What I've Learned So Far in Rewilding: Appalachian Ohio

1) In a lot of wildlife restoration efforts, I see a lot of people only planting an area of either native oak or pine. Turns out, in it's native state, the Appalachian Plateau was primarily dominated by miles of specific forest types known as Pine & Oak forests, which we have disturbed. The hope is that planting one species & giving them time to grow in & fully establish will allow for other plants to move in (although, I doubt we have time to wait for pine forests to fully mature, given the circumstances, but there is admittedly less of it around than oak).

2) The specific area I live in is horribly disturbed. Half of the plants from this region are not present to the point where I've never seen them before, let alone heard of them, & half of what is here is invasive-- specifically where I am now, Trees of Heaven, Japanese Honeysuckle, Multiflora Rose, Buckthorn, Chinese Burning Bush, Sweet Pea & a ton of invasive wildflowers & grasses. We even have invasive grape vines trying to strangle everything. Since they're one of the few things that will grow alongside the Trees of Heaven, I've half a mind to let the two fight to the death & hope the much easier to kill grapes win. But, the bastards also attacked the endangered Butternut trees, so all bets are off there.

3) Invasive Earthworms brought to America for fishing have slowly destroyed a lot of our forests. Turns out, during the last Ice Age, the Glaciers swept clean the top layers of Earth from northern North America, taking away all our worms with it &, for whatever reason, they never came back. They were gone so long, ecosystems re-evolved without them. Several forest plants cannot sprout, or have difficulty thriving without that thick detritus that the earthworms ate. Surprisingly, one of the patches of wood near my home is worm free & still has its soil, but not a lot of its endangered species, save the one dead giveaway that I could do a lot with that particular spot-- rare Bellwort flowers in the spring, everywhere. Still, an easy way around this for some of these plants would be growing them in a controlled, indoor or greenhouse environment, then transplanting them in the woods-- Bellworts, Serviceberry Trees, Basswood Trees, Smooth Solomon's Seals, an endangered Spikenard species & a type of Starflower. Virtually all of these are easily accessible via different seed repositories across the country. (In case you're wondering, Native Americans apparently used the native leeches- vegetarian leeches, at that, which may be why most people have never heard of or seen then-- for fishing bait.)

4) when certain seeds are recommended to "press lightly into the soil" what is meant is for you to just throw the seed on the ground & not bury it at all. This is most common for wildflowers. Nature will take care of the rest, albeit you're leaving things entirely to chance as to whether they will be eaten before they can sprout. The specific germination instruction was given under the assumption that you are a trained botonist or garden specialist & are growing these plants in a controlled environment &/ or for transplanting/ resale.

5) I managed to devise a trick for avoiding animals digging up & stealing seeds before they sprout, which I've now proven to myself works. Dig entirely with a random stick you find on the ground & do not physically touch the dirt or the end of the stick you're digging with at all, if you can help it. You can also leave a stick to mark the spot, but off center it from where you actually buried your seed by a couple inches. The animals can smell your scent & will be curious, but will either try & fail to find the seed(s) & give up, or will sate their curiosity after examining the stick & leave. It's harder to get around the squirrels, but I suppose that's one of the reasons that sowing wild seed is usually recommended to be done between November- late January, here, when the damned things are hibernating.

6) Ohio does very little in the wildlife department & even less where I live. 90%+ of Ohio's land is privately owned, either by citizens or companies & it's one of the 5 most densely populated states in the US. The Ohio Wildlife Dept. has very little authority to do much of anything for anyone that they won't do for themselves. I also live in a giant swamp-valley & virtually all of the state controlled, protected land here is wetland. Environments include a mix of grassland, forest & swamp. The state is also swamped trying to fix 300 years of environmental damage & just spent the last few decades making all the once horribly toxic local rivers safe to physically touch, which was only guaranteed a few years ago. Beyond that, they tried planting wildflowers in fields years ago without any clue as to what they were doing & almost immediately gave up (I don't think their agents are given the proper amount of time to devote to such a thing, anyway, but they run little experiments like that now & again. It's just, they always plant stuff in wetland, whether it's supposed to be there or not, because that's almost exclusively what they have to work with) & have been reintroducing key animal species. Also, given the circumstances, Ohio is extremely lax about declaring invasive plant species a threat, moreso than most other states around it, because it would seemingly be a wasted effort to try to control. Individual citizens have to do a lot more for themselves, here, than in other places. A lot of the conservation interest here was also put on the prairie land, which is the complete opposite side of the state from me.

