WSA's First Restoration Intern: Janelle Kellison

We would like to recognize Janelle Kellison for successfully completing her internship with WSA. Janelle is WSA's 1st Restoration Intern and she set the bar high!

During her time as the Restoration Intern, Janelle:

• Helped run more than 8 tree planting events, including one where she led the tree planting demonstration

• Organized and assisted with the delivery of over 200 trees and bags of mulch

• Created a new internal project database to help track essential statistics of the RePlant program

• Planted over 300 native trees, shrubs, and perennials

• Assisted 5 Stewards and over 75 volunteers with projects

We wish you all the best, Janelle and thank you for being an amazing intern!

Latin for Gardeners: January 2023

January’s Native Maryland Plant

Liquidambar styraciflua

(li-kwid am-BAR sty-RAS-i-FLU-a)

Common Name: Sweetgum

Some plants (and birds) get no respect.  Liquidambar styraciflua is one of these plants and turkey vultures are one of those birds.  Sweetgum is a medium to large size, moderate to rapidly growing shade tree that is very common across Maryland, especially in the Coastal Plain region where it often pioneers in old fields and riparian areas.  It is a forest tree that has adapted a tolerance to many different soil and site conditions, including occasional flooding; it has a high resistance to insects, is not browsed heavily by deer, and is a nitrogen fixing plant¹.

Its alternating, glossy, 5-lobed leaves have a distinctive star-like shape, emit a sweet fragrance when crushed, and turn many colors in the fall, ranging from yellow to shades of orange, red and even dark purple.  Its seeds are enjoyed by many birds including finch, mourning dove, towhee, and grosbeak. The tree develops a taproot, making it less susceptible to wind, and it seldom grows more than a single leader trunk and is valued as a hardwood for its use as lumber. So, what’s not to like?

Liquidambar styraciflua is monoecious, it has both male and female flowers that bloom in the spring.  As the female flowers mature, they turn hard and brown and develop a spikey exterior - and then drop to the forest floor.  The seed husks make the tree undesirable in many residential landscapes since these husks, aka ‘gumballs’, can clog a lawnmower, take years to decompose (not viable in a compost), and in the worst case their sharp spines can puncture your skin or act as rollerblades in your lawn, causing you to slip or even fall.

Now let’s talk turkey - turkey vulture, that is. Turkey vultures are common sights on roadways where they’re always looking for their next meal. Their lack of respect may be because they lack head feathers and eat roadkill, or possibly, it’s simply a lack of understanding.  The absence of head feathers is an adaptation that allows them to gorge on carrion with minimal cleaning afterwards; they eat roadkill because they’re the only scavenger birds that can’t kill their prey.² Their claws may not be as impressive as an eagle’s, but their beak is a superior tool, able to rip open a deer hide. However, their most unique attribute is their potent stomach acid, which allows them to eat rotting carcasses, even diseased animals.  They are extremely beneficial birds that remove decaying animals from our environment and prevent the spread of disease to other animals, including humans.

I won’t be planting a Liquidambar styraciflua anytime soon, nor will I be putting out food for vultures – but I am very happy to know they’re out there, keeping our soil healthy and preventing the spread of disease, respectively.

¹ Improve soil by taking nitrogen from the air and depositing it around their roots.

² Black vultures are known to be predatory and may kill small sick or injured animals.

Alison Milligan – MG/MN 2013

Watershed Steward Class 7/CBLP

aligmilligan@gmail.com

Sugg-Jeff-Tion: January 2023

Think Spring….and Stratification!

Happy New Year!

Now that the holidays are over and our daylight hours are gradually getting longer, it’s time to begin thinking about our planting plans for the 2023 growing season.

You likely have already started to receive plant catalogs in the mail. While it may be too early to begin purchasing plants, it is a great time to start purchasing seeds. Seeds are a great and inexpensive way to increase the diversity of your planting project and grow species not commonly available in nurseries. 

