Plants Along the Trail

I met up with some members of the trail chapter this morning to meet and train a new volunteer in a low-key way. That all went well. Walked a portion of my section of trail as part of this. It's quite clean- we flipped some sticks out of the way and trimmed a few berry bushes. That's about it.

There were some plants in bloom. I was not aware that there was Bunchberry (Ground Dogwood), Cornus canadensis, in my section of trail. But here it is! Nice find.

There is always a ton of Starflower, Trientalis borealis, in the dry woods. I do think this is the best picture I've ever gotten of it though. Usually, the bright white flower just gets all blown out.

Some of you will think this is the best find. It's a pink lady's slipper orchid, Cypripedium acaule, but it's a very dark pink one. Kind of unusual.

But I'm really partial to this shrub. I know that it grows in the bottomland hardwood swamp along the railroad berm in my section. But I never get tired of finding it. It's not technically rare, but one doesn't find it too often. The leaves are large enough at this point that it was easy to spot.

It's done blooming, and it has already set seed.

The name comes from the flexibility of the wood. It's extremely bendable. See link below for more pictures of the whole bud/flower/seed cycle.

The mosquitoes were impressive. Dan and I chose to leave the deep woods and walked out along an old two-track that I'd never gotten around to exploring. Not too interesting, but now I can say I've done it.

And since I drove right past one, and near a second, garden center, I stopped and looked at plants. Yes, a couple more came home with me. You'll see them in due time.

Not all miles today counted for NCT. Miles walked in 2026: 171.2
NCT Hike 100 Challenge: 58

North Country Trail, Lake County 1.8 odd miles, and another 1.5 old road/dirt road/snowmobile trail. Total 3.2 miles.

See Leatherwood

Philadelphia Flower Show- Tending Our Roots

 A number of the commercial exhibits used the idea of "roots" controlling the plants of the future. This one's interpretive sign says that the central tree is modeled after a real one in Singapore and it symbolizes the efforts of the present generation to plant the seeds for the future. Here is their representation of the tree.

I thought this was supposed to be the sky, but I guess it is the canopy of the tree. At any rate, I liked it.

Beneath the canopy "lies a cityscape in which we can all bloom."

Part of it was painted on the wall, but some was 3-D.

The plant material was very nice.

Lots of orchids.

Today, Cathy and I went and hiked six miles to do an early spring walkthrough of my trail section. I knew it would be a stretch, but I did it! Real trail, some topography, and some light trail work.

The tree roots in the bottomland hardwood swamp are interesting too.

Also, I got a load of clothes out on the clothesline before we went out. First time this year, but it got to 70 degrees! Other than that, I didn't do anything very energetic, but puttered at computer things in the afternoon.

Miles hiked in 2025: 60.4 miles. NCT Hike 100: 14.5.

North Country Trail, Michigan, Freesoil TH to Koenig Rd and back. 6 miles

See Riots of Spring

Chillin'?

 We certainly weren't chillin' as regards to the temperature. It was a hot day! However, we definitely made today a rest day. Did some laundry and puttered a bit but mostly relaxed. It was a darn good thing we didn't need to go out in the middle of the day because Marie's street was being paved! This is accomplished so much easier and better than when I was a kid. And I know that crew was a lot hotter than we were.

I'll show you more pictures from Sonnenberg Gardens today. Here is another view in the Rock Garden. I sure did like that space.

This is just a nicely-blooming garden. It was actually part of the greenhouse complex- overflow plants.

Here is another long view of the Old Fashioned Garden. You can see hints of some of the blooms between the hedges. The architecture is such an important part of the gardens, it often makes the scene extra delighful.

This is a plant combination that I thought was particularly successful. Red amaranth, Amaranthus erythrostachys, and a pink coneflower.

They had combined these in several locations, and I also really like this. It's Persian Shield Strobilanthes dyeriana, and one of the begonias, maybe 'Gryphon.' You know I love begonias. When I get to be garden queen with an unlimited budget, I'll have a Begonia garden.