Lots of interesting and useful info!
Thanks for sharing.

We even have invasive grape vines trying to strangle everything. Since they're one of the few things that will grow alongside the Trees of Heaven, I've half a mind to let the two fight to the death & hope the much easier to kill grapes win. But, the bastards also attacked the endangered Butternut trees, so all bets are off there.

I have observed the grapes here in Indiana taking out the invasive bush honeysuckle in similar fashion. So I've left them to do the work for me, which seems to be working great so far. The ones covered in grape don't manage to flower or fruit and continue to provide some habitat to the birds (albeit sub-par, for reasons you may know). If you've got enough time to keep the grapes off the trees you do want, I'd highly recommend this strategy.

I managed to devise a trick for avoiding animals digging up & stealing seeds before they sprout, which I've now proven to myself works. Dig entirely with a random stick you find on the ground & do not physically touch the dirt or the end of the stick you're digging with at all, if you can help it. You can also leave a stick to mark the spot, but off center it from where you actually buried your seed by a couple inches. The animals can smell your scent & will be curious, but will either try & fail to find the seed(s) & give up, or will sate their curiosity after examining the stick & leave. It's harder to get around the squirrels, but I suppose that's one of the reasons that sowing wild seed is usually recommended to be done between November- late January, here, when the damned things are hibernating.

Thank you for sharing this interesting trick! I have planted far fewer wild plant seeds than I would like due to the amount of digging by critters and birds, so this is great!  My usual strategy is encircling seeds with sticks stuck in the ground with pointy ends up, but having to cut and use fewer sticks would be nice. Or maybe I'll try combining methods.

Ok, so we seem to be in a heat wave, so I figured I'd check to see if anything sprouted. Since they were seedlings, I was using an app to identify. It is a bit problematic, since it's not always able to identify a plant in every stage of its life cycle, but there are a few possible identifications & one I am going to call a yes.

The one I am positive on is American Wintergreen. It didn't look like what I was expecting & I have been waiting a while & hadn't seen any signs that any of them had survived & sprouted this far, but I found one single patch of ground cover plants & Wintergreen was the first hit that popped up. I'm calling it because I tried chewing one of the leaves to make sure & the flavor was grass, with the tiniest little hint of Wintergreen as an aftertaste. Very happy about that one & looking forward to the teaberries later.

The possible hits were: American Spikenard, Red Puccoon & Illinois Rose-- the last of which the app was having difficulty with. It kept bringing up roses & rose-like plants, none of which being my Illinois Climbing Rose, but it is in the area where I threw half a pack of seed out & I know I got them from a reputable seed conservatory, so it may be what I think it is.

The Red Puccoon have shown me some minor flaws in what I tried to do this past winter. They pretty much all popped up in an oddly specific spot, where I didn't put them (these were ones which I buried) & there are no signs of them in the places I did, but there were signs of digging in those places. What I think went wrong with my seed burying trick was I didn't account for squirrel stashes. I buried other things in the same places, which I will count as losses. I assume squirrels accidentally found them, didn't like the Red Puccoons, which are poisonous to just about everything & threw them out of its/ their tree, so they all accumulated in roughly the same spot. The trick itself works-- when I put them in a more open area, where I know full well there are rabbits, raccoons & gophers, I came back a couple weeks over, dug up the seeds & found them all unharmed, despite animals clearly digging at one of the locations & stopped checking once I was satisfied that it was working out.

Another mistake I made was not realizing that so many of the seeds I was attempting to plant weren't supposed to buried sooner. But, lessons learned for next year.

Some other things I found that I had nothing to do with were a grove of native witch hazel trees (so I can cross that off my list of plants to acquire for next year) & a native fern that I wasn't aware existed (if you saw my other post, today.)

The grape vines in the area I was checking today were a LOT worse than they were in the other area, which I have been attacking, but there are thicker woods in this second area & the trees are bigger & stronger. This one once used to be residential, as there are remains of roads, houses & sewers, but at some point long enough ago that there is barely any evidence left, the place was designated for factories & this spot just happened to have gone to seed & returned to wild instead. I've also found invasive barberries there & one commercial rose bush among the trees too. I don't know. Since the barberries are edible, I'm torn about killing them, but these grapes are a horrible environmental hazard.

Something else I discovered about killing domesticated grapes-- a lot of articles say to attack them in late fall & winter. This turns out to be a bad idea. Domesticated grapes need to be pruned, or they become too unwieldy to sustain themselves & die & they've evolved into a pattern of LIKING to be pruned in winter. Its actually healthier for those plants to do it then & part of its natural life cycle. If you prune it in spring or summer, it is more likely to do irreversible damage to the vines & increase likelihood of fungal infection & disease, so I'm trying that now instead.

