The Rivanna Rambler

September 11, 2008

 

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This show originally aired in September 11, 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

Last night after a meeting at UVA’s Newcomb Hall, I strolled across Emmet Street to The Dell for a quiet moment on the water. At the end of the hot day, the air temperature was falling as the undersides of clouds darkened with gray. From a bench across the pond I could see blue and orange shirts and shorts moving on the basketball court. The pool before me reflected the action in segments clipped by a row of young arbor vitae planted along the edge of the court. Above me, bats streaked through darkening air, criss-crossing over the water partaking of misquotes. The sound of Emmet Street traffic was constant, but the longer I sat, the more it started to blend with a new sound – one of flowing water from somewhere beyond a large English boxwood leftover from a former landscape.

I was sitting by a section of Meadow Creek that has been rehabilitated and restored, brought to the surface after being contained in the 1950’s.

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June 26, 2008

 

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This show originally aired in July, 2007 and then again on June 26, 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

Summer time is travel time – and for some of us involves hours in the car, watching the road, the clouds, the passing scenery. On a recent trip to Orkney Springs, I took stock of summertime’s fullness: the tree-covered mountains fuzzy with blossom, the roadside grasses, prolific and head-heavy with seed. I recognize chicory’s cheerful blue flowers, along with Queen Anne’s lace, mullein, and thistle.

Once at our destination, I take to foot along a rough macadam road headed towards West Virginia. Walking uphill at a leisurely pace, with a field guide in hand, I stop from time to time to identify those flowers I do not yet know. Bouncing Bet, or soapwort, with its generous flowering orbs of pale pink and white; New York ironweed, tall, stately, with emerging purple flowerets. Oxeye daisy, everlasting pea.

For better or for worse, roadways are as good as any for seeing wildflowers, in part because in clearing a swath through the trees suitable for roads we make it possible for other plants to thrive.

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April 10, 2008

 

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This show originally aired on April 10, 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.

Photo of shadbush by Dudley Rochester.

This is one of those weeks that you can literally watch the hourly changes as spring bursts forth. It’s hard to know where to put your attention, amidst all the flowering trees – the dogwoods blooming on cue for the Festival, the audacious magenta flowering crabapple, redbud blossoms lining dark branches in perfect counterpoint, like tiny purple Christmas lights.

In this area, if spring seems to be moving too fast, you can always travel to a higher elevation and catch it again. If I were headed to the hills, the one tree I’d still be looking for is the serviceberry, whose white showy flowers have always been a reliable marker of spring, but pass so quickly that you may have only a few days before the wind snatches them from the bud and soft green leaves unfurl in their place.

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March 27, 2008

 

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This show originally aired on March 27, 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.

About the same time that forsythia brazenly claims the color award in yards all over the watershed, there’s a quieter, but no less remarkable, yellow emerging in the hills and woodlands, especially in the damper, cooler swales. You could almost miss it if you were expecting something more dramatic, but it’s worth stopping and taking a closer look at the shy but ubiquitous spicebush, also known as Benjamin Bush.

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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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