Native Shrubs Important but Overlooked

On Saturday, 12-1-12 four volunteers and two staff (including Volunteer Coordinator Yvonne Dunphe)  planted about 200 native shrubs and small trees at Germantown MetroPark.  These shrubs were grown from seed by the Marianist Evironmental Education Center in Beavercreek.  They were planted to create an edge habitat composed of native shrubs and trees.  Each plant was protected from deer and rabbits by a plastic shelter.

Volunteers Mike Stanton, Mike Shade, Patrick Kennedy, and Marga Huban proudly pose after planting 200 native shrubs at Germantown MetroPark on December 1.  Great job everyone!!

Southwest Ohio has many species of sun-loving shrubs and small trees that lived in openings in the forests and along the edges of prairies and wetlands prior to human settlement.    Many are very important to wildlife.  Wild hazelnuts and plums have edible nuts and berries and make thickets for nesting birds.  Hoptree is a major food plant for the giant swallowtail butterfly, and many others like blackhaw viburnum and American crabapple are important parts of "edge" habitats. Many species of birds like yellow breasted chat, blue-winged warbler, and willow flycatcher need edge habitats. Unfortunately most of these plant and bird species have become quite uncommon in southwest Ohio.  The loss of fencerows and edges to clean farming over the years, the massive colonization of open areas by invasive shubs (bush honeysuckle, autumn olive, common buckthorn etc), and invasion of openings by trees are the likely reasons for their decline.

Wild Plum (Prunus americana)

American Crab (Malus coronaria)

Hoptree or Wafer Ash (Ptelia trifoliata)

American Hazelnut (Corylus americana)

Managing for edges is difficult, mainly because they are actually land in transition.  Without some kind of disturbance they are inevitable invaded by canopy trees and become young forests (often poor quality ones).
Edges and thickets are often too thick to mow with conventional equipment such as a bushog, and too labor intensive to do it by hand.  As a result, they are often lost to succession.

A few years ago Five Rivers MetroParks solved this problem with the purchase of a Fecon.  This tough, tracked tree/shrub whacker can turn the biggest honeysuckle or buckthorn into mulch.  After some follow-up spraying the old thickets of invasive shrubs are ready to be restored with native shrub species.

Habitat management plans in Five Rivers MetroParks natural areas are designed to maintain a variety of habitats and plant and animal species.  At the core of most natural areas is some mature forest.  Plans call for the forest to be protected and managed to achieve mature status, and to get larger on adjacent land.  Managed/restored thickets (controlled succession) zones border the forests, and open grasslands border the controlled succession, usually on the park boundary.

90's Direct Seeding Effort Revisited

In 1990 Doug Smith, a MetroParks staff member at Carriage Hill Farm noticed there was something wrong with succession in the nearby Carriage Hill MetroPark.  Doug was the Restoration Specialist at the Farm, in charge of restoring the farmstead there to its condition in the 1880's.  Doug knew (and knows) a lot about woodworking, and was really good at making just about anything from historic bridges to period furniture.  He also knew quite a bit about trees, and noticed that the natural succession taking place on the nearby abandoned farmland was not growing trees that would ever be useful to a woodworker.  Oak, hickory, walnut, and tuliptree, his favorites were few and far between, with virtually no small ones around.  Doug proposed planting these hardwoods into a designated timber management area to produce lumber for future generations.

In 1991 we designated about 20 acres for this task and the farm staff had the ground plowed and disked up.  For trees we went to see my dad, Gervais Nolin, in Fairborn.  I knew Dad had LOTS of acorns in the fall and to him disposing of them was a big nuisance.  We went to his place and hauled off many bags stuffed with acorns of white and bur oak and took them back to Carriage Hill.  The acorns were mixed with some black walnuts and hand broadcast over the field.

The first few years we could see some little oaks sprouting, but mostly very tall goldenrod and other herbaceous species.  Then we started noticing that rabbits were chewing the little oaks in the winter, sawing them off like little beavers.  At the same time white-tailed deer were having a population boom, and they loved eating the oaks that got by the mice.  Should any oak have the temerity to withstand this browsing they inevitably were used by bucks to rub the velvet of their antlers.  As a result the trees were cut, eaten, or de-barked every year.  This was pretty discouraging so we admitted defeat and pretty much gave up on the project.  A few years later the staff at the farm decided they needed some more ground for crop production and plowed up much of it for that purpose.