I've also been poking & prodding at the trees of heaven to see what they do when I try certain things. What I've discovered on that front is that:
A) depending on age of the plant & soil conditions, you can rip the young ones right out of the ground without much of a problem, unless they are right up on a bigger tree, in which case they are growing out of the same root.
B) part of how the tree is so resiliant is related to the fact that it can easily sacrifice limbs & regenerate elsewhere. It being evolved for this also makes younger trees & smaller branches very fragile-- you can literally bend them over & break them off. Of course, this won't kill them on its own, but it's a step in understanding the trees better.
C) I attempted skinning one of the trees & applying poison. That on its own did nothing.
D) They do seem to be susceptible to weakening from parasitic vines. The grapes are not the only kind attacking them & the trees being strangled by the two both seem to be not in as good of shape as the others.

I am hoping that, in the long run, I can wear the trees down through continued, incessant attack & potentially replace areas where I eradicate the younger members of colonies with native plants that will phase them out.

Here's hoping to more of the things I planted doing well. So far, my clear victories in this were ONE single cherry tree, ONE single American Holly Bush & a patch of American Wintergreen. I also planted, over the past year, Red Puccoon, Illinois Climbing Rose, Smooth Solomon's Seal, American Spikenard, Yellow Buckeye, Beech, Spicebush Laurel, Buttonbush, Indian Paintbrush, Scarlet Bergamot, Wapato, Atlantic Camas, Scarlet Pink, Elderberry, Eastern Red Columbine, Eastern Redbud, Fringed Bleeding Heart, Blueberry & Carolina Allspice-- that's about all I can think of, but I'm bad at lists & frankly a bit surprised that I remembered all that that well.

Sorry, Fire Pink, not Scarlet Pink.

Also, Great White Trillium & American Cranberrybush Viburnum. Lol

Ok, so we may have some elderberries coming in now.

In this particular area, I put out Trilliums, Solomon's Seal, Elderberry, one American Cranberrybush, Spikenard, Eastern Red Columbine, a couple Honey Locust, Illinois Climbing Rose & at least one Fringed Bleeding Heart.

It looks like, other than Elderberry, I have nothing confirmed. But, the Spikenards are still a possibility. There are little sprouts with thick heads of purple & white buds I wasn't sure of the identity of that *might* be what I'm hoping they are.

The exact place I remember putting the bleeding heart, it looks like about five medium sized trees all managed to fall directly on the same one spot. Yay.

No pics, but yesterday I found what I believe to be an endangered Mississauga Rattlesnake, but a very young one. My area is just outside of where they're technically supposed to be, but it wouldn't be the first time one had been reported in my county, so maybe we have a small breeding population. I'm much more used to seeing a different poisonous snake that I've always referred to as a Water Moccasin & thought this was the same thing as it was the only poisonous snake I'd ever seen & everyone calls them something different (also heard diamondback & cottonmouth), but the snake I'm used to is a water snake, never gets very big & is brown with darker brown diamonds. Mississauga Rattlesnakes are tan with brown spots/ splotches & can seemingly get a bit bigger. This snake, though, did not have a rattle. I don't know if they are supposed to, or they get one later.

I attempted to strip the bark off of a few Trees of Heaven to see what it would do. Like, a lot of the bark. It does seem to have damaged one, but not the other two. The one that it hurt is an adult, but not a particularly old one & is in full sun. The other two were smaller-- thinner around than my wrist & couldn't be more than 10-15 ft high-- part of a colony made by a very big, very old tree & were somewhat shaded. So, I'm not entirely sure which factors attributed to the results in question.

Also, just started ordering seeds for next year. Got some Celandine Poppy, New Jersey Tea, Wild Kidney Bean, Chokeberry & Fire Pink. I wanted to get some Hog peanut & Star flower from a site I saw that was shipping from California, but they wouldn't send to US. I ended up realizing they were actually from western Canada. I guess, given Canada's remoteness & the slowness of their mail system, they decided on no American shipping because they couldn't guarantee certain seeds would survive the transit, which I understand, but, man, was I looking forward to those ones, dang it!

So, in the one good area that I've been looking through, we have tons of little Spicebush Laurels growing through. I don't think I had anything to do with these, but there's enough of them that I can cross them off my list.

