeks.

Trails near the small pond area will be closed during the construction.  Signs are posted giving detour options for walking.

WOODLAND CONSERVATION ORDINANCE

CLICK TO READ WOODLAND CONSERVATION ORDINANCE

Tredyffrin Township has been experiencing an increasing loss of trees, recently estimated at a net loss of 64 acres of trees per year. This is due to many factors, including development, storm damage, and property owner preference. To address this loss the Township has recently adopted a Woodland Conservation Ordinance, which applies to properties whose owners plan to remove more than five viable trees within a given year. A summary of the ordinance is attached, and the full version may be found at this link. The link includes a helpful list of native trees known to do well in southeastern Pennsylvania.

The Open Land Conservancy strongly supports the ordinance and encourages residents to familiarize themselves with it, to support it, and where appropriate, provide information to the Township to assist with its enforcement. General questions about the ordinance may be sent to the Tredyffrin Environmental Advisory Council at tredyffrin@tredyffrin.org with the subject Environmental Advisory Council.

Our Reasons for Being: Nature Photography at George Lorimer Preserve

OLC volunteers Tim Magee and Ray Clarke had a moment of serendipity in the George Lorimer Preserve parking lot in late August, with a stunning demonstration of why OLC’s mission to protect natural habitat, and provide opportunities for the community to enjoy it, is so important.

While unloading fencing material to store for upcoming tree plantings, they met Jeff Alexander. Jeff is remarkable because: a) he offered to help with some heavy lifting, and b) because he came out of the Preserve with a truly impressive camera set-up - a Nikon D7200 with a Nikkor 200-500mm lens, seemingly long enough to reach out and touch the subject!

Photography by Jeff Alexander

And then he showed our stunned duo some of the photographs he had just taken in the Preserve, reproduced here along with others taken in Cedar Hollow Preserve the next day. Regular visitors to Lorimer may well have seen the long time resident green heron, but likely never in such stunning detail, along with their lunch and what looks like a salad side dish. Kingfishers and their machine-gun rattle are common sights and sounds in OLC’s main riparian Preserves, but less frequently seen in Lorimer, and never close up in any location.

(Click through to see a slideshow.)

The small birds from Cedar Hollow Preserve are less flamboyant, but Jeff has brought them up close for your enjoyment. A house wren, a couple of common yellowthroats, and what Vice- President of Birdtown PA and OLC keynote speaker Phil Witmer thinks may be a nashville warbler – although the head looks dark and opinions welcome!

Finally, please take a moment to join the frog in hoping it’s not going to be the heron’s lunch, and to revel in the colors of the swallowtail butterfly and its thistle host.

This encounter was so fortunate because Jeff actually lives two states away in Abingdon, MD, and was in the area for a couple of days looking for photography/hiking spots while his fiancée was working at her company’s corporate office. He tells us he found out about OLC through a web search that identified the George Lorimer preserve as close by with very high ratings.

Kudos to OLC’s website team! And especially thanks to Jeff for the spectacular photos and for taking the time to send them along.

Shade Gardening with Deer Resistant Plants September 7th

Come learn about shade gardening with deer resistant plants by Greg Tepper, Senior horticulturalist at the Arboretum at Laurel Hill on September 7 from 6 to 8 PM in the Winsor room at Radnor library.

Free and open to the public

114 West Wayne Ave, Wayne

Registration begins at 6:30 pm and program begins at 7 pm.

Hosted by the Community Garden Club at Wayne and cosponsored with Open Land Conservancy and the Tredyffrin Environmental Advisory Council

You’re Invited! Chester County Hosts its First-Ever Sustainability Summit

From the Chester county Planning Commission:

“Registration is now open for Chester County’s first-ever Sustainability Summit. This FREE half-day event will take place on Tuesday, September 26 at Penn State Great Valley’s Conference Center from 7:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Business owners, local government representatives, facilities managers, higher education and health care decision-makers, non-profits, and volunteers will benefit from the connections, resources and information provided at the Summit. Presentations will include a keynote presentation by Ariella Maron, Executive Director of the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission; “speed share” highlighting organizations in Chester County making their communities more sustainable; sustainability planning and new funding opportunities, converting vehicles and fleets to alternative fuels, and lawn-to-meadow conversion. Lunch will be provided for all registrants.

