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

Oh. Yeah, I'll have to look into that. Thanks.

I think I found the Trailing Wild Beans, today, but HOLY SHIT- someone literally just tried to set the woods on fire within the last 20 minutes. Fire department is on the other side of the plaza from here & got to it pretty quick.

This isn't the one I planted, though I found a nice big patch of Indian Potato along the bike trail, just north of the city. It's the sake direction I went when I found the Hogpeanut. Missed it before, as it wasn't flowering.

I looked into that stae forestry sale program, but I was a little too late. Still, they did have a couple species 8 was looking for, so I'll have to keep an eye out, next year. Not too late for Minnesota's, though. They don't do theirs until September. Kind of surprised Ohio doesn't have a program like that, but New York, Virginia, Missouri & Indiana all do.

Anyway, I just got in a three pack of buttonbushes from Prairie Moon yesterday & got those out. It's been looking like it might rain & I'm really hoping it will. We dipped just enough into a drought for just long enough with these aggressive temps that stuff started dying. It's been raining on & off for the past couple of weeks, but it still doesn't look too good. I hope my bushes can get established well, before winter sets in.

I meant Minnesota's doesn't start until November. Apparently, that isn't a word in the English language. I apologize. I had no idea.

Anyway, I guess it was already stealth raining, so that's good. Someone or something dug one of my buttonbushes right up out of the ground & threw it to the side to die, but I got to it & put it back. Also think I found my Gentians & Downy Wood Mint.

Went seed collecting around town, today. Managed to track down almost everything I was looking for- Eastern Hemlock, Red Pine, Eastern White Cedar, Pitch Pine & Tulip Poplar. Only thing I looked for that I can't remember where I saw them was the Winged Sumac. I know I have the right road, I just can't track them down. It's possible that they're as far as two townships away from here. Anyway, that's almost everything I need to start a Native Pine forest- we already have Eastern Red Cedar & White Pine over here, I bought Tamarack seeds & now, I think, all I need are Shortleaf Pine & the native Balsam Fir species.

Anyway, I got the seed set up to dry & am waiting for the poplar pods to open.

Wasn't expecting it, but I found that one of my Virginia Groundcherries has fruited. I tried some store bought Goldenberries from Peru a few months back & HATED them- I liken the flavor of dipping pineapple in tomato paste. I figured refrigeration would cut the flavor the way I does with tomatoes & make them taste better, but somehow, they came out the other end of that tasting even worse.

However, Virginia Groundcherries taste really, really good! The flavor is almost like a candy, but I'm not too sure how to escribe it. Only that I lik them. Only eating one for now, just to make sure they are completely safe, but color me impressed!

Now, something important to note- I got six plants in all last year from a seller in Minnesota. It was my first attempt in transplanting & only two of them survived. One died this year, once it started getting hotter & the surviving two were very badly stressed. However, after that, I began finding these plants coming up all over, in places I never put them. I did an experiment of taking a piece of one of the stressed plants & digging it in a few inches to the left and it regret, from just a little, tiny piece of stem. So, the animals must have helped spread these clones around by accident, because I have a whole bunch, now. This is the first one which fruited, though. I wasn't expecting to see any fruit until next year, as only one had flowered this summer, so this was quite a surprise.

Survived the groundcherry, although the handful of accounts I found from people who actually tried them sees to suggest there may be some things to look out for- Fruit that is still green is unsafe &, on occasion, a fruit will ripen full, but not release its poison, but these ones will be easily identifiable from bitter flavor.

Anyway, I wanted to share a Tree of Heaven update. Before, I surmised that a fungal infection was attacking the trees that I had girded & surmised that I might be able to get the fungus to jump to otherwise healthy trees. These trees were unharmed by me, but attached via root system to trees I did girdle. Looks to be working! And a lot faster than I thought it would, too.

Minnesota is now doing their plant sales, but it's a bit more expensive than I thought it would be. Seedlings are in the $90+ range. Also don't know how well plants will survive, if they have to be dug in in November.

Anyway, I finally got tired of poking & prodding & began clear cutting invasive plants in one area. Trees of Heaven can cause seeds not to sprout, but something I was unfortunate enough to find out is that Multiflora Rose's are a different issue. After being damaged, they inject chemicals into the soil that cause any plants around them to grow as if on steroids- forming extremely thick clusters of misshapen & deformed leaves, which continued until plants die of shock, so roots also need to be removed.