I also found what I think is an American Hophornbeam tree, which I hope I'm right about. I wanted some of these because them & Basswoods are rare in my area. This is the only tree like this I've found, though, & it's not in the greatest spot to achieve full size. Basically, it started growing on the far side of a split truck tree, then veered all the way backwards, through the split to take advantage of more light on the path, so it's essentially bow-shaped.

Third, we have a bunch of baby sycamores coming in from some seeds I gathered & cast out a year or so ago. They came from some beautiful trees on the other side of town-- actually, right across the street from the church where I sourced the Beech nuts I planted. Glad to see they're doing well.

The last one I have to show I was having the most trouble identifying. The top 2 results on my app were Labrador Tea or Ground Hemlock. From pictures, I'm leaning towards the second one, but I'm not sure what it is.

Other updates, I found a second growth of Wintergreen in another area, one Blueberry bush & a few of what I think are my plums. The app kept flip-flopping on whether they were plums or cherries & I can't imagine where cherries would be coming from. I also found some kind of orchid growing. No flowers yet & there's only one. I would've hunted it back down for a picture, but it's snowing today & I didn't want to mess with it, since orchids are supposed to be so fragile.

Two edible editions I just found that I wasn't expecting-- Cutleaf Toothwort & Mayapple. We actually have a lot of both.

While I've heard of a Twoleaf Toothwort, which natives used the root of as a condiment, I'd never heard of this one. You can use it all the same way. I tried one of the leaves & it has a grass-like taste with a bit of a slight black pepper kick. Traditionally, they would not have been eaten raw, though. I don't know how different they would be cooked. I'm actually considering trying to make the condiment, if I can find out when the best time is to harvest the roots. Allegedly, they taste similar to Wasabi, but I don't know for sure.

The Mayapple, which I don't have good pics of today, I'm a bit wary of, but am considering trying the fruit, once it comes in.

Hey! Also in Appalachian Ohio here, happy to read your journal!

If you did indeed see a rattlesnake and you're more in the south/southeast part of the state, it would be much more likely to be a timber rattler--timber rattlesnakes are endangered here, but there are reintroduction efforts. If you're more east/northeast though, you might be right on massanauga. If it was young, it might not have had much of a rattle yet-- the rattle forms layers each time they shed a skin. There are also other snakes (like black snakes) that fake rattling at you to scare you off, even though they aren't venomous snakes.

Mayapples I hear you have to get just right at perfect ripeness (lasts a day or two), or they will upset your stomach. I haven't tried them. But I hear box turtles like them and I've seen them hanging out in mayapple patches!

I've never heard of eating toothwort leaf, but the root does have a nice flavor. It can be hard to reach the tuber-y part because it's at the end of a long thing root and often breaks off when you dig it up. It's so tiny that I don't really eat it much except to introduce people to the plant, because you'd have to dig up a lot of them to make a meal, and spring ephermerals like that tend to have slow, long life cycles.

Is the evergreen a young eastern hemlock? Those persist in cool ravines like the Hocking Hills. Or could it be a cultivated tree from nearby? I've never heard of labrador tea growing around here, it doesn't look like what we called labrador tea way up north.

Good luck on the tree of heaven, you are truly doing god's work if you get rid of that patch!

I'm in the northeast.

With the Labrador Tea, from the range maps I saw, I think I'm a little bit outside of it. That's why I was leaning towards the ground cedar. I think, if it is, it produces fruits (non edible) which will be obvious, when the time comes. If it's a tree, I guess it'll start going up.

And thanks! Lol

Ok, so I went & did another check. I think I've found my Spikenards, though my app thought they were the endangered one instead of the species I planted.

Also found some small chokecherries in the woods, though these ones I had thought were Poison Sumac. I did some further comparisons with flowers & leaves after it said that & they do actually appear more likely to be Chokecherry than Poison Sumac.

Also hoping a few of these guys there may be my Fringed Bleeding Heart & a single Solomon's Seal.

Two things I found that threw me off were some possible False Solomon's Seal (Both young sprouts. I didn't put these out there & have no clue where they came from, but they do look about right so far.) & a new plant I wasn't expecting which was some species of coralroot orchid. There are several said to be native, so I don't know which kind they are & probably won't until they flower. But, there we are, for today.

Nothing much today. Found a morel mushroom & what seems to be one of my Eastern Sweetshrubs, aka Carolina Allspice. I got one plant I can't identify in an area that I was planting last fall. Sadly, not seeing any signs of my Eastern Redbuds, Beeches or Buckeyes. There is a lot of buckthorn, though, which do look similar to beech leaves, but I couldn't find anything I would definitively call on.

