Dragonflies and Damselflies: Learning New Skills and Making New Friends at the Landis Arboretum9/18/2021 - Morgan McClary With a large straw hat, a variety of nets and field guides, Anne Donnelly waited near the Barn Pond to catch, identify, and release dragonflies and damselflies on a sunny July afternoon. Anne, who is a dragonfly surveyor for the NYS Natural Heritage Program, retired SUNY Cobleskill biology professor, and volunteer coordinator for the Landis Arboretum, held a July 24 “Dragonflies and Damselflies” workshop where she taught approximately 12 attendees ranging in age from six to 60 about these quick and dainty insects. In 2007 and 2008, Anne was trained and participated in the NYS Dragonfly and Damselfly Survey, which documented the distribution of all Odonata species in NY. These data in turn were to be used in the development of the Comprehensive Wildlife Conservation Strategy for New York State. After her retirement in 2006, Anne began volunteering at the Landis Arboretum. Throughout her tenure as a volunteer, Anne has worked pretty much every job at the Arb at one time or another. Now, she coordinates the volunteers. Anne started giving classes in 2009. “I love teaching and the Arboretum,” Anne said. During the class, which takes place every summer, participants received a diagram which aided in identifying the difference between a dragonfly and damselfly. Anne also had books that were handy for identification. She explained that although both insects are of the taxonomic order Odonata, differences -- such as how they hold their wings at rest -- can help you distinguish them. Dragonflies hold their wings horizontally, perpendicular to their body, while damselflies wings are held along their body at rest. “Go to the pond, stand very still, and get your eyes used to it,” Anne told the group as they anxiously awaited making their first catch. Sisters Millie and Kensi Browning were experienced at catching insects. Their nets quickly swooped between the cattails that lined the pond. Laurel Tormey of Altamont caught a damselfly that Anne was able to identify as a blue-fronted dancer. “I’ve been wanting to learn about dragonflies. I’ve tried on my own, but then I decided to come here,” Laurel said. Anne sat on a picnic table as participants brought their catches over for her to help identify. After catching and releasing many dragonflies and damselflies, the group walked over to explore a new location—the Willow Pond. The class brought Amanda Wyckoff and her family of East Berne to the Arboretum for the first time. “My mother said ‘let’s go’. We’ve never went to something like this before,” Amanda said. Sandy Tasse also brought her kids to the class. Ayrton and Miranda Tasse could be seen standing near the edge of the pond, intently watching their surroundings to make their next catch. “We came two years ago because my daughter really likes bugs, so we drove an hour here to come back,” Sandy said. Participants spent approximately two hours catching and learning about dragonflies and damselflies. By the end of the class, the same children who were quiet strangers before the event could be seen frolicking with new friends, nets in hand. “I’ve done several classes, but this is my favorite,” Anne said. “Especially if I get kids to participate!”
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- Lee Lattimer Throughout history, many important and influential women have been overshadowed by their more renowned husbands. Eleanor Roosevelt was one. Elizabeth P. Corning was another. Her husband, Erastus Corning 2nd, was an American politician serving as mayor of Albany, NY, from 1942 to 1983. His great-grandfather, Erastus Corning, was an industrialist who founded the New York Central Railroad and who served in Congress and as Albany's mayor from 1834 to 1837. Elizabeth “Betty” Corning was as energetic and forceful as her husband. Elizabeth Norris Platt was educated at the Springside School in Philadelphia and the Florentine School for Girls in Florence, Italy. She married Erastus Corning 2nd in 1932. Betty strongly believed in the value of public gardens as places to feed the mind and soul and exemplified this tenet by supporting many American gardens with her time, talent, and finances. In 1962, Mrs. Corning was elected president of the National Garden Club of America and re-elected the following year. As president, she supported the National Audubon Society’s program to rescue the leopard from extinction. In 1971, she was awarded the Garden Club of America's achievement medal. In 1987, Russell Sage College in Troy awarded her an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree. She also served as director of the American Horticultural Society and the New York Botanical Garden. Betty Corning was an important part of the Arboretum, serving for 20 years as a trustee and as president of the Board from 1985 until her death in 1993. As president, she guided the Arboretum through the difficult period after the death of founder Fred Lape in 1985. She oversaw