Local Options for Composting in and around Arlington

Arlington Village’s compost bin has been extremely popular. At times, too popular. Now that it is closed for the winter, here are some options for local composting. Farmer’s markets in Alexandria have compost drop off. For instance, there is a year-round market in Del Ray on Saturdays from 8am to noon and a market at Four Mile Run on Sundays from 9am to 1pm.  Falls Church farmer’s market also features compost dropoff. Crystal City also has a compost option as well. Finally, MOM’s Organic Market stores have bins that accept compost (probably best to utilize this in smaller quantities.) And if you’re ready for your own personal pick-up, Veteran Compost offers Arlington pickup for a fee.

C. Hayden Tree Dedication and Invasive Pull

Arlington Village Environmental Resource Committee co-founder, Clare Hayden, passed away on October 13, 2015.  Clare was also a director and a dedicated volunteer in Arlington Village, in addition to being an active master naturalist and tree steward.  She protected and nurtured the trees of Arlington Village in many ways.  A White oak (Quercus alba)  was planted by the village in her honor in December, followed by a pull targeting Clare’s nemesis, English ivy.

Quercus alba dedication for C. Hayden

Misty ravine pull

Energized by Earth Sangha coffee, the rain failed to dampen efforts by seven volunteers for a successful invasive pull on Satuday, 2/23/13.  In addition to removing invasives, volunteers gathered several bags of recyclables.  The county’s invasive plant coordinator, Sarah Archer, came out to help us identify more plants as well as to strategize on plans for future pulls.  Sarah complimented the group on the progress made thus far in removing invasives, particularly English ivy, which, although still present, has been significantly reduced.  The invasive threats Sarah depressingly identified for us included cherry trees, White mulberry, and Himalayan blackberry, which Sarah spotted in the meadow.  

Mitigating Erosion by being StormwaterWise

Green team members put in native plants.

The Environmental Resources Committee recently completed a StormwaterWise project on the severely eroded bank of the lower ravine at S. Edgewood Street. Eighteen volunteers donated their labor or lent their vehicles: Lori Bowes, Jerry Cowden, Bart Holcomb, Ruth Gibbons, Clare Hayden, Eric Kaiser, Takis Karantonis, Janette Mason, Jonathan McIntire, Amanda McNally, Ed Miltenberger, Rodney Olsen, Leigh Pickering, Leah Pellegrino, David Terry, Audrey Sugar, Lela Vega, and Will Morrison. These volunteers contributed hundreds of hours of labor, with Arlington County providing a small matching grant for materials, so Arlington Village had only a small expenditure for the project.  Leigh Pickering was especially helpful by providing design expertise.

A series of four terraces with 24 different native plant species is the result. Evergreen plants, including Eastern woodland sedge, Christmas fern, and Golden ragwort make up the first two terraces. Herbaceous wildflowers, including Virginia bluebells, will bloom in the third terrace. Virginia sweetspire and Wild hydrangea are the presiding shrubs in the fourth terrace along the fence. The plants protect the soil, breaking the energy of the rain.  Smaller, gentler raindrops result in more water absorption and less erosion. The plants absorb water and slow its movement, and their roots hold the soil in place. With the terraces mostly installed prior to Hurricane Sandy, no erosion occurred following the storm.

The StormwaterWise project plan was sketched by a local landscape architect, Leigh Pickering. Rodney Olsen, ERC Chair, directed and worked with volunteers, who gathered logs from the ravine to build the terraces, using steel rebar stakes to secure them. Small stones were placed to seal gaps in front of the logs, holding soil on the bank. Volunteers hauled in topsoil enriched with fine leaf mulch to augment the largely clay soil along the stream. Then they installed the plants and layered fine leaf mulch on top to protect the plants and absorb water. The StormwaterWise project will enable us to conserve our vital soil and water resources and help keep the stream and the Chesapeake Bay clean.  The project uses native plants that support our local fauna and will provide lovely color and greenery throughout the year. Please view the new native plant terraces as you walk north of the ravine at S. Edgewood Street.

Good News!