This area, I have been having to deal with Multiflora Rose, Privet, Trees of Heaven, both African & European Buckthorn, European Grape & Japanese Knotweed. Good plants I want to keep appear to mostly be Crabapple, Butternut, Walnut some Dogwood bushes, with some ground level plants & one Buckeye in the back corner. It's long & thin, so I am breaking it into a grid. I make a tunnel straight back, then clear everything in between. Removing the roots has been a bit difficult, but I'm having a bit more luck as things cool down. Everything is coming up easy enough. I haven't yet hit any of the Trees of Heaven & I don't know what to do with the Grape vines or some of the bigger Rose bushes & Buckthorn trees. Looks like only the Trees of Heaven have a taproot problem. I intend to keep going with the same plan I have been & I try to get out here for a few hours once a week, if weather permits.

I want to local source an oak or two to throw back here, & can't wait to get some seeds in. I bought some here & there, but have been having difficulty saving money, as I just bought my first car this March & haven't been financially stable until just now, having done my insurance monthly for the first six months, only to get the bill for the next six just after. All that's finally taken care of, though. So next pay, I can get a bunch more seeds I want, for next year & I can begin scattering them in another month or two!

OK, this is the second time this has happened in the good woods this year- someone tried to set the woods on fire again- I think last night, but I am not sure. This time, they either tried harder or it took longer for people to catch it, as it burned an area about the size of a small house. The first time, it was done in the middle of the day. We never saw who did it, but caught the fire almost immediately. I warned the firefighters that it could have been deliberate, at the time. Directly on the opposite side of these woods from my apartment complex is a trailer park, which just sold at auction, this summer. The first fire happened within the next week or so after that. Now, it seems pretty damned obvious that someone is trying to either burn that forest down, or burn the trailer park down & doesn't give a shit about the collateral damage to nature, or the other people & businesses in the surrounding area.

I will also note that, with that tree in the first image, a small pile of kindling mysteriously appeared there about two months ago & I never knew where it came from. So, someone set it up, carefully waited to ee if anyone would notice, then came back & lit it at a later date.

Well... fuck.

Whoever is in charge of the railway cut back everything on both sides of the track several feet. EVERYTHING. I don't know whether this is good, or bad, honestly. They've taken down several invasive plants to the ground, but also took out most of what I've been putting out there, so I feel like I've effectively been set back almost to square one. Three whole years of work, gone. It's not like we're in the middle of a climate crisis, or anything.

Decided to start putting out seeds, today. We still have a couple of days left where it'll be in the upper 30s- mid 40s before winter really starts trying to set in, but it'll rain by then, so it should mask my scent enough that I figured it would be fine & I barely saw or heard any animals today, whatsoever.

What I was able to collect this year in seeds included American Cranberrybush, American Lotus, American Spikenard, Baneberry, Bellwort, Bladdernut, Blue Cohosh, Butterfly Milkweed, Canadian Honewort, Mistflower, Cardinal Flower, Clustered Poppy Mallow, Dutchman's Breeches, Eastern Bluestar, Eastern Hemlock, Eastern White Cedar, Jacob's Ladder, Nodding Onion, Pickerelweed, Pitch Pine, Red Pine, Red Prairie Lily, Royal Catchfly, Sessile Leaved Bellwort, Spider Milkweed, Strawberry Blite, Tamarack, Tulip Poplar, Turtlehead, Twinleaf, Virginia Waterleaf, Water Parsnip, Wild Bergamot, Wood Betony, Yellowwood & Wild Kidney Bean, most bought, but some wild gathered from across the general area. Also, since the train company cut back very harshly, along their lines, I'm being forced to rethink some of what I was originally going to do, but I bought the seeds, so I am going with it. There were also a handful of leftovers from last year- including Prickly Ash & Hops.

In the two patches of Woodland, I divided up the groundcover/ wildflower seeds. In my good patch, I went ahead & put several of them partway up the hill, which is the driest place I have- Spikenard, Baneberry, both Bellworts, Blue Cohosh, Honewort, Poppy Mallow, Dutchman's Breeches, Jacob's Ladder, Mistflower, Twinleaf & Wood Betony. There is also a swampy gully where water collects & is a bit open. I spent a couple of weekends pulling out a patch of multiflora rose from there, roots & all. Hopefully, I got it all. Anyway, I focused most of my wetland plants there- both Milkweeds, Red Prairie Lily, Turtlehead, Virginia Waterleaf & Water Parsnip. Lastly, at the top of the gully, on the way out, is a clear-ish area, so I threw down half of my Kidney Beans, there.

I mostly copied the tactic in the other Woodlands, albeit there is only a very narrow patch of good soil for the Bellworts (a requirement for them to grow), in between an area that almost always floods & the path that runs though that spot. The Bellworts & several of my wetland plants went there. All the other of my Woodland groundcover plants went on the other side, where the poor soil was. Not sure what to expect, but I did end up finding a handful of the seeds I put out last year trying to grow all over that general area. I think the lack of good soil, though, made it harder for the seeds to stick in place, so they had a tendency to blow around a lot more. I also put some of the pickerelweed directly in the area that tends to flood.