many improvements, including the construction of the Bernard Harkness Library and the greenhouse, along with the rehabilitation and enhancement of the flower gardens. Perhaps her best-known legacy is the Clematis viticella ‘Betty Corning,’ thought to be a cross between C. crispa and C. viticella. It is a late, semi-woody climbing vine, known world-wide for its single, nodding, bell-shaped, pale lilac flowers (to 2” long) with recurved tips. It typically grows to 6’ tall with slightly fragrant flowers that freely bloom from summer to fall. It is a vigorous and easy to grow variety with the spring foliage often tinted with bronze, extending its seasonal interest. In 1932, Betty Corning discovered this plant growing at a small house in Albany, NY. She noticed its unusual color and form and was successful in rooting a number of cuttings. The plant was subsequently registered at the International Center of Woody Plants at the Arnold Arboretum in Boston. The next time you visit the Arboretum, be sure to look for our labeled specimen located in the Van Loveland perennial garden. Begin by standing on the driveway in front of the farm house facing the garden. It is just to the right of the stone patio and stairs which leads out into the field. - Anita Sanchez There stands a little man in the woods alone. He wears a little mantle of velvet brown. Say, who can the manikin be, standing there beneath the tree, In the little mantle of velvet brown?
Mushrooms are just one type of the strange organisms called fungi. What is a fungus, anyway? For centuries, scientists weren’t quite sure. It looks sort of like a plant, but it eats like an animal. Fungus can’t make its own food from sunlight, air, and water as green plants can. Just as animals do, fungus has to feed on other things—living or dead.
A fungus starts out as a spore, a speck so tiny that it’s almost invisible. Carried on the wind, spores can travel far from the parent fungus. If they land in the right place, they germinate, sending out slender, rootlike threads. They grow into webs called mycelia, which look like a tangle of whitish yarn. Almost everywhere you walk, on grass, forest, or pavement, there’s a dense web beneath your feet. They wind their way through soil, reach deep into rotting logs, poke into dead animals. And all that fungus is hungry. When you eat a crunchy pretzel or a tough piece of meat, it goes into your stomach where acids and chemicals called enzymes soften and dissolve it, so you can absorb its nutrition into your body. Fungi digest their food first, then eat it afterwards. The mycelia ooze out powerful enzymes that can soften almost anything, even wood or bone. Once the meal is nice and mushy, the mycelia slurp up the nutrients. Some fungi eat dead animals. Others prefer dead plants. Some are picky eaters: one type of fungus eats only pine cones, while a different species eats only pine needles. Some fungi eat other fungi. There are more than a million kinds of fungus, in all shapes and sizes and colors. One kind looks weirdly like a human hand reaching out of the ground, and it’s called “dead men’s fingers.” Others look like horse hoofs, or striped birds’ tails. Fungi excel at breaking down the tough bonds that hold the molecules of wood together. When fungus feeds on a rotting log, it turns the dead wood into crumbly, dark soil called humus, which is perfect for growing new trees. Perhaps the most noticeable forms of fungi are the little men in the mantles of velvet brown, the umbrella-shaped mushrooms we see scattered across the forest floor after a rain. Mushrooms are just the fruiting part of the fungus. Think of those strands of yarn-like mycelia as the roots, trunk, and branches of an apple tree. The mushroom is the apple. Apples have seeds inside them, mushrooms have spores, which grow on the underside of the umbrella. But even if you get down on the ground and peek underneath the mushroom cap, you can’t see the spores, they’re too small. Spores need damp soil to germinate. So the mycelia, down there under the ground, wait until things are nice and moist before sending up their spore-making machines. But the ground might dry up soon, so there’s no time to waste. That explains the mystery of why mushrooms will literally spring up overnight after a rain. Keep an eye out for mushrooms on the Arboretum trails this fall. You may not have enjoyed all the damp and wet we had this summer, but the little men of the forest have come out to enjoy the rain. - Lee Lattimer In 1979, Fred Lape published a book entitled Apples and Man. The flyleaf states: "The coming generation may scarcely know how a good apple tastes. Anyone who savors the taste of a good apple and is curious about the past history, the current status, and the probable future of the apple will delight in this comprehensive narrative." And a bit later in the paragraph: "The discrepancy between the concerns of commercial growers and the individual lover of a good tasting apple is explored, with an in-depth discussion of the dangers of mass