Following the adage that good news is never old news, the Environmental Resources Committee of Arlington Village (ERC) would like to acknowledge and give belated thanks for the aid we received this past March 4 from Earth Sangha, Arlington Regional Master Naturalists, Arlington Village residents, and others in our invasive removal event in the Arlington Village Ravine.  Among the most notable “others” were the more than twenty students and advisors from Dalton State College in Dalton, Georgia.  We thank Lisa Bright of Earth Sangha for putting us in touch with these willing workers.  Dalton State College is on the edge of the Chattahoochee National Forest, which comprises 750,502 acres and is predominantly oak-pine and oak-hickory broadleaf forest.  We are so grateful that the students helped to clear invasive plants from our five-acre oak-hickory ravine as a part of their volunteer service in the Washington, D. C. area during their spring break.  With their help, we removed many square yards of English ivy and Winter creeper from the ravine.  The beneficial results of this effort is now visible as native plants—especially woody understory plants such as Spice bush and Arrowwood viburnum—are flourishing in what was once an invasive wasteland.  Please see the slideshow below that highlights the efforts of our Georgia friends.

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Meadow Look Alikes

When working in the meadow, it’s helpful to be able to identify these three.  Here’s a brief snapshot.  Of the three, the Virginia cutgrass is the one we want to leave.  It often grows intermingled amongst the stilt grass.

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Japanese Stilt Grass Microstegium vimineum	Virginia cutgrass or whitegrass Leersia virginica	Smartweed Polygonum persicaria
Silver strip along midrib	Lacks silver stripe	A non-grass look-alike that can form masses of grass-like plants, but its leaves have a dark blotch.  Flowers are pink and bead-like.
Flowers mid-September	Flower spikes appear in August
Smooth nodes	Hairy nodes
Grass turns yellow to pale purple in fall	Remains green

Village Resident Enjoys Meadow

Volunteers in Arlington Village’s meadow (a part of the ravine) were treated to a sighting of an Eastern box turtle Terrapene carolina carolina on a June morning.  Turtles are seen here occasionally and serve as a rewarding reminder of the value of this habitat where residents were removing Japanese stiltgrass and fescue. Also called the “dry-land terrapin,” Eastern box turtles are the most common species of turtle in Arlington. They were reportedly used both for food and for the fabrication of rattles by indigenous Native Americans in earlier centuries.

S/he was around three to four inches in length.  Could this be  an Eastern box turtle?  Anyone know?

Updates:  1) The wrong photo (of a wood turtle) was posted initially.  2) A local herpetologist has confirmed that the turtle appears to be a young Eastern box turtle.

Finding Flavor in Weeds

From the National Invasive Species Information Center

An  article in the New York Times highlights a book offering another use for our Japanese knotweed and other plants.

How about a Capital Bikeshare station on the Pike?

Add your thoughts on station locations here Capital Bikeshare.

Invasive Plant Removal, March 4, 2012

Photo by Rodney Olsen

On Sunday, March 4, from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm. the Environmental Resources Committee of Arlington Village is sponsoring an invasive removal event in the ravine.  The targets will be English ivy and Winter creeper. We will be joined by volunteers from Earth Sangha, our partner environmental restoration organization.  Please join the effort!  Dress appropriately in long sleeves and long pants.  Bring a garden towel or clippers if you have one.  A delicious lunch will be served at 1:30 pm.

Directions to Arlington Village: From 395 North toward DC, exit on South Glebe Rd./State Route 120 N; go about a mile, and take a slight right to South Walter Reed Dr.; take your 3rd right on 16th St.; take next left at Edgewood St. You will soon see our meeting point. Park on the street. View the location on Google Maps.

More directions: Drive toward Washington DC. on HW 50.  Turn right on South Fillmore St.  As you proceed south, South Fillmore St. turns into South Walter Reed Drive.  Cross Columbia Pike, continuing on South Walter Reed Drive.  You will pass 12^th Street South and 13^th Street South before turning left on 13^th Road South (I know, it’s confusing).  Proceed to the stop sign at South Edgewood Street.  Turn right and drive to the meeting point at the bottom of the hill.  Park anywhere on the street.  View the location on Google Maps.