In addition to the main event at Penn State Great Valley, Chester County is partnering with several local organizations to offer a series of in-person tours showcasing sustainability in action throughout the county. The tours are also free and open to the public, but registration is limited, so reserve your spot now!”

Woodland Restoration in Valley Creek Preserve

It’s time for a little look behind the scenes of OLC’s Preserve management!  Mother Nature’s force is massive and inexorable, but thanks to members, volunteers and grantors we strive to give her a nudge in a favorable direction.  A recent visit to the southern section of Valley Creek Preserve shows how that is paying off.

A decade ago, a winter photo (below) of the flood plain in that section showed a monoculture of Phragmites Australis, Giant Reed, half flattened by a recent flood.  Trees in the background are draped with bittersweet and grape vines.  Thanks to the leadership of OLC Director Art Blumenthal, professional management from (now OLC Director, then with Green Valleys Association) Margot Taylor, funding from the TreeVitalize program, planting efforts from, among others, Siemens Medical, and ongoing volunteer tending, the area has been transformed.

In Fall 2014, the Phragmites was treated and mowed and 350 trees planted.  The flood plain is a tough environment for new plantings.  Trees are periodically flattened and/or washed away.  Mice take shelter and sustenance inside the tubes.  The above-average rainfall in recent years made soil just too wet for all but the hardiest wetland species.

But now the fruits of our labor are becoming apparent, as the survivors are burgeoning and natural regeneration is taking hold.  The two recent photos above from the north and south of the area show the transformation.  Maple, black willow, swamp oak, sycamore and even ash trees are beginning to split their protective tubes, and most can withstand the floods with only occasional volunteer restoration.

A careful view of the photos, though, will show another reason why this project was so important.  The background of both photos shows the stark silhouettes of the mature ash trees that surround the site, completely bare of leaves although it is the height of summer.  Unfortunately they have succumbed to the Emerald Ash Borer insect, the larvae of which kill all species of ash by feeding under the bark, creating serpentine galleries, and effectively girdling the tree.  Our 2014 planting was undertaken before the threat was widely known and included the ash trees noted above.

It remains to be seen whether those young ash trees will survive long term.  Scientific data is not encouraging and the trees are weakened by the black spot fungus.  However the other native species should continue to thrive and begin to recover a native ecosystem.

The long-term success of this project already catalyzed a similar 2017 project in Cedar Hollow Preserve and OLC will be repeating it upstream in Valley Creek this year.  Valley Creek Preserve has the highest incidence of ash trees of all OLC Preserves, and our reforestation efforts are thus especially important there.  Two half acre patches of Phragmites north and south of the Treeline Drive entrance have been treated and mowed, and another treatment will have them ready for planting in October.  Follow OLC on social media for the opportunity to help in the planting!

Keeping the Cedar Hollow Preserve Trails Open

Our Preserves are under continual attack from the increasing intensity storms, and our volunteers are kept busy cleaning up the aftermath of wind and floods.  The July 25th storm saw Valley Creek rise five feet in four hours with just an inch and a half of rain at the Valley Forge gauge.  The creek rose two feet out of its banks in OLC’s riparian Preserves.  Trees were toppled and the bridge over Cedar Hollow Run at its confluence with Valley Creek was lifted off its foundation and moved downstream.  Another threatened storm could sweep the bridge away and close the popular trail along Valley Creek and Cedar Hollow Run completely.

Preserve Manager Tim Magee was quick to the rescue!  As shown in the photo, his axe made short work of the fallen box elder tree (and another ash tree across the trail in the northern section of the Preserve).  The bridge repair, however, required a more engineered approach!

The bridge was built by Eagle Scout Jack Fields in 2010, to a design by former OLC Board member, friend and Trout Unlimited stalwart Pete Goodman.  It consists of three 24 foot beams braced underneath and held together by the planks that form the top walking surface.  Those beams rest on sections of telephone pole rescued when the Preserve was acquired in 2000.  The problem was twofold: the beams were floated out of their slots in the pole at one end, and the pole itself had lifted off the bank.