production, scientific breeding and reliance on chemicals for cultivation and preservation." While insightful and monumental in its own right, in 2017, Lape’s Apples and Man also inspired a Wisconsin man, Dan Bussey, to produce The Illustrated History of Apples in the United States and Canada. It is an illustrated hardcover set of seven volumes, each between 500 and 600 pages. Illustrated History is a compendium of every apple variety that has appeared in print in any North American publication in the last two centuries. An online article by atlasobsucra.com titled “Meet the Man on a Quest to Document Every Apple in North America” states: "Bussey, 64, began his pomme-ological quest in 1989, while setting up an orchard in his hometown of Edgerton, Wisconsin. He’d grown interested in heirlooms in 1980, soon after reading the newly released book Apples and Man by Fred Lape, which bemoaned the loss of heirlooms and the poor quality of chemically treated supermarket apples." We have always known of Fred Lape’s world- wide reputation as an insightful and knowledgeable expert on plants. This is another example of the far-reaching effects of his leadership. For reference: The book, Apples and Man, is available in the Schoharie Library. The altasobsucra article is available at: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/history-of-apples - Wilma Jozwiak We are pleased to announce that Landis Board member Amy Howansky has been named 2021 Certified Nursery and Landscape Professional of the Year for New York State’s Region 3. Amy is a landscape designer and owner of Backyard Solutions, a horticulturalist at Faddegon’s Nursery in Latham, and a designer/installer at Frese’s Landscaping in Delmar. She is an appointed volunteer member of the Niskayuna Tree Council, which assists the Town of Niskayuna in tree selection, diagnosis, and installation and in promoting awareness of the importance of trees through public education events. As part of her service on the Council, Amy has led an incentive to increase the diversity of tree species selected for installation on Niskayuna’s streets and parks. She has also initiated a program to encourage residents to grow a tree from seed as part of the town’s annual Arbor Day tree give-away. In her role as a key member of the Plant Sale Committee at Landis, Amy has given new life to the Arboretum’s efforts to make rare and unusual specimens available at our spring and fall plant sales. She has established an ongoing “Small Shrubs for Small Spaces” program to make small plant material available at Arboretum sales and is working to develop a Small Shrub Display Collection on the Arboretum grounds. Amy has demonstrated her commitment to educating the public as past coordinator of the Master Gardener Program at Cornell Cooperative Extension of Albany County, where she trained Master Gardeners in how to answer gardening questions from the public, and through teaching Landscape Installation, Floral Design, and Greenhouse Production as a Horticulture Trades teacher at Columbia-Greene BOCES. She also advised Schenectady residents on growing their own food during her time as Community Garden Coordinator for Schenectady County’s Cornell Cooperative Extension. She conducts free classes each year at the Capital District Garden and Flower Show, where she has received rave reviews for her ability to explain in-depth horticulture information in an entertaining, patient manner. Amy continues to develop new classes, always using a mix of scientific research reports from universities and in-the-field evidence from her experience designing and installing landscapes. She is committed to encouraging everyone to be more engaged in the environment around them. We are justly proud that Amy is an Arboretum volunteer and community leader! - Erin McKenna Breglia, Landis Gardener I have found that plants at the Arboretum have been a wonderful gateway to making friends, whether through conversation at Landis Plant Sales, exploring the trails, or hands-on working in the garden dirt. We were fortunate to have gained a few new volunteers in the garden this season, including Susan Strangia and Serena Drobnak. Both regularly offered a helping hand, and together with Landis Gardener Darlene Crowe, we were able to reclaim many areas that were becoming overcome by weeds. All that weed pulling and pruning was accompanied by “plant talk.” One topic that repeatedly came up often was how to achieve a garden that looks good and is relatively low maintenance. We concurred that, along with the stunning displays of spring and autumn bulbs, summer blooming peonies, and varieties of iris and daylilies, native plants are the solution. Native plants are adapted to the local climate and soil conditions where they naturally occur. In addition to supporting pollinators and other wildlife, native plants are inherently sustainable because they require less watering and fertilization than most non-natives. At Landis, we rely completely on Mother Nature to supply rain, so native plants are a great