The Birds of Arlington Village

 

American Crow family, Arlington Village Ravine, January 2011 (Photo by Rodney Olsen)

In 2007, Andrea Vojtko of Arlington Village compiled a bird list that helped Joanne Wagner, a member of the Environmental Resources Committee at that time, obtain recognition of the Arlington Village ravine as a Certified Wildlife Habitat by the National Wildlife Federation.  Andrea has generously shared her wonderful list with us.  We hope that it might provide a stimulus for the formation of a birding group in the village that would monitor the birds that come and go and stay in Arlington Village.  A prime purpose of our ravine restoration project is to restore a native habitat in the ravine that supports our native birds.  Regular monitoring of the birds of Arlington Village would provide an important measure of our progress.  Please respond to this post if you are interested in being a part of an Arlington Village birding group, and look for an announcement of a future organizational meeting.

 Andrea explains more about her list:  These are birds that I observed at various places in Arlington Village in 2007. I was a longtime birder and am still a member of the Audubon Naturalist Society, Northern Virginia Bird Club, and Friends of Dyke Marsh. Perhaps a new group of birders in Arlington Village can be formed for the next Spring migration to add to this list which I’m sure is incomplete. The more pairs of eyes looking for birds, especially during the migration period, the more likely you are to increase the number on the list.

ARLINGTON VILLAGE BIRDS – Revised 2007
1	Great Blue Heron
2	Turkey Vulture
3	Mallard
4	Red-tailed Hawk
5	Mourning Dove
6	Yellow-billed Cuckoo
7	Common Nighthawk
8	Chimney Swift
9	Ruby-throated hummingbird
10	Red-bellied Woodpecker
11	Downy Woodpecker
12	Hairy Woodpecker
13	Northern Flicker
14	Pileated Woodpecker
15	Eastern Wood-Pewee
16	Eastern Phoebe
17	Great Crested Flycatcher
18	Red-eyed Vireo
19	Blue Jay
20	American Crow
21	Fish Crow
22	Carolina Chickadee
23	Tufted Titmouse
24	White-breasted Nuthatch
25	Carolina Wren
26	House Wren
27	Golden-crowned Kinglet
28	Veery
29	Hermit Thrush
30	Wood Thrush
31	American Robin
32	Gray Catbird
33	Northern Mockingbird
34	Brown Thrasher
35	European Starling
36	Cedar Waxwing
37	Magnolia Warbler
38	Black-throated Blue Warbler
39	Yellow-rumped Warbler
40	Blackpoll Warbler
41	Cerulean Warbler
42	American Redstart
43	Ovenbird
44	Northern Waterthrush
45	Common Yellowthroat
46	Scarlet Tanager
47	Eastern Towhee
48	American Tree Sparrow
49	Chipping Sparrow
50	Field Sparrow
51	Song Sparrow
52	White-throated Sparrow
53	Dark-eyed Junco
54	Northern Cardinal
55	Rose-breasted Grosbeak
56	Red-winged Blackbird
57	Common Grackle
58	Boat-tailed Grackle
59	Brown-headed Cowbird
60	Baltimore Oriole
61	House Finch
62	American Goldfinch
63	House Sparrow

Notes:

a) Birds were seen nesting in, passing over or through the Arlington Village area, many during the bird migration periods.

b) It is probable that several other species can be added to the list since a number of relatively common birds are missing from the list.  Thus, I anticipate that the list will grow over time.

c) Birds are listed in same order as on Birds of Virginia cards distributed by Virginia Society of Ornithology.

New Planting Area in the Ravine

Scarlet beebalm photo by Rodney Olsen

Story by Janette Mason

Clang!   Ting!   Over the course of several weeks members of the Environmental Resources Committee dug in the rocky soil.  Over 100 volunteer hours were invested to establish a new planting area near the ravine entrance on South Barton Street.  This new area features several native Virginia plant species—Scarlet beebalm, Orange coneflower, Black-eyed susan, Purple lovegrass, and Smooth blue aster (see below).  These native plant species support a large number of butterflies and other pollinators.

