Archive for February, 2008

#78 The Reluctant Gardener Faces Non-Native Dilemma

February 28, 2008 @ 3:07 pm · Filed under Charlottesville, Native Landscaping, Rivanna River, Sediment, Stormwater

The winter garden starts to beckon at this time of year. Now is a good time to think about what’s native, and what’s not, and how to make amends for ignorant landscaping choices of the past.
This show originally aired on February 28, 2008 on “The Rivanna Rambler,” a weekly public affairs show airing every Thursday at 11:55 a.m. on WTJU 91.1 FM or wtju.net.

 
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February 28, 2007

I am a reluctant gardener. The seasons conspire against me here in Central Virginia. In the winter, when I should be planning the vegetable garden, pruning shrubs, and tidying the lawn, I crave the quiet of indoors where I hibernate, in between bursts of outdoor activities that take me into the woods or by the river or to the tops of the ridges. Much the same happens to me in the springtime rush, a time of not enough time – when I am called by the waters to paddle rivers bursting with green while the weather is still tolerable. For sure, when spring emerges, I do spend a few days tethered to lawn and plants – affirming my environmental responsibility to this City acre and my good fortune for having land at all. Summer, when vegetables want thinning and harvesting and weeds go to seed, I’m retreating to any place removed from heaviness of the humidity. By the time fall rolls around, I vainly try to make up for lost time, tidying and raking in anticipation of the winter.

This is a roundabout way of saying that I have not yet done anything about the invasive plants in my yard

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#77 Winter Stoneflies Equal Good Water

February 21, 2008 @ 3:54 pm · Filed under Albemarle County, Doyles River, Ecology, Headwaters, Natural History, Water Quality

In the midst of winter, there are bugs in the stream that are alive and well – and some, even, are hatching out to become insects, having found their aquatic niche at a time when no others compete. During StreamWatch sampling on the upper Doyle’s, we find several families of winter stoneflies, and this points to healthy headwaters here.

 
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This show originally aired on February 21, 2008 on “The Rivanna Rambler,” a weekly public affairs show airing every Thursday at 11:55 a.m. on WTJU 91.1 FM or wtju.net.
February 21, 2008

The upper Doyles River, like most headwater streams in the Rivanna watershed, is about as pristine as they come. The waters that collect from springs and drainages of the land that is protected by Shenandoah National Park do not suffer the assaults of sediment and runoff that challenge the health of streams at lower elevations. For this reason, the community based water monitoring program, StreamWatch, has chosen a spot high on the Doyles as one of several headwater streams that will be used during the next few years as “reference streams” – a standard of “as good as it gets in our watershed” — against which other tributaries of the Rivanna will be evaluated.

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#76 Tale of Two Rivers

February 7, 2008 @ 2:32 pm · Filed under Albemarle County, Doyles River, Ecology, Headwaters, Meadowcreek, Rivanna River, South Fork, Tributaries, Water Quality

Headwater streams, if they are healthy, can provide a good reference for evaluating the health of river segments downstream in the watershed. The Doyles River, which will provide reference conditions for a StreamWatch study, is in many ways a sharp contrast to a creek downstream in the urban part of Albemarle County.
This show originally aired on February 7, 2008 on “The Rivanna Rambler,” a weekly public affairs show airing every Thursday at 11:55 a.m. on WTJU 91.1 FM or wtju.net.

 
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February 7, 2008

On a day in January when the snow is still on the ground in the higher elevations, Rose and I drive out Garth Road turning onto 810 at White Hall and head towards the Browns Gap Turnpike. With the landowner’s permission, we drive across pastures that slope uphill into the headwater basin of the Doyles River.

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