[highland-conservancy]E-Newsletter - Community Garden

[highland-conservancy at hyrule.one-point.com]

Highland Conservancy E-Newsletter
June 1, 2008
 
A Community Garden in Highland?
Are Victory Gardens in vogue again?  Yes and this is exciting!  There has been an amazing ground surge of interest and support for planting community food gardens as a way to save money and ensure high food quality.  The Highland Conservancy in partnership with Highland United Methodist Church is working with church members to start up a Community Garden on the church grounds just off Livingston Road in Highland, west of Highland Elementary.  We already have a large plot, top soil and many interested folks.  Now we need to hammer out the details like a sprinkler system, fencing, “meet and weed” times, etc.  The first meeting to strategize and finalize arrangements will be held at the church parsonage Sunday, June 1st at 9:30AM (also 11:10 AM and 12:40PM).  The parsonage is the house located on Livingston Road just to the east of the entrance to the church.  We plan to start planting ASAP so if you are interested in participating and planting your own plot, join us to share your ide
as or call Katheryn Krupa with questions at 248-887-4643.
FOR THE ARTICLE - Click on:  www.highlandconservancy.typepad.com 
 
Mustard Destroyed!
We had quite a crowd of dedicated volunteers who worked through sprinkles and braved poison ivy to bag up garlic mustard at Highland Oaks.  A heartfelt thanks to those who helped us clear the entire north end (and some of the south) of this nasty invasive.  Oakland County Parks was very grateful for the support and hard work of the Highland Conservancy in getting this important task done.  We also discovered some rare flowers, saw a spotted salamander, a snake, and lots of wildflowers.  There is a huge infestation of autumn olive but that had to be left for another day.  If you are interested in joining the Friends of Highland Oaks, please contact Dave Pollard:  248-889-9558
 
Use No Phosphorus Fertilizer
Just a reminder as you reseed lawns and fertilize again, it is highly recommended that you use no phosphorus fertilizer.  It is quite rare that phosphorus is actually needed in our soils, and it does an incredible amount of damage to lakes, streams and watersheds.  Please take care to purchase fertilizer that has little to no phosphorus by making sure the middle number on the label is a zero, for example:   16 - 0- 8
 
Wedding Trees?
Recently I read an excellent article in the paper about planting a pair of trees to celebrate a marriage.  What a wonderful idea!  If you drive around Michigan, you might notice a pair of huge oaks or maples on either side of an old farmhouse or gracing the middle of a cornfield.  I hope you will consider giving a gift of a pair of trees to someone you know who is getting married, having a baby or celebrating an anniversary.  What an awesome legacy.  Speaking of trees we gave away almost 500 white pines at the Hi-White parade.  White pines can live for hundreds of years and I was privileged to visit an old growth forest of 300- 400 year old white pines this week at Hartwick Pines.  They were amazing and quite beautiful.
 
Protecting your Land for the Future
I recently spoke with a landowner who has a stunningly beautiful piece of property.  He enjoys the fact that it is natural, beautiful and undeveloped yet he was worried about the ramifications of a conservation easement (CE) for his land.  Would it mean people would be tramping around on his property?  Would it mean he couldn’t put a house on it in the future?  Would he lose control of it?  There are many ways to write a CE and a great deal of flexibility exists in how it can be written.  You can adapt it to fit your desires and your vision.  You can even specify that part of it can be built on or not.  If you would like more information, please visit our website or contact us at the email address below.
 
Katheryn Krupa, Editor 
www.highlandconservancy.org 
www.highlandconservancy.typepad.com 
artfingers at comcast.net
 
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