Conservation Technician Rob Ligas standing in thick stand of white and bur oak planted  by seeding in 1991.

Fast forward to 2010.  Conservation Biologist Mike Enright was laying out zones for the new controlled bowhunting program at Carriage Hill.  One day he came into the office and asked if anyone knew where all theyoung oaks out there came from.  What?!  How many?  Oh at least a couple hundred.  We went out there soon after that and I was delighted find it just as he said, several hundred bur and white oaks ranging in size from 2 -20 feet high.  Some had obviously been chewed, eaten, rubbed many times only to sprout again.  Many had multiple stems, and the whole area had become overgrown with shrubs, particularly Amur honeysuckle and autumn olive.  Mike and his staff went to work clearing out the invasive shrubs and found that many more stunted survivors were out there.

Since then the trees have been pruned to allow one lead stem, additional tree species have been planted (and protected by tree shelters), and the failure has turned into a least a partial success.  It could have been a much greater success if we had not given up and allowed it to be plowed for crops.  Oh well, live and learn.  In this case, don't give up!

Direct Seeding Efforts Completed

Seed collected from the successful "Go Nuts" campaign http://www.metroparks.org/Reforestation/GoNuts.aspx
was planted at Carriage Hill MetroPark on November 9.  A twenty acre field at Carriage Hill MetroPark was plowed and disked by a local farmer.  MetroParks Conservation Staff Steve Sherman, Alyssa Balter, and Matt Parker distributed the precious harvest. Sherman drove the ATV in lines across the field while Parker and Baltar flung the seeds from the back.  The farmer then disked the seed into the soil.

Matt Parker and Alyssa Balter fling the harvest while Steve Sherman drives.

The seed was worked into the ground by disking

Planting area at Carriage Hill MetroPark

Mixed mast harvest from "Go Nuts" campaign

The seeding rate was about 4 gallons of mixed seed per acre.  The buckets of mixed seed contained white oak, bur oak, swamp white oak, chinquapin oak, pignut hickory, shagbark hickory, mockernut hickory, shellbark hickory, flowering dogwood, Ohio buckeye, and blackhaw viburnum.

This was the first try at large scale direct seeding for MetroParks since the 1990's.  That planting was at first deemed a failure.  In fact it turned out to be rather successful, which just goes to show that land restorers should not write off a project too soon because the results are not visible right away!  The next post will be about that interesting effort.

Successful Seed Collection!

Five Rivers MetroParks had a very successful seed collection season.  The agency initiated the "Go Nuts" campaign to inform and galvanize the public to collect oak and hickory seeds to be used for reforestation.

Volunteers came in all ages!

Freshly collected seed

It was a great mast year for white oaks and hickories, and enthusiastic supporters did not let us down.  Volunteers were encouraged to collect the seeds from natural areas, do the "float test" to determine if the seed was viable, and turn them in to one of two facilities for processing.  .  At Cox Arboretum Hort Tech Meredith Cobb and her team of dedicated "Tree Corps" volunteers put in many hours work to sort, test, bag, and label the seeds.  Altogether about 200 gallons of viable seed was collected.  Most seed collected was oak and hickory since these important canopy trees are not spreading well.  Species collected in bulk were white oak, bur oak, chinquapin oak, swamp white oak, shagbark hickory, pignut hickory, and bitternut hickory.  Lesser quantities of mockernut hickory, shellbark hickory, red oak, and shumard oak were also collected.  Many other species were collected in smaller quantities, particularly native shrubs and understory species such as spicebush and  flowering dogwood.

About 1/3 of the seed collected is being kept at Cox Arboretum to be used in late winter to propagate about 14,000 seedlings for the popular and successful Forest Foster Tree program.  This program gets the seedlings started, then distributed to volunteers who care for them at home over the summer.  They are then planted at MetroParks restoration areas the following spring.