Along the tracks, I put the Strawberry Blite in a Rocky area, as I believe that will best mimic their natural environment a bit better, but who knows. Mostly, in that spot I cleared, I concentrated more bushes, trees & open/ forest edge plants- American Cranberrybush, Eastern Bluestar, Baneberry, Bladdernut, Blue Cohosh, both Milkweeds, Nodding Onion, Yellowwood & Kidney Beans. I think I forgot to mention that I think I found a Persimmon growing in there, but it's hard for me to tell.

I also scattered a handful of seeds at my brother's place, who lives adjacent to a swamp with some open ponds. That is mostly were I put out the pickerelweed, the last of my Blueberry, the Lotus, & a handful of bushes & wildflowers. I also gave him a few Bladderwort sprouts that I ordered specifically for that.

I still have a few things left to do that I want to get done, this week. The bad woods area is a bit sandy & I have leftover cranberries, so I am going to put them out there & hope for the best. I am relocating where I planned to put all my pines to a more open, desolate area, much further down the railway that seems like a better idea than where I originally wanted to put them & I also have the remaining Tulip Poplar seeds & some seeds I snagged off a Hibiscus bush that is a really popular ornamental around here &, I believe, also a Native that I forgot in my fridge because they aren't in my seed jar. I think everything I have left over I am just going to throw in the river & see what ends up happening.

Only a few plants left that I really want to add to the landscape & several that I'm having such a difficult time convincing to grow, so all I can think to do is keep buying seeds, or find live specimens to buy, like I did with the buttonbush, serviceberry, sand cherry, etc, but I think I'm doing OK, so far. Also have a couple Eastern Skunk Cabbages ready to be sent, this spring, to transplant. Just got to hope for the best, for now, though.

My serviceberry survived last year's culling & is budding. Hope summer isn't too hot.

D Tucholske wrote:My serviceberry survived last year's culling & is budding. Hope summer isn't too hot.

Love checking in here, you’re doing awesome work! How’re things looking with this abnormally warm season?

It should be fine. Native plants can handle small bouts of cold, so nothing has happened yet to cause a serious issue, but I am worried about some sort of potential polar vortex type thing happening by the time spring starts & a potentially dry, hot, possibly drought-like summer. Still working out how to get rid of the bigger, older multiflora rose bushes & Grape vines, though.

OK, not a whole lot going on so far. I ordered in a few bare root Beech & hackberries & were able to get them out in between the bad weather these last few weeks. They're handling themselves fine. I still have some Skunk Cabbage on hold to ship in April & am hoping to get my hands on some more Great Lakes Sand Cherry & Fire Cherry plants, too.

I've managed to just about completely clear three large patches of multiflora rose from the woods, but the more I am exploring around to see, the more patches I am coming across, so getting rid of them all is going to be one of the most aggravating things I'll have to do. Plus, I need to get a big patch of knotweed out of one corner before it starts spreading into the woods & ruining everything I've accomplished so far. I'll have to do it on Sundays, since that's the only day I have off where my apartment managers are off duty & it's right up hard next to the apartment property. I am just about done with everything I can do with clearing invasive from my first big patch of trees along the railway line. This is the area I showed off before. Sadly, almost all the rest of that area after the big multiflora rose I was clearing last month was solid Trees of Heaven, but it'll be interesting to see what happens if I can get that area back. That means I can take a week or two to get rid of that knotweed over here, next.

Not much is coming up, so far. Of the things I've seeded the woods with, I can see some onion grass- which I hope is my Nodding Onion rather than Meadow Garlic- popping up all over & some Elderberries are leafing out. Not sure if they're red or black, as I put some of both out there.

Storm damage took out quite a few trees,  but this is forgivable for helping this forest transition fully into proper Old Growth, so I am not worried about it.

This is all I've got, today.

Things are growing really well, so far. I've been spending a lot of this week ripping up invasive Garlic Mustard. Thankfully the soil is so thick back here, you can literally grab most of them near the base & rip them out whole.

Anyway, someone told me that Red Trilliums don't form colonies. I just found this one this afternoon.

D Tucholske wrote:Things are growing really well, so far. I've been spending a lot of this week ripping up invasive Garlic Mustard. Thankfully the soil is so thick back here, you can literally grab most of them near the base & rip them out whole.

I'd quite like to introduce garlic mustard here (don't worry: it is a UK native!) it seems to have so many uses! Are you able to make use of it yourself? this site had several ideas for recipes. Luke Mitchell also uses it in this chana masala : https://permies.com/wiki/35/111863/pep-foraging/Prepare-dish-PEP-BB-foraging#1265167. It also has medicinal uses....Good to make a use out of a problem.

I knew they were edible, though I didn't really know what to do with all of them. I guarantee, I will probably still find more, though.

