Before


After



Today was another big day on the Botany Trail at Flanders.  Our work removing invasives--burning bush (Euonymus alatus), bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus), and barberry (Berberis thunbergii) primarily--revealed another beautiful sugar maple and introduced us to a diverse understory of shagbark hickory (Carya ovata) spicebush (Lindera benzoin), red maple (Acer rubrum), and white oak (Quercus alba).  In addition, we have encountered Solomon's seal (Polygonatum biflorum), trillium (Trillium grandiflorum), and Indian pipe (Monotropa uniflora).

Removing these unwanted plants has created air and light around these plants.  The absence of these noxious troublemakers means that we can see the meadows from the trail, and we can see the trunks of the magnificent trees that create the canopy that kept us dry while the rain fell and the thunder roared this morning.

We've uncovered human history, too.  Stone walls and barbed wire suggest animal husbandry over generations of hard work moving stones and boulders.  The magnificent trees that have taken root over and around the walls suggest a time when the farmers walked out of Woodbury and into the world of industry, perhaps, or of different trades that would make them money elsewhere.  (I know that many of my Woodbury ancestors, who settled in the town after fighting in the Revolution, moved on to Waterbury to work in the brass industry or south to Stamford to work as carpenters and plumbers to support their families.)

Rediscovering woodland ephemerals as well as the seedlings trying to claim their space in the light and the fallen trees giving back to the soil nutrients and moisture as they decompose is a reminder that life is cyclical and every phase of life we experience can contribute to the well-being and continuation of the whole.  There is a place for everything in every moment, and finding ourselves in that landscape is a source of peace and of inspiration.

If you find what I am about to say corny or ridiculous, I challenge you to join me for a couple of rounds of serving nature by removing invasive plants.  I believe--know in my heart--the trees know we are there for them.  Discovering all the maple seedlings emerging around their mother today, all I could think was that this is what hope looks like.

A fallen tree returns to the source
Succession
Cleared of invasive plants, this area will fill up
with the air and light the native saplings need to thrive.

We can now glimpse the meadow through the cleared area.  We can also marvel at the lichens growing on the rock that was formerly concealed by the over-reaching burning bush.