Anyway:

Good updates today:

I found my Solomon's Seals, finally. Some animal moved them a few yards to the left, but they're growing in a small patch. There are a lot of similar looking plants all over the area & now I also know that, not only do Solomon's Seal & False Solomon's Seal look alike, Twisted Stalk, aka Watermelon Berry, also looks similar & I can't find decent information about how to tell the difference between it & the other two plants. Fortunately, one thing I know Solomon's Seal does that the other two don't is produce an even line of hanging flowers directly below the central stalk, like the one in the pic.

There are way too many similar looking plants in the area for them all to be the Solomon's Seals that I planted &, though it's hard to tell on some, Solomon's Seal has a single leaf on the end of its central stalk, whereas, at least, False Solomon's Seal leaves that spot open to produce Treacleberries. So, the rest of them aren't Solomon's Seals I wasn't previously aware of. I can't find any bigger than 5-6 inches, so whatever plant they are, they're dying back in winter.

I also came across a couple Jack in the Pulpits-- but only a handful. I already bought some more to plant for next year, so I guess there'll be a bit more genetic diversity thrown in for them. Also may have found some Basswood seedlings. The adult trees' leaves are too high up for me to be able to definitively tell if we have them, but I hope so.

Only thing I can't find that I put back there last year are Indian Strawberries & my Trilliums. Those seeds have to pass through an animal's digestive system, so all I was really able to do was throw berries in the woods & hope for the best, but nothing so far as I can tell.

Also came across this Wood Sorrel that was dying on the side of the railroad, so I dug it up & transplanted it deeper in the woods-- the worm-infested one, just in case. Hopefully it does better where I put it.

Ok, so got my Strawberry Blite seeds in today. A quick net search says I may be able to start them now, as well as my Goat's Rue, so I am running a test. I put out 2 Goat's Rue & 8 Strawberry Blites in 3 different areas & we'll see how this turns out, so I'll have a bit of a better idea of what I can do with certain plants. The internet suggested burying the Blites, but after seeing the size of the seeds & remembering how disastrous my attempts were with Wintergreen, where I was told to do the same thing & the only ones that grew were the one or two a accidentally dropped somewhere on their own, I decided to just put them down on top of the soil & tamp them in. The two Goat's Rue, I did one of each-- one buried, one tamped.

Also, I may have found one single Beech growing. The app didn't identify it as such, but it's still really tiny, it matches the type of leaf I was expecting & the site looks like somewhere I buried something, but it's the only such one I've seen that looks like that. They are supposed to take 6 years to mature, so I don't know what else to really expect. Hopefully it is what I think it is.

Also got some Groundcherry seedlings preordered that should be shipping any day now. That was the only way I could get them.

So, just a lot of hoping right now. No pics today.

Trying to skin all the layers of bark down to bare wood off of Trees of Heaven in a complete ring around the trunks. That I've been told, the inner layers of bark in any tree are mostly how the plant moves certain nutrients to the upper part of the tree, so this should effectively kill everything above the scars I made & make whatever survives a lot more manageable. Pretty easy to do with a hatchet, we'll have to see if this is more effective than other methods I've tried-- skinning a part of the tree, or scarring the tree & applying poison have definitely damaged them & opened the trees up to infection, but hasn't actually killed them. Plus, the bark grew back in a few times thicker around those scars. By the way, I have confirmed that with larger Buckthorn trees, slashing X's all over the trunk with a box cutter & applying poison does kill it. Everything else has woken up from winter except the one Buckthorn I did that to. Sadly, the same thing just does not work with Trees of Heaven.

Also, got the Groundcherry seedlings & planted those. They've seemingly survived all week, though one doesn't seem to have developed any foliage & only one has gotten noticeably bigger. But, they all seem to be alive this far. I may have to water them again, as there will be no rain until next Monday, but I'm glad things seem to have worked out & I planted them right.

Found a lot more potential wood sorrels, but I don't know what kind they are. My app kept giving me Irish Shamrock in the results list, which was throwing me off. Interestingly, a Shamrock is actually not a clover, but yet another species of Wood Sorrel, so I guess that is why. I've also put some pennies under the only fruiting Eastern Red Cedar to see if the copper fixes the Orange Cedar rust problem it's had the last couple of years.