Tim performed a temporary relocation of the bridge while he and Preserve Chair Ray Clarke assessed the situation.  They concluded that really, really long nails were required, and Tim took no half measures at Home Depot!

The starting point was four-foot rebar lengths hammered through the telephone poles to hold them to the bank, supplementing the bars already in place.  The photo shows Tim with one bar half way through.  Then the heavy bridge was levered back into the slots (just visible in the photo), and the beams toe-nailed into the poles with twelve-inch spikes in place of the much shorter bolts used in a previous repair.  Finally, to insure against the now unlikely event that the bridge would be lifted off in future floods, the end of the bridge was cabled to a nearby tree.

Now Preserve visitors can be sure that the bridge will be there when they arrive at the creek confluence!  And the good news, of course, is that OLC’s Preserves are doing an important job in the local flood control system, with wide flood plains that allow the run-off to spread out, slow down and keep the floodwaters off the roads and our homes!

OLC Volunteers Repair Driveway Entrance to Cedar Hollow Preserve

OLC has once again demonstrated their commitment to enhancing the visitor experience by reconstructing the entrance to the Cedar Hollow Preserve parking lot, using the brilliant idea of OLC Board member Scott Bush to use roadway millings. Drawing from the success of the George Lorimer Preserve entrance project, OLC employed the same approach, ensuring a significant improvement to the parking lot.

Thanks to the generous donation from Township contractor Glasgow Inc., a second pile of roadway millings from the Township Superpave project was made available. Expertly utilizing the resources at hand, OLC called upon their long-time tree service partner, CJ Tree Service, who generously provided their Bobcat and skilled operator, Shyan Jara. Shyan skillfully leveled out potholes and expertly spread and compacted the millings, resulting in a smooth surface. OLC volunteers, Ray Clarke and Tim Magee, once again demonstrated their dedication by fine-tuning the surface with their rakes.

OLC Volunteer Repair Crew.  Tim Magee (left) and Shyan Jara from CJ Tree Service (right)

Thanks to the collaborative efforts of OLC's partners and volunteers, visitors to both OLC Preserve parking lots can now enjoy a safe and seamless entrance.

OLC Volunteers Repair Driveway Entrance to George Lorimer Preserve

OLC volunteers Ray Clarke, Tim Magee, Greg Sprissler, and Art Blumenthal, along with his trusty Kubota tractor, deserve a round of applause for their incredible efforts in completing the much-needed repairs to the driveway entrance at the George Lorimer Preserve. Their dedication and hard work have transformed the entrance into a safe and welcoming pathway for visitors to enjoy the beauty of the nature preserve. OLC would also like to extend its immense gratitude to Glasgow Inc. for their generous donation and delivery of roadway millings, which played a pivotal role in leveling the entrance and enhancing the overall safety of the area. Tredyffrin Township Director of Public Works Darin Fitzgerald facilitated the connection to Glasgow. It is through the selflessness and collaboration of individuals like Ray, Tim, Greg, Art, and the support of and private businesses and municipalities like Glasgow and Tredyffrin Township, that we can continue to provide a safe and enjoyable experience for all visitors to our treasured nature preserves.

OLC Volunteer Repair Crew

From left to right - Art Blumenthal, Ray Clarke, Tim Magee & Greg Sprissler

OLC Annual Meeting Wednesday 4/12 at 7:30 pm

We're happy to say that the OLC Annual Meeting is back as in-person event, at the traditional location in the Great Valley Presbyterian Church, at 7:30pm on Wednesday April 12th.  See below for details.

You will be able to meet other OLC members and volunteers, hear about all the Conservancy happenings, learn how to "Have Fun with Birds" from local resident and Bird Town Pennsylvania Vice-President Phil Witmer, and enjoy some refreshments.  If you can't make it in person, you can also listen to our live broadcast over Zoom at Open Land Conservancy Annual Meeting 2023 (although you will not be able to vote on our routine business matters).

JOIN US FOR OUR 2023 VINE DAYS

Inside the TT Summer Newsletter

Check out OLC in the Tredyffrin Township Summer Newsletter! Click on image to read the newsletter!

click to read

Volunteer Opportunity! Preserve Partners

Volunteer Opportunity!