And for the orchid lovers, this is an Oncidium orchid, possibly 'Sweet Baby,' but there are a lot that are very similar.

We played a couple of games, and may be ready to do something more energetic tomorrow.

See Heart of the Lakes Trail paving See Sonnenberg

Sonnenberg House and Gardens

 The Sonnenberg Mansion in Canandaigua is a 40-room house built in the late 1800s in the Queen Anne style. This house is a little older and smaller than the Stan Hywet mansion we visited in 2016. Sonnenberg means "sunny hill." It was not the name of the owner. This was the summer home of Frederick Thompson, a New York City banker. His wife Mary was the governor's daughter.

The Conservatory is the oldest working wooden greenhouse in the northeast, and it is the oldest in the United States that has not been modified. It's considered one of the finest privately owned greenhouses. The estate is now operated as a non-profit arm of the NY Parks and Recreation Department, but the greenhouses were originally private.

The estate was opened to the public in 1973, but a lot of repairs and restoration have been ongoing since that time. A number of the gardens could have used a lot of attention, but it was still worth the visit. This is the formal Italian Garden. The view was the best from an upstairs porch of the house because you could see the fleur-de-lis design of the plantings.

The Moonlight Garden featured all white flowers. Many were supposed to be fragrant. This is Casa Blanca lily.

The Old Fashioned Garden used a popular 17th Century design. There were boxwood hedges with perennial beds inside and a long pergola down the middle.

I think they are saving money on the plants and putting the fund toward restoration. Most of the plants were things you could commonly buy at a good greenhouse. I guess that's OK for now. There were a couple I did not know. This is Macedonian Scabious, Knautia macedonia. Japanese anemone was in bud, but none were open. I don't think I've seen that before either.

My favorite garden was the Rock Garden, although there is still a lot of repair work to do. First of all, this is hugely different from my rock garden. Tons of rock were hauled in to make a miniature canyon and streams. They are currently raising money to restore the water circulation system so the 500 feet of streams and pools will function. And it's big- at least an acre. This is part of the constructed "canyon." You could walk a gentle incline through the middle or go up the stairs to the right.

The central path went under this arch, then climbed and curved around to cross the top of the arch as a bridge.

At the top, there was one more level of an observation deck. It was shaded by a plant that was actually planted for the original estate. This is a climbing hydrangea, Hydrangea anomala, native to Asia. It's over 85 years old. The bark peels like sycamore. This was also new to me.

I guess if you want more pictures from Sonnenberg you'll have to hope I have a "slow news day" in the near future. This is about enough for now.

But I'll show you one orchid from the conservatory. They had a tropical room, a desert room, and orchid room, and a couple more. There was a recording playing with info, but I didn't catch all that it said. Anyway, this is Brassia arachnoidea, one of the spider orchids.

When I say "we" went to the garden... Marie and I, Marie's brothers and their wives, Melanie, and Ruth and Dan all went. It was quite a production. But I spent a fair amount of the day on my own so I could take all the pictures I wanted and read the signs.

The house was open too. I got a few pictures of the interior.

Tonight, we are at Larry and Pam's house. Working our way east.

See Stan Hywet

Gary Hits 100 (aka Colette Hike #2)

 This was Colette's second leg of her quest to hike all of our Chapter's miles of trail this year. But it was a milestone day for Gary. He completed his Hike 100 Challenge for 2024.

Everyone was hoping to find some Lady Slipper orchids, and we did. Cypripedium acaule.

Now for two plants that don't look alike, but have recently been linked as cousins by DNA testing. This is False Solomon's Seal, Maianthemum racemosum.

Its cousin is the familiar but much smaller Canada Mayflower, Maianthemum canadense.

Another popular spring flower is the Wild Geranium, Geranium maculatum.

We saw several other nifty plants, but I think I'll save them for another day. Also saw a leucistic robin (had white spots). And I forgot to tell you about the best sighting from last week's hike. A vary large blue racer snake was parked in the trail. But he felt me coming, and was outa there like a flash. No chance at all for a picture.

Here is our intrepid group for today. The weather was cooler, and the distance was shorter. It was a lovely day for a hike.