Also, we have Autumn Olive, which I'd never noticed before, as well as either a native or invasive Wintercress (confusingly, invasive Wintercress is known as American Wintercress & the native one is only ever called Yellow Rocket.) & we definitely already have some Basswood trees. I tried a bit of Wintercress leaf & Basswood leaf to see how it was. I think I'm religating Basswood to survival food-- it just tastes like grass. The Wintercress, maybe, would be better cooked. If I think of something to do with it, I'll see. Today was just to double test the edibility of that specific plant.

Still going to take a week or more before I have proof that either my Strawberry Blite & Goat's Rue is going to grow this year.

Bought a hacksaw for any remaining large grapes to see if that'll be easier on me than using the hatchet, but it's going to be a pain. Also may need to get some wading boots for some things I need done. Still, a work in progress.

Found a bunch of ferns today. I'm not the best at telling them apart, but on top of the Sensitive Ferns & Northern Intermediate Ferns I already founds, we seem to have 2-3 other species: New York, Beech & Cinnamon-- the last of which is another edible I can cross off my list.

Also think I found Eastern Pipsissewa. Was told it tasted like some kind of mint, but I didn't get that at all, assuming that's what it is. Just a very mild flavor.

Those Wood Sorrels I've been finding are blooming now, too. They are yellow, so according to uswildflowers.com, it may be one of at least three possibles-- Large, Price's or Yellow Wood Sorrel. I'm hoping for Price's, as I heard they were endangered, but I can't really tell them apart.

Also, I think it's possible that one of my American Cranberrybushes sprouted.

Note to anyone who wants to grow Virginian Groundcherries-- put them in, at least, partial shade. I have three left which are doing well. Two I had put in open sun & both died. Out of the remaining four which I did put in partial shade, one was dug up by an animal.

As for the Tree of Heaven problem, it's been hard to notice much of any change in the trees I scarred. Today, I did see that some of the smaller branches on those trees are dead & defoliated, but the problem is that any branches not defoliated look perfectly healthy. The only thing I can imagine is that it's working, just excruciatingly slow. I've also now learned why they are sometimes called Stinking Sumac. They gave off very little smell when damaged up until now, but today when I was trying to kill off a few new sprouts, they have off an extremely unpleasant, intense smell that I can only liken to burnt plastic.

Interestingly enough, though, I have found that at least two native species do fine under groves of Trees of Heaven-- Indian Strawberries & Wood Sorrel.

Grape Vines are everywhere. I had hoped I'd be able to stop them from escaping entirely into the wild, but I've now noticed that they're in every wild patch from the center of town all the way to the freeway that borders the city on the north end-- it's officially the country immediately on the other side of it. I also found them along the river by the mall over on the extreme east end of town & on the sides of the road in the suburb where by brother lives on the extreme west end of town. If anything, this is probably worse than the Tree of Heaven problem. These could choke & kill most of the wild areas across the county. I also found that I have an invasion of domesticated strawberries in one area. I don't know how those will react with the Indian Strawberries, but I am slightly concerned.

I don't know, I'm going to keep working on it at my own leisure & hope for the best.

Ok, so quick update that makes me feel really stupid today-- I've been noticing that we have tons of wild strawberry plants which I've never personally seen fruit, despite finding "Indian Strawberries," relatively small, tasteless offerings all over the place.

Just found out why. When looking over Indian Strawberries in a patch in various states of fruiting, I found out that the flowers were yellow, but actual strawberry flowers are white. The only such plants I know with yellow flowers are mock strawberry, so I look up mock strawberry & a picture of identical fruit to Indian Strawberry appears. When I look up Indian Strawberry, the links lead to resources for the exact same species of plant. Also, it turns out this species is invasive-- they're called Indian Strawberry sometimes, as they are native to India & they are probably not, nor were they ever edible. Also a good reason why they grow so we'll under the trees of Heaven-- not native to North America at all-- & a good reason why I swear I'd never seen them before until less than 10 years ago.

According to uswildflowers.com, our actual native species of strawberry is, in fact, Virginia Strawberry, not Indian Strawberry. I personally have no clue as to why the actual wild strawberries in my area don't produce fruit, though.

Ok, so I think it's safe to say, at this point, that my Strawberry Blites & Goat's Rue are not likely to sprout.

That being said, I had to take a long walk to the post office today &, when I went past the school board HQ, I realized that they actually have Serviceberries along the front of the building as ornamentals. Obviously, they haven't been raised with the fruit in mind-- a lot of it still wasn't ripe, they were also stunted & kind of tasteless. But, I grabbed a few to pull some seeds from to plant. I've got a nice large clearing for them in my good woods that a few should take well in. I also remember that there was another place that had wierd ornamental fruit trees on the south side of the city which I couldn't identify. Now, knowing better, I think I'm going to run down there on my next day off & see if they are hackberry. That would be nice.

