Earning my college nickname

Back in 2001, we hired a local nursery to design and plant the steep slope that drops down the ravine beside our house.  I wanted a local nursery since I thought they would choose appropriate plants and know how to work with the county since we are in the "critical zone" within 1,000 feet of the Chesapeake Bay.  Unfortunately I was wrong on both counts.  So, while I won't name the nursery, I also discourage people from working with them.

Another problem was that instead of planting Southern Bayberry shrubs, they planted Russian Olives, which are considered invasive.  They removed all labels, so I did not realize until a couple years later.

In the picture above, two the Russian Olives are  large gray-green mass across the middle/left.  That wispy bit of brown are a annual weedy vine that grew up to the top of a twenty foot holly tree, which is hidden under them.  

Saturday, I decided to cut out the two massive ones on this main section of the slope. On the right you can see the remaining stumps.  Above the bare area, on the right you can see some orange/red twiggy growth.  Those are a stand of red twig dogwood, Cornus sanguinea 'Midwinter Fire.'  I planted three small plants in 2002, and after the major side I thought I had lost them.  Then a few years later, I found them gamely spreading out, as I had originally planned, across the harsh, dry hillside.  They have been struggling under the edge of the Russian Olive, and if you look closely at the first picture, you can see some of these stems pushing through the olive branches.  I hope they continue to sucker out widely, and will give them some fertilizer to encourage their journey.


Oh, I didn't explain the title for this post.  I attended the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry.  We were a small state school on the campus of Syracuse University, and didn't dress or act like the other students.  Flannel shirts and working boots didn't quite fit in with the Long Island and New York City crowd.   Well, forestry means cutting down trees, and leaving stumps, right?  So we are all "Stumpys."  What do you think of my stumps?

Finally, here are the flowers on the Parrotia persica tree in the front.  Not large or flamboyant, but they first started about a week ago, and are now actively contributing to the pollen count.