I had high hopes for getting some work done this afternoon, but I answered a few emails, opened a file and fell asleep. Guess a rest day is not out of line.

Total miles hiked in 2024: 237.4, of which 94.3 is North Country Trail.

North Country Trail, Lake County, MI. Bowman Lake TH to Upper Branch Bridge, 5 miles

See Gary and the Six Dwarves

Quiverheart

 An amazing day. Nikki planned a big event, the kind of thing she puts together in conjunction with her LIVER-ee. She leads hikes and various adventures. She played on my "celebrity" status, and organized a "hike with Joan" event at one of the newest nature preserves in the Arc of Appalachia system. People paid to walk with me. This sort of blows my mind. In fact, it's so new that the map isn't even on the web site yet, but it will be in just a few days.

This first picture is just for attention. Bill, me, Nikki, and Kim Baker. She and her husband Dave donated the land for the preserve, and they are now the caretakers. They maintain the trails, and are working hard to eradicate invasive plants. The Arc of Appalachia guides the decisions for plant preservation, etc.

I spent a lot of time talking to Kim.

Here's the requisite group picture. Kim and Dave did interpretation for us (they are not in the group pic).

The first feature you come to is Quiverheart Falls. I can't tell you much detail about the geology of this area, but there are a whole lot of narrow, steep ravines whose creeks feed into Ohio Brush Creek (where Nikki's livery is). This is one of them. It's 200 feet deep, almost invisible from the road which is up on the Allegheny Plateau. Bundle Run flows down it, and this is the largest falls. I chose a long shot because I think you get a better sense of the scale with the rock wall beside it.

This picture gives some idea of the depth, and this isn't even from the bottom.

Just like all the eroded edges along the Allegheny Plateau, erosion creates clefts in the limestone, and then big blocks calve off. I took this picture because it's so much the same situation as Rock City in New York state, where the trail goes right down one of those cracks.

One feature is this great hanging shelf cave, very typical of southern Ohio and Kentucky.

Along most of the walk, Bundle Run was just a stream in the bottom of the brown (because it's winter) valley. However, below the cave, the rocks are moss-covered. There is also another waterfall that ripples down slightly angled rocks, much like Laughing Whitefish Falls in the UP, but smaller. This may be a feeder creek to the run. The trail map will not be available until the web site goes live in a few days. Supposedly Tuesday, but things happen, right? Anyway, I can't place the trails in the landscape accurately without that. I didn't have enough signal to track it.

This is a really special place. This whole area, the region that hits the edge of the Appalachian Mountains has really diverse biology and habitats. Over the years, I've had the chance to visit several other preserves in the area and hear about their unique features. Even in winter, there were some great plants to see. You know I was zoomed in on those.

One really fun one is walking fern, Asplenium rhizophyllum. One of the ways it propogates is the long tips of the leaves will root and thus the fern "walks" across a rock face. I've seen this several places in the south, but was shocked to discover that it also grows in Michigan, even in the UP. The critical feature seems to be not temperature, but substrate such as limestone. The ones I've seen in Kentucky were much larger.

This is an orchid, Puttyroot, Aplectrum hyemale. I've never seen it in bloom. Very, very cool.

I also learned a couple of new-to-me invasives, and found one plant that neither Kim, I, or any of the apps can identify. I'm sure it's nothing totally weird, but I'll have to keep investigating.

After the walk (3.5 really muddy miles- this morning's weather was good but the recent rains made the Ohio clay just a slime pit), we went just around the corner for lunch. Some of us ordered pizza. It was really, really good.

I am going to have to come back in the growing season. They have a number of plants I've never seen, and especially some rare ones. Kim and I hit it off, so I might. And Nikki is here, and the NCT/Buckeye Trail is not far away. You can locate them with a seach for Quiverheart Nature Preserve, and the map will be available soon at Arc of Appalachia

Fantastic day!

Quiverheart Nature Preserve, Peebles, OH, Quiverheart Falls and Whispering Fern Trails. 3.5 hilly miles

See Stop 10