Category: Native Plants

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Newcomer’s Winter Walk at Berry Springs

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— by Gary Bowers

Saturday, Feb 23, 2019 1:30 PM

On a bright, blustery Saturday a tiny but mighty group met in the upper parking lot at Berry Springs Park and Preserve. After a short meet and greet, the team fueled up on some high carb snacks before heading into the park.

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Shepherd’s Purse (Capsella bursa-pastoris), naturalized annual

The group walked a short, level loop around the ponds chosen to provide a variety of micro-climates in a short distance. We were almost immediately greeted with the wonderful scent of a Mexican Plum (Prunus mexicana) in full bloom (and hope the summer walk coincides with the ripening of these fruits). A few minutes later, we found a large area of Bluebonnets skirting the pathway. Combined with rosettes of Cutleaf Daisy (Engelmannia peristenia) and Mexican Hats (Ratibida columnifera), we are all anticipating a great show once the blooms are underway.

While the many mature pecans (both in the orchard in the natural areas) are stand out trees, there are many hidden gems if you slow down. Ten-petal Anemones (Anemone berlandieri), clumps of Buttercups (Ranunculus spp.), thickets of Roughleaf dogwood (Cornus drummondii), Elderberries (Sambucus nigra ssp. canadensis) and clumps of Bushy bluestem (Andropogon glomeratus) were just a few of those that we saw along the walk today.

Thank you to all who braved the bad hair day and joined us! And if you didn’t make it today, we hope you’ll join us in April when we return to the park for the Spring iteration of the walk.

See photos from today’s trip at this link in our Field Trip photo album.

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On March 14: TreeFolks, “Travis County Floodplain Reforestation Program: a natural solution to contemporary problems”

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Live oak at Garey Park
Live oak at Garey Park

Join us at NPSOT-Wilco’s chapter meeting on March 14, 2019, for our program topic by TreeFolks on “Travis County Floodplain Reforestation Program: a natural solution to contemporary problems” with Collin McMichael.  (Please note, we meet in Cedar Park this month, not at the Georgetown Library. See the bottom of this post.)

Collin McMichael is Education Coordinator at TreeFolks in Austin, a nonprofit where the mission is “… to empower Central Texans to build stronger communities through planting and caring for trees.”

From Collin:  “As Austin pushes eastward, the degraded creeks and streams of the Blackland Prairie ecoregion find themselves in developers’ cross-hairs. The goal of TreeFolk’s newest program, the Travis County Floodplain Reforestation Program, is to reforest the riparian corridors east of Austin and protect imperiled streamsides. Through our successes in previous reforestation efforts we have designed a pilot program to reforest 50 private and 5 public tracts of land with the hopes of generating carbon credits on each site. This program will improve stream quality, improve air quality, reduce energy consumption, and offset carbon emissions regionally. Carbon offsets are being sold to the Austin’s Office of Sustainability in order to help meet their 2020 goal of carbon neutrality. TreeFolks’ TCFRP is a novel, scale-able solution to global climate change that will increase resiliency at the local level while addressing global problems.”

TreeFolks and its volunteers work with communities planting trees in parks, preserves, at schools, and other places. They provide education about trees and urban forests, and restore forests in Central Texas after natural disasters.  Collin will tell us more about TreeFolks, its projects, and its regional plans. Don’t miss it!

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NPSOT-Williamson County meetings are free and open to the public.

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Program summary: Feb 14’s Not the Same Old Deer-Resistant Plants

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Chapter members and guests alike thoroughly enjoyed Randy Pensabene’s presentation, Not the Same Old Deer-Resistant Plants, at our meeting on February 14.

Randy’s talk was loaded with information.  We learned about the most important factors for leaves, scents, and forage value that influence whether a plant is attractive to deer in the first place — or not.  Randy’s slides and handouts showcased various plants that exhibit the desired features. Some were surprising-to-the-audience examples that we don’t usually hear about as being deer-resistant at local nurseries. Armed with tonight’s knowledge, betcha some deer out there will soon be going on a diet…

Randy’s full presentation can be found at this link.

You can see the February 14, 2019 business presentation slides here.

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