It’s Only Natural—October 2015
Lichen Communities on Bald-Topped Mountains By Hans M. Carlson Until roughly 13,000 years ago, glaciers scoured and sculpted New England’s hills into the ridges, domes and cliffs we find so familiar today. The melting ice deposited soils in some places, but much of the post-glacial landscape was scraped, barren and rocky. Even in the thinnest […]
Norfolk’s August 2015 Weather
Hard to Complain about the Weather By Russell Russ To define great summer weather most people would say warm and sunny. Since July, we have seen much more than our fair share of warm and sunny. Admittedly, the lack of rainfall has been a problem for some, but there have been no huge wildfires in […]
Botelle Beat—September 2015
Ready for Opening Day By Matthew O’Connell Botelle School is clean, refreshed and ready for the opening of school on Thursday, August 27. Thanks are due to our custodians and to our office staff. In addition, our new entryway and office remodeling project is quickly drawing to a close. We have several new staff […]
Through the Garden Gate
September, Botanical Enlightenment By Leslie Watkins The autumnal equinox, September 23, marks the beginning of fall. The sun sinks lower in the sky, reminding us of shorter days to come. This is the light artists love. With some thoughtful planning gardeners can use light like this to great advantage. One of the first considerations […]
Norfolk’s July 2015 Weather
Pleasant Summer Weather By Russell Russ The month of July can sometimes be a weather record setter for warmth and rainfall. July 2013 was our warmest month on record, and July 2014 was our ninth wettest month on record. This past July was no record setter. In fact, it was considerably below normal for rainfall […]
It’s Only Natural—September 2015
Tree Regeneration in the Working Forest By Hans M. Carlson Recently I asked Jody Bronson, forest manager at Great Mountain Forest, to take me down to the log job we put on last summer. It was a well-planned and well-executed cut, and last year was a good acorn year, so we had hopes that […]
Rebuilding the American Chestnut Tree
Rescuing a Forest Icon By Ruth Melville From Connecticut to Mississippi, along the Appalachian Mountains and into the Ohio Valley, the American chestnut tree, able to grow as big as 130 feet tall and 10 feet in diameter, once dominated the forest canopy. Although American chestnuts were almost wiped out by disease by 1950, […]
Through the Garden Gate
“All Gardening is Landscape Painting”—Alexander Pope By Leslie Watkins “The two arts of painting and garden design are closely related,” landscape architect Beatrix Farrand wrote in 1907, “except that the landscape gardener paints with actual color, line, and perspective to make a composition . . . while the painter has but a flat surface […]
Norfolk’s June 2015 Weather
A Cool and Wet Month By Russell Russ June was a wet and relatively cool month. May was record-setting for warmth and much drier than normal. The two months were on opposite sides of the spectrum. In May we were looking for some rain, any rain, and in June for even a couple of days […]
It’s Only Natural
Reading the New England Jungle By Hans M. Carlson Jean’s Trail, on the western edge of Great Mountain Forest, makes a loop out through the “Raggy Lot,” on what was once the Dean Farm. The Deans were from the Mount Riga area, probably explaining the name. Although the local term “raggy” means “charcoal maker” (and […]