fit. Looking at the vast variety of blooming wildflowers in fields and along roadsides, it may seem difficult to choose which of these natives to grow in a garden. There are many that might complement your site. For example, a great spring bloomer is Baptisia australis, blue false indigo. A perennial that grows into a small rounded shrub-like shape of 3’x3’ and produces stems lined with indigo flowers, the Baptisia is not only unique in flower color, but also important for native bees. In fall, large brown seed pods develop on the stems and create a fun rattle sound when shaken, a child’s delight! Asclepias tuberosa, butterfly weed, is one of the prettiest native plants, boasting long lasting blooms of bright orange flowers that attract the monarch butterfly throughout its life cycle. One thing to note is this plant is very late to come up in the spring, and without marking its location, you could easily mistake it for weed. It is very easy to grow and extremely low maintenance, a true joy in any garden, especially when the monarch butterfly stops by! A few other lovely native plants are Monarda fistulosa, bee balm, which has lavender flowers and can grow in shady areas while tolerating most soil conditions. Also of interest are Lobelia siphilitica, great blue lobelia, and its relative, Lobelia cardinalis, cardinal flower. Great blue lobelia is pollinated by bees that often sleep inside the flower buds, giving it the name “honey bee hotel.” The cardinal flower is one of the truest red flowers found in the plant kingdom and dependent on the ruby-throated hummingbird for pollination, another plus for having it in your garden! There are plenty of fall blooming native plants to enjoy, such as varieties of Asters and Heleniums. Often self-seeders, these plants can easily be pulled out if they are found growing in undesirable spaces, though they are an important late season food source for bees and other insects. As the work in the garden continues this season, one thing is sure: we really enjoy getting together at the Arboretum and talking plants. Cheers to a great crew of volunteers -- and to native plants in the garden! , - Fred Breglia, Executive Director Over the years, I have met many people at Landis Arboretum, from locals stopping by to walk their dog to tourists passing through the area. Teachers, artists, arborists, gardeners, lawyers, musicians, families -- all sorts of people. Conversations typically begin with questions about plants, and the following are a few of the most frequently asked questions from my 25 years at the Arboretum. Q) I have lichen growing on my trees, is it going to kill it? A) No, lichen will not harm your tree. It is actually a symbiotic relationship between two organisms, a fungus and an alga. The fungus grows on the tree and collects moisture and minerals from the atmosphere, and the algae make food through photosynthesis. Together they provide what they need to exist. The tree bark is simply the site of growth but not a source of food. Sometimes stressed trees have more lichen on them because they have fewer leaves, so more sunlight is shining on the tree, allowing the lichen more opportunity to grow. Q) Are moles eating my plants and grass? A) This is a great question, and the answer is no. Moles are carnivorous animals that feast on worms, grubs and insects, not plants. The culprits are likely voles, which are herbivores and only eat plants. Both live in holes underground, which is probably why moles and voles get confused with each other. Moles typically tunnel while searching for food and leave mounds through the grass, but there will be no visible hole. Voles, too, have a hole, but no mound or tunnels. Voles can also damage trees and shrubs by girdling the base of the trunk and roots. The best control for voles is to use a repellent product and tree protection wraps around your plants, especially in the winter. Q) How do I stop deer and other animals from eating my plants? A) For larger game like deer, tall durable fences work really well. If fencing is not an option, you can make and apply a ‘Deer Be Gone’ product to put around the plants. The product is made by mixing rotted raw eggs, minced garlic, cayenne pepper, lemon juice, and water in a blender, then sprayed directly on the plants or around the perimeter of the garden bed. Q) My lilacs look healthy, but aren’t flowering, what can be done? A) There are a few reasons why this happens. First, lilacs can grow in both sun and shade, but require sun to flower well. If your lilac has been shaded out over time, consider moving the plant to a sunnier location or removing nearby branches to allow more light into the area. A second reason this occurs is because of pruning at the wrong time. Lilacs bloom on the previous season’s wood, so the only time to prune them without removing the next year’s flower buds is immediately after they bloom. Pruning at any other time of the year will remove flower buds. Q) Why are my crabapple tree leaves falling off in the middle of summer? is my tree