October Second Saturday Clean Up:

Watterson science teacher Will Wreiss and his students join Adena Brook Community volunteers each month to maintain the Adena Brook rain garden and remove invasive plants and litter from Overbrook Ravine Park.  Greg Schneider from ODNR Natural Areas and Preserves supervises and inspires our work. As always, thank you to Mark and Carina Carter for mowing and edging the Cooke Road/Overbrook corner and keeping it free of litter.

Number of volunteers:18

Number of bags of litter removed:10*

Honeysuckle, Euonymous vines, Tree of Heaven piles: 3

Hours worked: 2

*Bags were sorted into recyclables and landfill trash. We placed the bags in our home bins.

Volunteers:
Will Wreiss and 10 students
Greg Schneider
Mark and Carina Carter
Steve and Georgia Blum-Herminghausen
Bill Platt (photographer)
Susan MIchael Barrett

Many thanks to recent Adena Brook Community donors:

John Kennedy, Ingham

John Russell, Ingham

All donations cover expenses to conserve the woodland in Overbrook Ravine Park and Adena Brook. Here is a little information to let you know what your donation supports: approximately 1,300 neighbor volunteers have worked about 3,000 hours in the last six years. We’ve planted about 2,000 native trees, installed and maintain 62 wildlife nesting boxes, and installed the first city/community rain garden in Clintonville to improve water quality and beautify the landscape. We’ve worked monthly from February through November to pick up over 2000 bags of trash and remove plants invasive to the Adena Brook habitat. To date, we’ve removed approximately 380 tons of invasive plants such as bush honeysuckle and garlic mustard. Removal of invasive plants from the woodland and our yards assures return of the historic seed bank in the woodland. Perhaps you’ve already noticed a recent flourish of spring and fall wildflowers. Professional mentors guide our work. Learn more by clicking the “ABOUT US” tab at the top of this page.

Adena Brook is recognized as a 2002 Friend of FLOW, paid tribute by the Ohio House of Representatives and the Clintonville Area Commission in 2005, listed as a leader in the Keep Columbus Beautiful Adopt-an-Area program since 2002, honored by Clintonville Chamber of Commerce in 2007 as the Booster Volunteers of the Year, and recipient of a prestigious 2008 SWACO Emerald Award for our litter removal efforts and the first collaboratively installed city and community rain garden at High and Overbrook.

These gifts are so much more than donations. They are gifts of environmental care and preservation for us and future generations.

Many trees were either lost or damaged in the wind storm. A way we can help conserve our neighborhood ravine habitat is to plant a diverse selection of native trees this fall and spring. If all of us plant 2 different trees on our properties, we’ll help assure our grandchildren enjoy this precious ecosystem in the future.

Maybe some of you saw the huge red oak on Glenmont Avenue that went down in the storm. This gentle giant was one of the trees blocking Glenmont Avenue traffic in the area just west of the Wynding Drive intersection for 4 days. Many neighbors lost power just after the winds began on Sunday, September 14 and didn’t get power back until Friday night, September 19. Cable returned on Sunday, September 21st. Others were more or less fortunate. It was a time of community building. I met new neighbors. I am fortunate to live next door to dear friend Barbara Lloyd who brought me a French press coffee each morning at 7 AM! We helped each other clean up, and even pulled our grills into the street to cook and share our food.

Red Oak down on Glenmont

storm damage

Tree on roof

Glenmont

storm damage

SECOND SATURDAY CLEAN UP

Kip Patterson is an Adena Brook neighbor and member of the Adena Brook Community Team of neighbors. He holds maps of Adena Brook, the water and sewer lines. He also has some maps of work of CIPs in our watershed. He and Susan Michael Barrett talk to and attend meetings with city workers related to capital improvement projects. We share what we learn with Adena Brook neighbors. Look for messages from Kip Patterson about CIP 749 in the coming months.

JUNE CLEAN UP

The clean up was fun! These 17 neighbors weeded the rain garden and pulled garlic mustard:

Georgia Blum-Herminghausen

Ken Cahill

Mark and Carina Carter (I-71 Cooke Road exit area)

Stacey, John, Tanner Durst

Ann Laubach (E. Schreyer area)

Diana Lessner

Kip Patterson

Nan Platt

Judy and Bob Robinson

Molly Ryan-Fisher

Greg Schneider

Pam Turrell

Susan Michael Barrett

Thank you to mentor and botanist Greg Schneider who continues to add wetland prairie species to the Adena Brook Rain Garden. Greg planted a large clump of Culver’s root and three clumps of spike-rush

with arrowhead.