Mixed seed ready for planting

The remainder of the seeds are being used for an additional reforestation technique, direct seeding.  Two small 5- acre fields (Germantown and Carriage Hill MetroParks) and one large 20 acre field (Carriage Hill MetroPark) were prepared for planting. Seeds from the fall collection were mixed together to match the soils of each site.  On October 26 and 27 volunteers planted the two smaller sites with specially made acorn dibble sticks made from pvc pipe.

Nut planting with pvc dibbles at Germantown MetroPark

The larger site is going to be planted with a tractor mounted salt spreader in the next couple of weeks.  I'll post about how that goes.

Time to Plant Some Oaks!

Chuck Chambers measures a big white oak at Englewood MetroPark

Oaks as a group are a very important part of our mature forests.  MetroParks cover map data reveal that oaks as a group make up 25% of the canopy of our mature forests, the largest component.  They are long-lived, slow growing, commercially valuable, produce big crops of food for wildlife, and most are drought and fire resistant.  Oaks are shade intolerant.  This means that they have to have sunlight and cannot grow in the shade of other trees.  Acorns and young oaks are designed to colonize open areas where they can get the sunlight they need.  Around here we have eight species: northern red (Quercus rubra), chinquapin (Q. muhlenbergii), bur (Q. macrocarpa),  Shumard (Q.shumardii), white (Q. alba), swamp white (Q. bicolor), shingle (Q. imbricaria), and black (Q. nigra).

Strangely though, its pretty difficult to find a young oak out there.  The big ones in the woods still produce big crops of fall acorns, but almost none of these seeds become a tree.  This phenomenon and problem is not unique to southwest Ohio, it is happening all over the eastern and midwestern United States.  It seems we are destined to lose some our most valuable and important forest trees.  This chart shows the components of young forests in MetroParks, note the lack of oak.

What is happening to oaks?  The three main things that are preventing oak reproduction around here are:

Dull Woods Conservation Area:
 A very nice fragment.

1. Fragmentation-  Acorns are spread mostly by squirrels and blue jays.   Squirrels carry acorns a short distance and bury them individually for snacking later.  Fortunately for oaks the squirrel's memory must not be that great and some acorns are forgotten.  If they were buried in an open area they have a chance to grow into a mature tree.  Because of this, oaks seeds don't disperse very far from the parent tree.   Unfortunately for oaks, our local forests have been reduced to small patches and isolated woodlots.  Therefore, only a fraction of the landscape, the part that is near an existing mature oak, is open to oak colonization.


2. Too Many Deer-  White-tailed deer love to eat acorns, and they especially like oak seedlings.  Any oak that does manage to take root in a good spot is likely going to be eaten by a deer.  Oaks and deer have always had to co-exist, but with densities these days of over 50 animals per square mile, oaks don't have a chance.

3. Lack of Fire-  Oaks have evolved such that trees and their seedlings are resistant to fire.  Prior to about 1930 fire was a common occurrence in many of the forests of the United States.  In the eastern United States the Native Americans, pioneers, and early settlers commonly used fire to create and maintain open landscapes and forests.  Fires around here were not the big crown fires that we see on television out west.  They were low ground fires that burned up the leaves and sticks.  They also burned up the seedlings of most trees.  But oaks had an edge, they could withstand this, and their reproduction was good.  Nearly all of the large oaks that we still see today likely had their start after one of these fires.  Smokey the Bear was very effective though, and fire is no longer part of woodland management around here.  As a result, seeds of other trees such as black cherry, locust, and sugar maple are the ones that get a start.

How can we help oaks?  In more forested parts of Ohio the most common method is clearcut logging.  Openings are created in existing forests containing oak by removing all the trees in a small area.  Acorns and existing young oaks are then free to grow in the sun and make a new oak forest.  This works especially well in hilly, wooded southeastern Ohio.

Young Oaks Thriving Thanks to Tree Shelters

 Around here we don't have much forest land, and clear cutting what we do have would not be a good idea.  What we can do is plant oaks into old fields and other open areas where it would be good to have them.  If a young oak can get above the competition and browsing deer it will do fine.  In fact, given the drier weather we have been having it makes even more sense to plant oaks.  I'd recommend figuring 4 dollars per oak seedling though.  Good bare root seedlings can be purchased for about a dollar a tree, but you'll also need a tree shelter and stake to protect it for the first several years.