PRESERVE PARTNERS

Many of you have for a number of years helped out the Conservancy on our Vine Days and with other ad hoc tasks - clearing, planting, etc. - and many others have written to us offering help. Your Board believes that there is now an opportunity for the Conservancy to establish a more formal role as a partner with the current Preserve Managers, and we hope that you might be interested.

The Role

We are envisioning assigning one or two Partners for each Preserve. Each Preserve team will establish a plan for the Preserve and allocate responsibilities. Routine maintenance tasks will be a starting point: trail mowing/clearing and planting area maintenance during the summer months, for example. We also think that there’s a lot of opportunity for fresh eyes for projects to improve habitats and visitor experience. Those could lead, for example, to management of Eagle Scout or contractor projects.

The Requirements

The requirements are straightforward: enjoyment of the open air, a sense of fulfillment from providing tangible benefit to our community, ability to operate hand and (optionally) power tools, and availability for a flexible few hours a month in partnership with a Preserve Manager. Click here for a video where one of our long time volunteers and now Co-Manager of the Lorimer Preserve, Greg Sprissler, discusses the personal and community benefits from volunteering with OLC.

The recent award of the Land Trust Alliance “Accredited” status to OLC recognizes the strong foundation that has been laid over our 80 years of existence, and we intend that this new role will help us ensure the resources and leadership to maintain that status for future generations.

If this seems appealing, or if you have any suggestions and/or questions, please send an email to info@openlandconservancy.org, noting which Preserve (if any) is of primary interest.

OLC Featured by the Land Trust Accreditation Commission

OLC has been featured by the Land Trust Alliance! The story shares our process through the accreditation process and our commitment to conservation excellence. Read more by clicking the link below.

“Open Land Conservancy of Chester County, an all-volunteer land trust, was awarded first-time accreditation in 2022. This dedicated community has been protecting land since 1939. We spoke to them about their decision to apply for accreditation and what it meant to achieve first-time accreditation.”

Read more…

OLC Partners With Center for Families

Native Trees Planted in Two Preserves along Valley Creek

One of OLC’s especially valuable partnerships is its association with Center for Families, a Malvern-based organization that provides teens with the guidance, support, and education they need to live a successful life.  Teams from Center for Families in 2018 helped build the trail that connects Cedar Hollow Preserve to the Atwater residential development and in 2019 planted the first trees in the restoration area at the foot of the entrance trail to Cool Valley Preserve.

This year, in recognition of Earth Day 2021, the partnership stepped up its game!  Both partners joined to secure funding to acquire 30 three-to-four foot tall native trees plus the fencing needed to protect them from deer and - our new threat! - beaver.  Cedar Hollow and Valley Creek Preserve Managers Tim Magee and Ray Clarke picked out open areas in their Preserves along Valley Creek in need of addition riparian buffer protection.  We selected a mix of native trees especially suited for wetland environments: river birch, smooth alder, silky dogwood and red maple.

Our friends at Trout Unlimited loaned their shovels and Tim and Ray had the plants and fences ready to go when the two Center for Families teams arrived at their Preserves on the beautiful Spring afternoon of April 23rd.  There was plenty of work to be done in addition to the planting, though: plants and fences had to be carried to their planting spots, navigating around the pestilent stinging nettles that are just beginning to emerge (unfortunately before the natural antidote, jewelweed, makes its appearance!  (Top Tip: Jewelweed is good for poison ivy, too!)).

The photos above show the team arriving at Valley Creek Preserve, careful planting of a smooth alder, the finished sites at both Preserves and Cedar Hollow Preserve Manager Tim Magee alongside a silky dogwood.  The last photo shows that even though Center for Families team worked hard throughout - hauling, digging, planting, hammering and watering - they also found a few moments to enjoy the fresh air, the clear waters of Valley Creek and the bright Spring colors.  “It was so good to be outside and do something for environment.”  “Being outside on a beautiful day was just what I needed.”

The trees should grow quickly, and the current shrubby areas, with more than a few ash trees impacted by the Emerald ash borer, will flourish with diverse native species that also will help protect the banks, keep the water cool for its aquatic inhabitants, and help control the rate and quality of stormwater flows.

The Conservancy is so grateful for all its volunteers, who do so much to sustain our precious open space and make it accessible for visitors to enjoy.