The realization of this project involved several steps.  First of all, the area required “cleaning” because invasives had, as they typically do, taken over the site.   Volunteers pulled out Smartweed (Polyganum persicaria), Lemon balm (Melissa officinalis), and other invasive plants.   After this, volunteers turned over the soil to remove more invasive plants and to prepare the ground for planting.  Earth Sangha, a local nonprofit native plant nursery, provided the plants.  The final steps were planting, mulching, and generous watering.  Volunteers took great satisfaction in completing this project and look forward to enjoying a lovely restored area of the ravine with the rest of the Village.

Future work and plantings in the ravine can always use more hands. Please email ERC Chair, Rodney Olsen, at rfolsen@verizon.net to be added to the list or keep an eye on this blog:

New plants near the entrance of the ravine on South Barton Street

Common Name	Latin Name	Supported Species
Scarlet beebalm	Monarda didyma	Ruby-throated hummingbirds and many butterflies
Black-eyed susan	Rudbecka triloba	Butterflies:  Silvery checkerspot and Pearl crescent
Smooth blue aster	Symphyotrichum laeve	Silvery checkerspot caterpillar
Orange coneflower	Rudbeckia fulgida	A number of insects and pollinators
Purple lovegrass	Eragrostis spectabilis	Zabulon skipper caterpillars

Autumn in the Ravine

Photo by Rodney Olsen

Volcano Mulching

http://www.theheartofnewengland.com

A light mulch will keep winter weeds from germinating, but don’t put down a layer more than two inches thick. Keep mulch away from the base of trees and shrubs. Mulch volcanoes around trees have no horticultural merit and will harbor bark-chewing mice.

3 Upcoming Nearby Green Events

Feed Your Soil, Feed Yourself – Composting Workshop. Wednesday, November 9, 7:00–8:30 p.m. at Walter Reed Community Center. Learn how to compost your yard and kitchen wastes to increase your yield, make your plants and vegetables more disease resistant, and improve the water retaining capacity of the soil. For more information, contact the Virginia Cooperative Extension Help Desk at 703-228-6414.

Weatherization for Houses, Apartments, & Condos. Thursday, November 10, 7:00-9:00 p.m. at Walter Reed Community Center. Get your hands on a caulk gun, spray foam, door sweeps, window film, and much more! Join us for this hands-on weatherization training to learn how to make your home more comfortable and reduce your utility bills. We will cover a multitude of low-cost actions and send you home with a FREE water conservation kit. For more information or to register, email hreinecke-wilt at arlingtonva.us

Watershed Planning Meeting: Four Mile Run – Upper and Middle Mainstem Wednesday, November 30, 2011. 7:00 – 8:30 PM., Fairlington Community Center, Room 100.  Residents in the upper and middle mainstem of Four Mile Run are invited to join the County and the Center for Watershed Protection on Wednesday, November 30 to learn about the Four Mile Run watershed study, the County’s plans for addressing polluted runoff, and opportunities to reduce pollution in these watersheds.

NatureNotes: Ravine welcomes 50 Christmas ferns

Arlington Village’s ravine is the beneficiary 50 Christmas ferns. These plants are of a local ecotype and were rescued by Earth Sangha from a site slated for development. Volunteers from the Environmental Resources Committee spent close to 20 hours carefully planting the ferns in their new home – the steep hillside by the S. Edgewood entrance to the ravine.

Christmas ferns are thought to be so named because they are evergreen year-round, one of the few Eastern ferns with this characteristic. A more fanciful suggestion is that the name stems from the pinnae’s resemblance to Santa’s boot or to a Christmas stocking. In addition to increasing the native habitat of the ravine, ferns provide erosion control on the steep bank. Take a look as you walk by.