If you want to volunteer to help grow and plant oaks on the MetroParks go to
www.metroparks.org/forests
 and sign up!

Upper Twin Puts the Ahhh in Cahnservation!



Fall at the UTCA

 Yesterday I walked the Upper Twin Conservation Area (UTCA).  This 470-acre area lies in Jackson and German Townships along Twin Creek (upstream from Germantown MetroPark).  The UTCA is the closest thing you can find to wilderness in Montgomery County (at least).  There are no traffic noises, very few homes around it, and no developed facilities.  It contains the finest stand of mature upland forest I know of in the county (Markey Woods), large areas of bottomland hardwoods, young forest, meadows, recently abandoned farm fields, and beautiful Twin Creek flowing throught he middle of it.



Three Valley Conseration Trust Executive Director Larry Frimmerman at a private forest tract in the UTCA protected by MetroParks and TVCT

 The UTCA is greatly enhanced by the presence of 1711 acres of surrounding private land that is in permanent conservation easement.  These easements were purchased from the current owners and require that the land be kept in its current conservation or agricultural condition.  These easments have been completed in partnership with the Three Valley Conservation Trust (TVCT), a land trust based in Oxford, OH  http://www.3vct.org/home_20.aspx.  TVCT is great at obtaining federal and state grants to cover most of the costs of these easements.

Protection efforts in the UTCA started in 1999 with a 92-acre conservation easement along Twin Creek donated by the Schaeffer family.  The first purchase was a 172-acre buy the next year.  The land and easements were acquired steadily through 2009.

It is hoped that MetroParks can extend the Twin Valley backpack trail north from Germantown before too long.  If done this would be a great addition to the TVT.

Natural Succession is Broken

Many people have heard about the concept of natural succession.  This is the process by which nature restores a forest on land that has been deforested.  After the fire/windstorm/clearcut the land grows into annual grasses and flowering plants, these give way to perennial plants and seedlings of shrubs and trees.  The shrubs and trees grow and compete for light.  Shade tolerant trees and plants then recolonize the young forest.  Some trees get big, layers develop, and presto, new old forest.

Young forest choked with amur honeysuckle

Dominant Trees in Young Forests of Five Rivers MetroParks

This process still works pretty well in heavily forested areas, but here in sw Ohio I say it is busted.  The forest land has been reduced to isolated fragments, many of which were impacted by livestock grazing and high grade timbering.  Invasive shrubs, particularly Amur honeysuckle, autumn olive, multiflora rose, and now callery pear spread rapidly and cover disturbed areas in impenetrable thickets.  Native trees such as oaks and hickory's that have large seeds and grow slowly cannot spread more than a short distance from existing mature trees.  Those that do grow are munched like snickers bars by over-abundant deer as well as rabbits and mice.  Trees that do spread well tend to be ones that have berries, such as hackberry,  or winged seeds such as ash that are spead by birds or the wind.  Now our most successful young forest trees, white and green ash are all dying from Emerald Ash Borer.  Most young forests regenerated since the mid 1960's are not diverse and have no realistic chance of gaining in diversity without help. I've decided to stop telling people about the miraculous process of natural succession, it's just not working  in sw Ohio.   We still have fertile soil, sunshine, and abundant rainfall.  Something is going to grow, but the forests of tomorrow are shaping up to be a shadow of the what they were.  Many people may not care, but to me its like eating spam when you are used to eating at the Meadowlark.

A young oak emerging from a tree shelter: hope for future forests

People of all ages want to help

Okay, enough gloom and doom.  There are plenty of conservation groups around the world that are doing great work and would put your contribution to good use.  But if you want to do something more personal here is your chance. Five Rivers MetroParks has made forest restoration and renewal a priority.  To learn how you can contribute go to www.metroparks.org/forests.  Help plant trees in the spring, collect seeds in the fall, become a reforestation leader by taking the Master Silviculturist course, adopt some trees for the summer in the Forest Foster Tree program, or learn how to plant a tree in your yard.