Also found some Pepperweed growing. If anyone were interested in eating them, apparently now is the time to harvest, but I don't know where the "black pepper" taste described is coming from. Sources are moreso telling me to cook it as a vegetable, so maybe the flavor changes after boiling, but it's very bitter with some strong undertones that I can't really describe. Nothing like pepper. I can definitely see it being used as a spice, though.

Hello, it was interesting reading your posts.  My wife and I moved to an old farmstead 2 years ago in Central VA, and I have been having the same types of experiences.  Curious about the diversity of the flora, I have been trying to identify the plants on my land, and then completely discouraged when I realize that it's an invasive....

I wanted to let you know that I read that the best time to eradicate tree of heaven is in late summer/early fall.  The way I understand it is at that point all of the sap in the tree is starting to travel back down to the roots, which is advantageous when you poison the tree.  I exercised the "hack and squirt" method on 40 or so large trees of heaven last late summer and every single one of them died with a single application.  I was obviously very satisfied with the results.  

Hope this helps and good luck in your woods!

I hope so, because I'm running out of ideas.

Nice thread!  I'm in NE Ohio with many of the same plants.

It's nice to read your posts and see your photos.  

Oh yeah? I'm in Trumbull.

D Tucholske wrote:Oh yeah? I'm in Trumbull.

Right on...I presumed you were down in the SE area of the state

I'm due west in Medina County

Ok, those other trees I wanted to check on weren't Hackberry, but I did find a couple interesting things down that way.

We appear to have Sourwood trees. The range maps stop in the Ohio River Valley a couple counties south of here, but I was wondering if it was possible for them here in my county. These look like Sourwoods, there were a few of them in various stages of development. Internet says they should be flowering around this time of year, though & none of these have flowers. They must be reproducing, though. I also can't find anything on look alike plants.

Also found a patch of spiderwort, a lot more Butternuts & a strange plant I can't identify.  

That first plant you're trying to identify appears to be a Cornus species (Dogwood)

Agreed - cornus

Thanks.

So, I had an area I was clearing of mostly Buckthorn where I tried planting a few trees & bushes last fall. I had three grow, but the app I was using couldn't seem to positively identify any of them, so I waited until they were big enough that I could compare them to everything I planted & see if I could tell what they were.

Right now, I am going with Eastern Sweetshrub, Allegheny Red Plum & Beech.

The Beech kind of got mowed down by a confused road crew, but I was lucky enough that the plant had set in well enough that it survived & has started growing back. They also got a stunted mulberry that I uncovered in there. That has begun to grow back too. I guess trees are a lot more capable of doing so than most people would realize, so long as they're in full sun & have access to water. (I actually dumped some ice cubes from a cup I happened to have with me the one day next to the beech & I found it starting to sprout the next time I went back there.) I dug around in the undergrowth & may have found a fourth seedling I planted, but I can't identify that one. It was more taken over by Buckthorn seedlings & is a lot smaller than the others.

Also, I found what my app seems to think is a young walnut or butternut. It wouldn't surprise me, but I am a bit doubtful, though I am no expert. Plus, I have a pic of one of my Groundcherries.

A few new plants that I wasn't expecting to find-- Wild Tarragon & Whorled Mountain Mint. Someone brought up the Wild Tarragon from their region in my edible plants thread. Turns out it's a plant I've seen a million times in my life, I just never knew what it was. We always called them Wild Onions growing up, despite being pretty sure that they weren't, because of the big bulbous thing near the tops of the stems. We used to pick them when they died off near the end of the year & pretend they were magic wands. I just found some growing here & used my App on them. Despite it's usual iffy accuracy, it threw out Tarragon & the pics were identical, right down to the bulbous growth at the top.

As to the Whorled Mountain Mint, that really surprised me. As I've said before, I live in a giant swamp, not up a mountain. This was growing along the railway line, though. It is edible & quite possibly the most intensely Pepperminty tasting thing I've ever out in my mouth. It was still a little bitter, so I'm not sure the leaves are ready for picking yet.

Also, I think my Atlantic Camas is growing, but I don't think they're putting up flowers this year. I had pics for all three, but the new phone doesn't save photos I take using that app for some reason, so I guess I only have the one.

Ok, wanted to say real quick, regarding my last post-- the plant I thought was Tarragon is actually Goldenrod. I think it's a male/ female thing, like only one gender has the bulbs on them. I cannot believe how hard it was to puzzle that out for such a mundane plant.