The Rescue of a Golden-crowned kinglet in Arlington Village

Last Sunday evening, October 30, Ashley Craighill of Arlington Village discovered a small, vulnerable bird outside her doorstep.  As a member of  Arlington Regional Master Naturalists, an organization of environmental volunteers, she called on her fellow Master Naturalists through their Google group for advice in caring for the bird and sent along this photo:

“We found this little bird shivering out front and not moving on the ground,” wrote Ashley. “I think he is a Golden-crowned kinglet, maybe off the migration path from the storm?  It doesn’t seem like a normal Arlington bird, but I may be wrong.  So my question is should I leave him outside in the cold?  Or should I keep him warm until tomorrow and let him go?”

Ashley received advice from Master Naturalist Jim Hurley who said it was definitely a male Golden-crowned kinglet, a bird that was presently migrating through the area.  He made some suggestions for caring for the bird inside and suggested that Ashley seek more ornithological expertise.  Jim later conveyed advice from another Master Naturalist who offered more tips for care.  Jim also suggested calling the Wildlife Hotline at 703-440-0800 to receive further advice and to obtain the phone number of a licensed bird rehabilitator.

But Ashley was seeing that she could care for the bird herself.  Later that evening, she wrote, “the little kinglet seems to be making a recovery.  He is alert and curious.  And then sleepy again.  We will release him in the morning.  What a mellow neat bird.   He seems to enjoy just hanging out on a stick while I hold it.”

The following morning, Ashley wrote that the “little kinglet was released.  He was up and ready to go after a warm night of snoozing.”  She offered details of the care she had provided the bird:  She had placed him away from her dog and cat in her bedroom, in a “shoebox with holes in the lid.”  The shoebox was lined with a t-shirt for “warmth and softness.”  She placed twigs on the folds of the t-shirt for the kinglet to perch upon.  “He was very unsteady and would just sit with his eyes closed.”  She put a drop of water on the bird’s beak and “he would snap it up.”  She gave him a worm that he “wrestled with” but did not eat.  She checked on him many times to see how he was doing and also because “he was so cute.”  The kinglet later flew around a bit in their bedroom and perched on the ceiling fan.

When Ashley took the bird outside in the morning, she reported, “I opened my hand and he flew straight up to a maple tree, preened a little, cleaned his beak, and hopped around.”  Ashley’s last words to the bird were “Good luck little kinglet!”

Here are two more of Ashley’s photos of the Golden-crowned kinglet:

 

Arlington Tree Stewards has New Class

Love trees?  Consider becoming a Tree Steward.  The next class starts in February, 2012.  Applications are being accepted now.

Application

 

Tree Canopy Fund Update

Drawing by Rodney Olsen

Arlington Village has been awarded 15 trees by the Tree Canopy Fund.  The fund is an Arlington County project, administered by Arlingtonians for a Clean Environment (ACE).  Trees, meant to replenish Arlington County’s diminishing tree canopy, are awarded in a competition involving Arlington County homeowner groups and townhouse associations.  This year the Fund granted trees to 34 applicants.  Arlington Village’s application was a joint project of the Grounds Committee and the Environmental Resources Committee (ERC).  The trees, worth $4,540, are young, good-sized trees that will add their beauty to our village.  They include the following species:  White oak, Scarlet oak, Pin oak, River birch, American beech. American sycamore, Common hackberry, and Black gum.  Planting of the trees will occur this fall.  The cost of planting the trees is covered by the award.

Pumpkin Pollinators

In this time of Halloween pumpkins, The Xerces Society, a nonprofit organization that protects wildlife through the conservation of invertebrates and their habitat, reminds us of the intimate relationship that exists between pumpkins and bees:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The squash bee (Peponapis pruinosa) relies on pumpkins for survival, and seems to have followed pumpkins across the continent. The bee is a specialist forager and will only collect pollen from squash flowers. Females often nest in the ground around the base of pumpkin plants, and males take shelter in flowers overnight. Because of this, it must once have been limited to areas in which pumpkins are native. Yet today the squash bee has expanded its range, adapting to dramatically different climates and environments, and is found as far south as Florida and north as Ontario. These bees can often be found in home gardens, and will even colonize newly created community gardens amid the tall buildings and parking lots of a city, witness to their amazing ability to follow squash plants!