Maybe if we act now we can grow more forests like this

Our Ten BiggestTrees

Big Sister at Sugarcreek MetroPark

The organization called American Forests just released their latest list of Champion trees, you can see it HERE.  A champion tree is determined by measuring it's diameter at breast height (dbh), crown spread, and height. These are combined to produce a numeric score for the tree.

Measuring a big tree is a lot of fun, and finding them is even more fun.  I've been measuring the biggest ones I know of in MetroParks facilities for a few years, and here is my list of the top 10 biggest trees:

Nickname	Common Name	Scientific Name	Facility	Total Points	LATLONG
Big Sister	White oak	Quercus alba	Sugarcreek MetroPark	378	84°5'9.567"W  39°37'0.234"N
Bea's Tree	Cottonwood	Populus deltoides	Englewood MetroPark	374	84°16'16.695"W  39°52'11.674"N
Elmer	American Elm	Ulmus americana	Shoup Mill Con. Area	365	84°12'56.555"W  39°48'53.825"N
Champion Oak	Shumard Oak	Quercus shumardii	Taylorsville MetroPark	357	84°9'39.952"W  39°52'16.526"N
Ralph's Oak	Shumard Oak	Quercus shumardii	Dull Woods Con. Area	350	84°27'9.957"W  39°51'30.955"N
Big Macrocarpa	Burr Oak	Quercus macrocarpa	Wegerzyn MetroPark	341	84°16'42.218"W  39°52'8.02"N
Soaring Sycamore	Sycamore	Platanus occidentalis	Sugarcreek MetroPark	324	84°5'48.108"W  39°37'23.107"N
Pedistel Oak	Burr Oak	Quercus macrocarpa	Wegerzyn MetroPark	319	84°12'21.479"W  39°47'58.234"N
Cloudbuster	White Ash	Fraxinus americana	Englewood MetroPark	317	84°17'46.377"W  39°52'41.482"N
Charlie Creek	Sycamore	Platanus occidentalis	Shiloh Woods Con. Area	316	84°15'9.981"W  39°50'52.641"N

      Sycamore

The biggest measured tree known in the MetroParks system is Big Sister at Sugarcreek MetroPark.  This leviathan scores 378 points.  By far the biggest of the "Three Sisters", 3 big white oaks at this site.  The middle sister died and fell over a few years ago.

Location of Tulip Tower

Tulip Tower

The tallest measured tree is a yellow poplar, or tuliptree dubbed "Tulip Tower" at Germantown MetroPark.  Located in the deep, fertile soils of Shimps Hollow, and protected from winds by the steep valley it is in, this tree has been measured several times to be 162 feet high!  It does not seem like a particularly impressive tree unless you walk up to it and look up.

If anyone knows of a tree that might be bigger than one of these let me know and we can go measure it.

600 trees planted at Shoup Mill Conservation Area

Some of the work crew on Saturday at Shoup Mill Conservation Area

On Saturday 600 trees were planted at the Shoup Mill Conservation Area along the Stillwater River.  Thanks to the outstanding leadership of the volunteer leaders it went smoothly and quickly.  These folks are amazing and very dedicated as are the "regular" volunteers who came.  This planting was one of many work sites for Adopt a Park Day.  Over 50 volunteers socked the trees in these trees in under 3 hours and installed the tree shelters.  The trees were planted in what was a cornfield on this recently purchased piece of land.  Trees planted were bur, white, swamp white, and red oaks, flowering dogwood, and American Elm.  The elms were raised from seed at Cox Arboretum, and came from 6 large elms in Montgomery County that do not show signs of Dutch Elm Disease.  One of the trees was "Elmer", the huge elm just south of the planting site.

I might as well tell the story of this Conservation Area, because it is interesting.  The Shoup Mill Conservation Area is 67 acres in size and is located along the Stillwater River in north Dayton and Harrison Township. This land used to be part of a recreational park for the employees of Frigidaire.  It featured a running track, ballfields and picnic grounds.  It was later sold to be developed as an industrial park.  .  However, restrictions were put on the portion of the land adjacent to the river that mandated that it be preserved as open space. It became a popular place to dump all manner of trash and junk for many years, and a haven for off-road trucks to churn up the mud.  In 1992 the Park District first approached the developer marketing the property about buying the river corridor.  We could not agree on the price for the property and nothing happened.  I called them every year after that and every year it was the same story.  Finally, in 2009, after 17 years, we agreed on a price.  An application was written to the Clean Ohio Program to cover 75% of the purchase price.  It also covered this percentage of the cost to remove honeysuckle, giant piles of trash and junk, and install an access lane.