I have never cooked with Tarragon, so I'm not really sure what it tastes like, though we do have similar looking plants around here & they do have a strong scent & taste to them, so I could see them being used as a spice, so long as they are what I think they are.

Goldenrod below, so everyone can see what plant I was talking about.

Awesome thread, I love it so much! It sounds like you have a lot of native plants showing up, and I bet they will continue to as you make progress beating back some of those invasive species. Plus you’ve done a ton of work helping that along with the seeds you planted. It’s going to be better and better every year.

Did you happen to come across the pipsissewa again? It should have bloomed by now, so the flower or seed pod will help confirm it. The leaf looks like it to me. I usually see the leaves whorled in groups of five, but they can be in opposite pairs as well. I haven’t tasted it but now think I should. Oh that reminds me, on the American wintergreen, I had a similar experience trying to identify it by taste the first time. The fresh leaf is a more subtle flavor like you experienced, with the wintergreen taste getting stronger after drying. I think your ID is correct and hope you get to snack on a berry or two. It is one of my most abundant groundcover plants in the woods here, but I don’t get a ton of berries. But I saw a patch at lower elevation (edge of wetlands) that was much more productive than mine, so I know it’s possible.

The round growth on your goldenrod is a gall from a wasp. Goldenrod tea is nice, and the plant is usually prolific enough to pick lots of leaves with little effort. I usually either strip leaves from stems with my fingers (and dry on a rack/screen), or just chop down whole stems to hang dry.

The Pipsissewa is still there & the patch is really thick. Eating the leaf didn't hurt me & seemed to have a mild medicinal effect, though it wore off quickly. None of it has flowered at all, though, which is really throwing me off.

And thanks with the wasp gall on the Goldenrod. I didn't know they were prone to do that on plants that small.

We have hazelnuts this year, at least. And the Sumac & Dewberries are coming in. We also have, what I'm pretty sure are, just regular Blackberries.

And, I think I found some of my Eastern Redbuds. That being said, there was a bigger one in the brush that I freed up that seems a bit too large to have been my doing, but I don't exactly know where it came from, if it wasn't me.

Also, this other plant. It sort of looks like Tarragon, but I wasn't sure. It tastes like pine, but Google says that the taste of wild Tarragon can be wildly variable, so it wasn't a whole lot of help. What do we think?

Decided to go somewhere new today. Branching off the railway line is a defunct line that is almost completely overgrown. Mostly the same sorts of things there that were everywhere else, but I did find a couple things of note. I also found a relatively open spot to put down a few more of my tree & bush seeds this fall, which is good, as I'm starting to worry that I may have slightly overdone it this year.

But, I found the source of the 2-3 yr old Eastern Redbud. There was a single, full grown tree back there. Also found a new kind of fern-- the Male Fern-- & a new edible, Wild Basil. (No relation to store bought.)

Did you ever go back and try out the serviceberries once they were ripe? They should be a deep purple-blue. Probably past that point now, but any fruit remaining on the tree should be viable for planting.

Your new spot sounds really cool! I bet you'll find other interesting things there at other points in the growing season, too.

I took some berries for their seeds on that day. Taste wise, I don't think they were going to get any better than they were, planted in the mulch beds, there.

Ok, so Autumn Olives & Mayapples are in season, now. I tried both for the first time this week. The Mayapples, just within the last hour.

The Autumn Olives are tiny, with papery skin & big seeds. They don't taste too bad. A bit tart, like certain kinds of grapes or, I guess, currants (though, I've never had any of the latter.). Not much to them, so I see why people would prefer to make jams & jellies out of them, instead.

The Mayapples was interesting. I only ate a couple tiny bites today, to be cautious, but the fruit was yellow & soft to the touch. The insides kind of smell & look like a citrus fruit, but the taste I got was actually kind of like a banana. One word of warning, though, the pulp exuded from the fruit when I tore it open kind of had the color & consistency of yellow pus. Really unappetising-looking, but, you know... Could be a lot worse than tasting like banana. I'll try to tell you if I live, or not. Lol

Yup, I'm good. Mayapples are edible.

Anyway, I may have found another new plant called a Raccoon Grape. It is native, but it's only distantly related to grapes & is not considered edible by almost every source I've seen. It's pretty small, but it's not growing as aggressively as the domestic grapes, it would seem. I hope it's what I think it is. That would be a great boon to the local diversity. And, I'm sure, the raccoons will be happy.