dying? A) Most likely the culprit is fungus. Apple scab and cedar apple rust are two types of common fungi found on apple trees in our area that can cause premature leaf drop. Years with more rain make these issues more noticeable. Some years, the entire tree can be bare by mid-August, but do not worry: the tree will regrow leaves the following year. These are not life-threatening fungi, but it is best to remove the leaves from the property, which can greatly reduce the amount of inoculum in future years. If done annually, it can make a great difference after a while. With a Landis membership, you can have access to Fred’s horticultural expertise. To learn more about becoming a member and member benefits, please visit our website at landisarboretum.org Send your questions to [email protected]. Include a photo or two. . In addition to some terrific classes and activities at Landis, we invite you to enjoy four unique opportunities: Shanti Vun Drum Circles happen the first and third Thursdays of the month at 7:00 PM barring bad weather; our 15th Perennial Forest 5K is August 7 this year; our Live at Landis Full Moon Music series resumes in person on August 20; and our Spring Plant, Book, and Bake Sale is on September 11 and 12, with the Pick of the Pots Sale (POPS) on September 10. Click on arrows in upper corners to view slideshow below or visit our website for more information. - Nan Williams As I remember, the fern glen wasn’t planned. Ed Miller was a great planner and did a fine job laying out the Native Plant Trail. Then a Spur Trail was added, going through the wetland and up the hill, including a bridge over a small stream. In later years Ed and I were hiking on the Driscoll Preserve when we came upon a musical bridge. I could see the wheels spinning as Ed, always the planner, took measurements. And voilà, there was a musical bridge on the Spur Trail! Ed, true to form, had to improve on the Dan Driscoll design by adding flats and sharps, perhaps the first musical bridge with black keys. I don’t know the date or the circumstances, but early on Ed was given two rare male ferns. He planted them on the hill of the Spur Trail and then they were forgotten. One day as we were walking up the trail, we looked over and saw a little stone wall with a few resident ferns. We decided that it would make an intriguing little grotto to add interest to the trail. The next time I came, it was with a load of ferns for the area near the pond’s outlet. Very nice! But I guess we didn’t mention it to anyone else. I believe it was planted in the fall, and we didn’t visit until later the following spring. To our great dismay and disappointment, some work had been done on the pond and, in addition to felling a huge tree, the construction debris had all been bulldozed over the bank onto our little grotto. So be it, we thought. For the next few years Ed concentrated on the main collection of native trees and shrubs. One day, about 2014, as we were walking up the Spur Trail, the sun shone behind the large ferns. We couldn’t help but be impressed. The Fern Glen was born at that moment. I started bringing ferns from my farm in Massachusetts, and Nick Zabawsky gave us many from his property. Ed started out with a mattock to plant the first ones: the clay soil is hard and rocky. Later my two sons, Rick and Rob, came with loads of ferns and planted them over the hillside. Ed found a rare walking fern and planted it on a rock and fed it lime, though it was not always happy. Fortunately, Nick Miller has now provided a replacement. We aimed to create a Fern Glen, with at least one of each fern native to the area, all marked using signs obtained from a grant. The Glen now has a base of thirty varieties, some thriving -- and some not. They don’t all like the same kind of soil, but we tried to compensate with an application of lime where needed. Since the area includes different habitats (the hillside is dry, and the base is wet), the ferns are arranged accordingly. Nick Miller, who inherited the curatorship of the Native Plant Collection, has done a lot of work creating rock steps on the hillside and cutting brush. Brother Nelson has done backhoe work to divert the pond overflow away from the hillside that was inundated after a heavy rainstorm. Nick is working on solving the problem of the muddy trail at the bottom using tree rounds for steps. It looks great and is very appropriate for the site. I hope to bring a few more ferns to have a good specimen of each of the thirty varieties. As with any other garden, the collection needs weeding, mowing, and clean-up. Anne Donnelly has joined me in the up-keep, especially in spring and fall. As I retire from everything except enthusiasm, I will continue to maintain this peaceful place. Please contact the Arboretum if you would like to join me in preserving this graceful glen. After all, ferns can be part of your plan too! (Click on arrows in upper corners to view slideshow above.) - Nick Miller