Twin Creek MetroPark

Twin Creek MetroPark, and the view that convinced the Board to go for it.

Twin Creek MetroPark is just under 1000 acres, and is located in Montgomery and Warren Counties.  This beautiful natural area became a MetroPark in 1998.  I think the story of how it became a MetroPark is interesting and worth relating.

I suppose this story starts with a group of Native Americans that we modern Ohioans call the Hopewell Culture, or Hopewell Tradition.  We don't know what they called themselves.  The Hopewell peoples thrived in southwest Ohio and adjacent states from about 1,500 to 2,200 years ago.  They made their living by fishing, hunting, and growing of some crops.  They are best remembered for the mounds they constructed.  These often took the shape of long, low mounds now known as enclosures.  They were often built on the edges of steep slopes or ravines.  Because of this pioneers assumed they were for defensive purposes and called them forts.  In reality it appears they were for unknown ceremonial purposes.  Good examples of protected Hopewell enclosures in southwest Ohio include Fort Hill, Fort Ancient, and Fort Carlisle.  "Fort" Carlisle is located near Twin Creek near the Village of Carlisle.  A long, low mound winds along the edge of steep ravines and encloses about 10 acres.  It looks like there was likely more to this feature than is clearly visible today.  Using LIDAR technology appears to outline additional geometric figures.

Location of "Fort" Carlisle at Twin Creek MetroPark

It is largely because of Fort Carlisle that Twin Creek MetroPark took shape.  Most of these earthworks were on a privately owned 175-acre tract.  The owner wanted the mounds, forests, and natural beauty of his land preserved.  He contacted the Miami Conservancy District, and their Property Manager, Bob Riemmlin, arranged for the purchase in 1973.

In 1977 Dane Mutter, Assistant Director of the Dayton-Montgomery County Park District (now Five Rivers MetroParks) learned that a 44-acre piece of land that contained part of the earthworks was for sale.  Dane was (and is) a great naturalist and historian and wanted to protect the site.  He arranged for the purchase of the site to protect the earthworks. 

Large-Flowered Trillium are common at Twin Creek.  So far, a total of 554 species of vascular plants have been found 

These two contiguous pieces were a bit of a stepchild for both agencies until 1986.  At that time the Park District started leasing the MCD tract.  It needed some cleanup.  A tenant in the small house on the property had a passion to collect old semi-trucks and some thirty or so of them were in various stages of rust decomposition at the base of the ravines.  For the next several years the land was sort of a beautiful secret with no formal public access.   I  spent quite a bit of time exploring the "Fort Carlisle" area and came to realize that much of this beautiful area were not protected, and the site had great potential for a new Reserve.  Several additional parcels were acquired over the next few years, but to really do the job right we needed a bolder vision. The Park Board at the time was not very enthusiastic about taking on such a large new park, but the main problem was that they had never seen it.  Director Marvin Olinsky and Deputy Director Charlie Shoemaker arranged for the Board to visit the site for their annual Board tour of the parks.  Because the site was so remote and inaccessible, this was a challenge.  Charlie made arrangements to rent a large helicopter and take the Board to the heart of the area where a broad meadow overlooked the winding Twin Creek.  Commissioners Woodhull, Siebenthaler, and Leland stepped out into this beautiful spot and were convinced right away

The View from Skyview Shelter

   After that a plan had to be put together showing the land ownership of the area and a list of desired properties.  After this it came down to contacting the individual landowners to see if they were interested in selling.  I must say that this was an interesting experience.  Each owner had a completely different story and most of them are best described as colorful.  While wandering around the area (I hate to use the word trespassing) I came upon an impressive hilltop overlook.  It was in corn at the time, but it seemed to me that this would be a great addition to the new park if it could acquired.  After some negotiation it was purchased with the help of the Miami Conservancy District from the Weidle Corporation for a fair price in the spring of 1994.