Purchasing native plant seeds now allows time to pre-treat the seeds in order to simulate natural conditions that seeds would experience on the soil surface over-winter. This natural process is called cold stratification. The stratification process helps the seeds to break dormancy, encouraging the seed to germinate once the weather warms. Stratification can range from just a few months for some species such as Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) to years for many species of trillium.

While some species do not require stratification, the seeds of many plant species will not germinate without a stratification period. For more information and to learn about the different types of stratification, check out this Seed Stratification Guide.

So, if you want to experiment with growing your own native plants from seed, now is a great time to start! Just be sure to leave enough time for the stratification process.

Just a sugg-Jeff-tion!

Remembering Ann Jackson

It is with great sadness and, also incredible gratitude, that I pass along a message about our dear friend Ann Jackson. Ann was diagnosed with cancer just a few weeks ago, and passed away peacefully in her sleep last night.  Many of you know Ann by her giant smile, boundless energy and consistent presence at all things WSA. Although she was trained as a Steward in Class 1 (almost 14 years ago), Ann built relationships with Stewards in almost every subsequent class, and mentored many Stewards through their own community projects.

I first met Ann in 2009 when she joined the flagship class of the Watershed Stewards Academy.  At that time, we had no idea the long lasting impact Watershed Stewards would have on the local environment, and we hadn’t really even defined what a Steward was. All of our expectations about what Watershed Stewards could be were blown right out of the water by Ann Jackson.

Ann embodied what it is to be a Watershed Steward. Not only in her “walk the talk” personal example, her action-oriented community leadership, and her patient, steadfast mentoring of dozens of other Watershed Stewards, but, Ann embodied Stewardship most distinctly in the value she placed on the people. We like to say that WSA is where plants and people meet…it's where restoration of the land and waters blends with the communities of people who live, work and gather here.  It is the relationship between land and people that makes water clean.  Ann truly blended that love of community and love of the environment into one. And, although she was one of the most knowledgeable people around on environmental issues, Ann never made anyone feel as if their questions were silly or their perspective was wrong.  

While Ann developed, built or mentored hundreds of projects during just the last 14 years, her true passion was ensuring that these projects were well maintained. Ann co-founded the WSA Maintenance Corps, an action group of Watershed Stewards working to ensure proper maintenance. Rather than simply providing maintenance to projects, Ann and her fellow Maintenance Corps Members worked with communities surrounding projects to build skills and efficacy within those communities to ensure future maintenance.  So many projects live on today because of Ann’s hard work and vision.

After 14 years of active environmental leadership, Ann was just as enthusiastic about making our community a better place as she was on day 1. Not only was she great at volunteering herself, she was also great at volunteering Mike. On many occasions, Ann generously offered her home for gatherings, and one time, a gathering fell on a date when she was out of town… “Not a problem”, she said “Mike will host you!”. And Mike did – with all of the amazing generosity that is so characteristic of Ann. This fall, when Ann hosted an event for WSA at the OSPIA beach, our parking logistics hit a snag.  Ann volunteered Mike to shuttle guests from Severna Park Elementary to the beach.  And Mike did – with all of that trademark Ann Jackson generosity and grace.

Perhaps Ann’s greatest gift to all of us was her presence. As the photos with this blog will attest, Ann was always on the lookout for ways to be generous with her time and expertise. Her presence brightened so many gatherings, classes, workshops and projects. She was truly the heart of our organization, and she will be missed by so many. Ann will live on in the incredible impact she’s had, the many, many plants she planted and projects she maintained, and the countless ways she inspired others.

For those who would like to send love to her husband Mike McCormick, you can visit Caring Bridge. 

WSA is also compiling reflections to memorialize Ann. To help us properly honor Ann and her impact, please share your memories with us here. If you have any photos or videos of Ann, please add them here. In the coming weeks, we’ll also be discussing how we can honor Ann’s legacy in a meaningful way as an organization…stay tuned!

Suzanne