Having some moderate success, so far. I am starting to realize that my plant ID app is no longer doing much of anything useful, though, so it's making IDs a bit harder. I do know that several wild grasses I put out are doing remarkably well in my woods. I'm also leaning strongly towards the possibility that I may have found some Fringed Bleeding Heart, Cardinal Flower & Black Cohosh, but am starting to realize that a lot of plants I put out here may strongly resemble things that were already here before they bloom- several wildflowers I put out happen to resemble goldenrod, violets, wild ginger & even Great White Trillium could have some serious crossover & American spikenard leaves strongly resemble basswood.

Anyways here are some pics of what I think I found.

I haven't posted in a while.

Turns out, the fires were being caused by some idiot attempting to live back there who had no clue what they were doing. They made increasingly sophisticated camps over the fall & into early winter before disappearing & trying to come back this spring. I ran into them trying to haul a bag of trash into the woods & let them know I'd seen a coyote back there a few days before the eclipse & never saw them again. I also largely lost access to the other patch of woods after the train derailment in East Palestine. The easiest way for me to get back there is by going around a factory &, after that, some supervisor who works on the receiving docks got super paranoid about people being on the tracks, despite it never having been an issue before & started threatening legal action if I wouldn't leave. I did go around the long way this past week & the "bad woods" are starting to grow in as strongly as the good ones.

That being said, several things seem to be growing, well. I found what I am positive are some species of lily in a swampy area off the main path. Not sure if they are Turk's Cap or Philadelphia & it seems like most people can't tell them apart until they flower, either. But, I think the Turk's Caps & Indian Potatoes had difficulty growing because I didn't wet them before digging them in, so I am strongly leaning in the direction of them being Philadelphias. I just ordered some new Turk's Cap bulbs & will try again.

I also think I found ginger, Virginia Waterleaf, Canadian Honewort & Spikenard. Milkweeds are also super prevalent, as I tried sowing several species last year, but they aren't far enough along yet for me to tell which are which. Was just at the park & am almost positive I found some of my Trailing Wild Bean growing along the trail, by the river. The city is doing some kind of project & cut down most of what was growing along the river, but I haven't heard anything about any plan, there. I lost my sweetshrubs due to it being too wet for them, I lost one Hackberry to bad placement & the other, I think, to the damned camper & I also seem to have lost all my beaches, except one, which did finally leaf out, this spring. But, hackberries do have fairly distinctive leaves & I may have found some others growing from seed, finally.  Being that positive with any other trees is hard, since so many of them look similar- even worse when seedlings- & I tried putting so many of them out there, but there's a lot of tree seedlings that look different from one another in both sets of woods, so here's hoping. Still looking for more wildflowers.

I just ordered a couple rare starflowers, Atlantic Butterfly Pea, Fire Cherry & the Turk's Cap bulbs. And I think I've now managed to track down sellers for almost every species of Native plant I need, except 1 or 2 species.

Tons of birds & insects hanging around the neighborhood now, as well as the one deer family, the coyote I saw last month & a fox I saw this past week. You usually don't see excessive amounts of any insect species, other than mosquitos & ants, but I can barely move back there at all without running into all kinds of bees, wasps, caterpillars, beetles, flies, spiders, etc & a lot of them are looking much fatter & healthier than I'm used to seeing, too.

Two things of note: the "ginger sprout" I posted in my last is actually False Hellbore, aka Corn Lily. I didn't plant them. I noticed they were growing a lot more vertically than I was expecting & was a little confused. A couple weeks ago, I decided to check out a decent sized hunting preserve behind a Walmart down the road &, while there isn't a whole lot to see there, there are sizable patches of them grown in well enough to tell that they are. That must have been where they spread in from. I can't figure out for sure why I haven't seen any ginger come up, but if the ants like the seeds, the biggest anthill back there is surrounded by a thick patch of multiflora Rose, so maybe that's the reason? Or, for all I know, some is back there, I just haven't found it yet.

The second is I definitely found a nice sized hop vine coming in around chest height. Only bad thing is that it's growing where all the other vines are, too- Japanese knotweed, grapes & Virginia creeper, right on the edge of the woods, by the parking lot. It was small enough & the leaves weren't divided, so I initially mistook it for a small tree.

But in researching & trying to work out how & why mine looked so different than I was expecting, I did learn that Humulus Lupulus is divided into four subspecies- two from the US, one from Mexico & one from Europe & the European varieties do come in at an invasive level if they escape into the wild. So, for anyone looking into it for restoration rather than brewing, I suggest trying to look into Humulus Lupulus Pubsecens, or Humulus Lupulus Lupuloides specifically. I'm pretty sure mine is one of the right ones, because it's not going crazy & parts of the stems are particularly hairy & I thankfully did not make a huge mistake.