In the fall of 1994 the Park District won a significant levy that expanded the scope of the agency to include protection of the beautiful river corridors along the Great Miami, Stillwater, and Mad Rivers as well as Wolf Creek and Twin Creek.  The agency changed its name to Five Rivers MetroParks in 1995 to reflect this commitment.

In 1996 the Boy Scouts decided to sell their large 250 acre Camp Hook on the south edge of MetroParks holdings.  The camp had a long tradition of providing formative experiences for young people, but the facilites were becoming obsolete.  A brief history of the camp can be found base HERE.  MetroParks purchased the camp from the Scouts in 1997.  Some components of the old camp have been retained and fixed up, but most of the obsolete infrastructure has been removed.  The site is open for camping and hiking,  and scouts still use and enjoy their old camp.  Anyway, in 1997  Twin Creek MetroPark had grown to 972 acres.

Much of this park feels like southeast Ohio with a series of ravines and mature forests

So, we had this big beautiful natural area.  But it was very hard to access and no one really knew about it or appreciated it.  One day I had a call from a MetroParks volunteer named Bob Johnson.  Bob was interested in doing some trail work and wanted to know if we had any projects.  When I threw out the idea of designing and installing a trail system for this new land base he jumped at the chance.  Bob had already designed the color-coded trail marking system in place at Germantown MetroPark and was anxious to try this at Twin Creek.  As at Germantown, Bob laid out a series of colored loops of various lengths.  With the help of staff, (particularly Assistant Park Manager Bob Slusser), and volunteers the new trail system was completed in 1998.

"Lake" George at former Camp Hook at Twin Creek MetroPark

After the installation of two small parking lots everything was ready to go, and in 1998 the new Twin Creek MetroPark was opened to the public.

1802: Survey of the Wilderness

Little Turtle cedes southwest Ohio to General Wayne at Treaty of Greenville

Let's begin a history of land use in southwest Ohio that created the conditions here now.  A good place to start would be 1802.  Southwest Ohio is still mostly a wilderness.  The revolution has been won.  It's been 7 years since the Treaty of Greenville that defeated the native americans and gave southwest Ohio to the United States.  Its been 17 years since the Continental Congress passed the Land Ordinance of 1785.  This legislation set up a system whereby the land of the "Northwest Territory", including southwest Ohio, would be surveyed and subsequently settled.

Depiction of early surveyors

In 1802, a rugged young surveyor named Israel Ludlow and his team set about to survey the forest wilderness of the Dayton area. Their task was to lay out a grid of townships 6 miles wide and 6 miles long. Each township was to be divided into 36 squares called sections. Each section contained 640 acres.  If a Section was divided into 4 pieces they were 160 acres and called quarter sections.  Using a compass and a long chain the survey crew would lay out the boundaries, called section lines, through the woods.  The chain was 66 feet long and contained 80 links.  When laid down 80 times a mile was traversed.  As they walked the section line the surveyors would make a note of each one describing the terrain.  when they had gone a mile it was time to mark the corner of the section.  To do this they marked forest trees with a hatchet.  They had to know the different kind of tree to distinguish each corner.  They also measured the trees diameter.  My doing this in a consistent manner they not only laid the land out for settlement, they made a pretty good record of the composition of the forest and the size of the trees.

Famous botanists including Paul Sears, Edgar Transeau, and Robert Gordon analyzed these surveyor records and produced maps of the "original" vegetation of Ohio.  In 1983 when I was a graduate student at Wright State University, my advisor, Dr. Jim Runkle, was analyzing some of these surveyor records to determine the pre-settlement condition of the outstanding woods at Wright State.  I was fascinated by these records and started studying them myself.  One thing that was interesting was the maps Ludlow made.  They had curious shapes drawn on them.  After matching the map with the notes it became clear that these were actually the boundaries of prairies and open wetlands that existed at the time.

beech-maple forest

Several years later Dr. Runkle and one of his students, Jodi Forester, analyzed the surveyor records in even greater detail, and made a GIS layer of the presettlement vegetation of the Dayton area.  They used the same classification system Robert Gordon did when looking at all of Ohio, but could zero in on more detail for our region.  Pre-settlement plant communities identified for our part of the world included:

oak-hickory forests, oak-maple forests, beech-maple forests, mesophytic forests, bottomland hardwood forests, elm-ash swamp forests, tallgrass prairies, wet prairies/fens, and hazel/plum shrublands.  Here is a map showing the distribution of these plant communties.