If you take a stroll around the Willow Pond Trail to view The Miller Native Plant collection, you will feel the presence of Ed Miller at every turn. Twenty years after its inauguration in 2001, much of Ed’s vision has been realized. If you didn’t know Ed, you might be surprised that a man well into his 7th decade would embark on such an ambitious, even audacious, project. If you had the pleasure of knowing him, you wouldn’t be surprised in the least. Dad - I’m the youngest of his four sons - loved the outdoors even from his Depression-era growing up in Schenectady. I have treasured photos of him hiking (in street shoes) in the Adirondacks as a 14-year-old Boy Scout and, later, freshly discharged from his WWII Navy service, hiking the Northville-Placid trail with my uncle. His love of nature, of kids, and of teaching led him to scout-mastering, expanding our pack of four boys to countless many more. He could take small armies of boys (and often girls – he was ahead of his time in that regard, occasionally driving the BSA brass crazy) into the woods. He could name every woodland plant one might find, knowledge which he would gently impart to all around him. He took endless 35mm Ektachrome slides of woodland flowers (which we still have). In those days, while he loved his woodlore, he eschewed more formal botanical practice, mostly ignoring taxonomy and Latin nomenclature. But after he retired in 1983 from an illustrious four-decade career at GE as a world-recognized pioneer in steam turbine engineering and design – a story for another day -- his botanical curiosity was unleashed without bound. He traveled the country and the world, always gravitating to people who loved nature, loved life, and shared his unfettered love of knowledge. Becoming active in the North American Botanical Society was something like naturalist graduate school for him. He learned to love the subtleties of identification, appreciating the need for taxonomy and Latin to achieve a precision not possible with common names. An indefatigable organizer, he hosted Botanical Society meetings in the Northeast on multiple occasions. His association with accomplished botanists stirred his need to share his knowledge and was the fertile ground on which the seeds of the Native Plant Collection were sown. At some level, he felt that the native flora of New York was underappreciated by, and rather under-represented to, the public. Exotic plants from the steppes of Asia, or the jungles of Borneo are great, but what about our own wonderful but often overlooked plants? Thus, the idea germinated of getting all New York State’s native woody plants together so that people could learn about them. Ed approached Landis with the idea for creating such a collection. The collection, while being aesthetically pleasing and in keeping with the character of the Arboretum, would also be designed to be a teaching experience. In each of the “plantings” or stations around the trail, all the native members of plant families are found. For the casual enthusiast who thinks, “I know that’s an oak tree, but then I’m stumped,” the collection is perfect. Dad intended for the families of plants to be accessible, so that the visitor can examine the often subtle differences in leaves, bark, buds, leaf scars, and all the minutiae than enter into successful identification. Building the collection took epic effort. We Miller Boys helped with the unforgiving mechanical aspects of creating the trail itself. The relentless Landis clay, which drains miserably, sticks to your tools, boots, and tires, is interspersed with rocks and roots. Even today, after 20 years, drainage is a constant battle. But it was Dad’s endless hours, toiling with saw, shovel, pruner, mattock, watering can, and knife, all through his 80s and into his 90’s, that allowed over 200 species to grow and, more often than not, flourish. Dad took such delight in successes like the pawpaw, and the oaks, and the roses (who knew that family was so BIG??). The bog gardens also reflect a particular passion. Dad loved the understated and sometimes exotic beauty of the unique ecosystem that is an Adirondack bog. But how to share with people who don’t relish slogging knee deep through black, bubbling bogs in search of an orchid or a carnivorous sundew? The two bog gardens, which are presently being upgraded to a single new one, our fourth version, are packed with interesting plants – including Landis’ only carnivorous plants. Another passion, which Dad shared with dear friend Nan Williams, was ferns. Together, they created a collection of every native fern that can tolerate the local climate. In the moist, shady dell below the Willow Pond along the Spur Trail, you will find well over 20 species, including delights like Goldie’s fern and maidenhair fern. Dad liked to say, “how optimistic for an old man to plant a tree”! His optimism and curiosity live on in the Native Plant Collection. Come enjoy it. Learn. Dad would want it that way. Nick Miller is currently the hereditary curator and conservator of his father’s Native Plant Trail at the George Landis Arboretum. |