Although squash bees depend on pumpkin plants, it is not a one-way relationship. Squash bees are highly efficient pollinators of pumpkin flowers. Pumpkin flowers open at dawn, a period of the day that can be too dark or too cold for most bees to be active. The squash bee, however, is adapted to fly in these conditions. It is an early riser, and will often be up half an hour before dawn, the perfect time to visit squash flowers. The bees also have widely spaced hairs in their pollen brush (a patch of hairs for carrying pollen), an adaptation to cope with pumpkin flowers’ large pollen grains.

Squash bees are not the only bees that pollinate pumpkins, which is fortunate for those of us living in the few areas these bees haven’t yet reached. There are four other species of Peponapis and a few species in the closely related genus Xenoglossa, which are also squash specialists. None of these are as abundant or widespread as the squash bee, nor as adept at moving into new areas. Bumble bees, including the common eastern (Bombus impatiens) and the two-spotted (Bombus bimaculatus), also are regular visitors, as is the long-horned bee Melissodes bimaculata, which is often seen on pumpkins in gardens of the eastern U.S. In addition, many farmers rent honey bees (Apis mellifera) to pollinate fields of pumpkins. This range of pollinators ensures the sustainability of North American pumpkin crops and our access to the perfect Halloween pumpkin.

View a video of a Squash bee pollinating a squash flower as well as videos of other pollinators:

Tree Canopy Fund

July was a hot month.  The evaporation from a healthy tree can produce the equivalent cooling effect of ten room-size air conditioners operating twenty hours a day.  To keep the tree canopy in Arlington Village and in greater Arlington alive and well, a joint committee from the Grounds Committee and the Environmental Resources Committee applied for a grant from Arlington’s Tree Canopy Fund.  Experienced Arlington Tree Stewards consulted on the application.  The joint committee asked for twenty-one trees.  They are substantial trees, each with a caliper of about two inches.  They include White fringe tree, Scarlet oak, Black gum, Flowering dogwood, and River birch.  The Fund awards trees on a competitive basis, and the outcome of Arlington Village’s application will be known later this summer.

Progress on urban composting

Howard County in Maryland has become the first jurisdiction on the East Coast to test a large scale composting program and a company in DC, Compost Cab, allows urban residents to cart away their compostables in return for soil.  Read more.  And here.

 

    applecenter.org

“…everybody who has a yard should be doing it. Like, this is not brain surgery. This is just layering different types of garbage on top of each other. ….what you get is like magic and we’re trying to make sure that that magic extends to people who live in apartments and .. cities. “

Let it Rain!

   jssnews.com

With Hurricane Irene approaching, it’s wise to stay indoors. But with rain on the brain, I found this article listing five rainy day activities from the National Wildlife Federation to be a good reminder of the joy we and our children (inner or of the “regular” sort, see above) can find in rain of a safer kind.Plus, here are two bonus rainy day activities from Gene Kelley!

Finding the Potential in Vacant Lots

A New York Times article chronicles an experiment in Cleveland to document the ecological value of vacant lots.  One message to come out of the recent Columbia Pike Development Charette was the demand for more space for community gardening.

       David Joseph for The New York Times

One Ultra-Ex project being led by the Cleveland Botanical Garden involves planting a vacant lot in the Buckeye neighborhood with low-mow fescue, a slow-growing pasture grass, and establishing a vegetative fence. Down the block is one of six learning farms that the botanical garden runs through its Green Corps program. With three acres under cultivation and 60 teenage workers, the urban farms will grow and sell or give away 15,000 pounds of fresh produce this summer, said the program’s director, Geri Unger.

Let’s go crazy…in the garden

“Sometimes we don’t give our neighbors enough credit. There’s a common trope in eco-nerd circles, the story of the exuberant, wild, ecologically vibrant garden attacked by neighbors for failing to conform conventional aesthetic standards. These unenlightened lawn worshipers complain to the city, dismiss the native plants as weeds and fret about vermin.”  From nature.com