Medlar Conservation Area

Catherine Queener along Shepards Run at the Medlar Conservation Area

This 409+ acre natural area lies south of Miamisburg and east of the Great Miami River in Miami Township.  It is adjacent to over 200 acres of public open space owned by Miami Township, the City of Miamisburg, and Montgomery County.

This beautiful piece of land contains mature forest, planted prairies, wetlands, young forest, a scenic pond, and two small streams.  These native habitats are accentuated by varied topography from nearly flat to rolling to steep terrain.  A scenic hilltop vista in the western end is a highlight.

Wildlife observed here include deer, wild turkey, and a wide variety of smaller mammals, amphibians, and birds.

Much of the land was purchased with the help of the Clean Ohio Fund, a State bond issue approved by Ohio voters in 2000 and 2008.  In addition to buying the land, these funds paid for improvements to the land including removal of invasive Amur honeysuckle (from Asia), installation of an access lane, and the planting of trees.

Land acquisition started in 1975, when The Park District of Dayton-Montgomery County set out to make a large new reserve in this area that was to be called Crains Run Reserve.  A 73-acre piece was purchased on Medlar Rd. to start the new park.  Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons the Park District decided not to pursue a park here not long after this purchase.

Former farm of Gwen Rice, who donated a conservation easement on this land to MetroParks.  Her son and daughter -in-law sold the remaining interest to MetroParks in 2009.

This little piece of land was sort of an orphan for over 20 years.  Then, in 1994, the Park District decided to pursue Crains Run Reserve again, but on a somewhat smaller scale.  I was a voice for doing this because the region had a variety of outstanding qualities: mature forest, hills and ravines, remnants of the Miami-Erie canal, and opportunity in a growing part of Montgomery County.   In 1995 Mrs. Gwen Rice, owner of a 104-acre farm containing prime development land generously donated a conservation easement to the Park District.  In this same year the Park District of Dayton-Montgomery County changed its name to Five Rivers MetroParks.  Unfortunately, the partnership with other jurisdictions collapsed for a while, and the project was on the shelf again.

Serendipity struck starting in 2008-2010 when the land needed to complete a new land base came up for sale.  Also fortuitously, the Clean Ohio Fund was available, and I put together successful applications to this program with the help of a talented part-time employee named Marilyn Baumer.  Suddenly we had a land base that connected the new Austin Rd. interchange with the Great Miami River.  The new Conservation Area contains 5 areas of mature woods.  One of them, on the northern edge along Shepards Run is outstanding.

Dr. James Runkle of Wright Stat University at Bustillo Woods at Medlar Conservation Area

Seedlings in Tree Shelters

 In 2012 twenty thousand trees were planted into 10 abandoned farm fields in a project called the Shepard’s Run Reforestation Project.  This ambitious project’s goal is to restore this land to a healthy, diverse forest containing a wide variety of native trees and shrubs.  After planting, each tree was protected with a tree shelter.  This is a plastic tube that protects the tree from mice, rabbits, and deer until it is large enough to be on its own (most tree planting projects fail because animals eat them in their first few years).  After the trees are about 2 inches in diameter the shelters are removed.  This new forest (I hope) will link together two of the existing forested tracts and make for a larger forest block.

An interesting aspect of Medlar is the remnants of the Miami-Erie Canal.  The park contains a stone aquaduct (where the canal passed over Shepards Run, and a stretch of the original canal still intact.

MetroParks IT Manager, Tim Clark at the Shepards Run Aquaduct

Future plans for the Medlar Conservation Area are to maintain this large piece of natural land in this increasingly developed part of Montgomery County.  However, some improvements to allow public access are contemplated over time.  The main improvement is a paved path that would run from Miamisburg-Springboro Road to the existing bikeway on the Great Miami River.