Come, take a walk through the Wet Ecotone. Autumn is fading into Winter, and everything is covered with a thick coat of leaves. Come from the North, and pass between the pond and the Eastern Leaf Bed, where the sweetgrass is brown and rotting. Now, look to your left.

The pond has frozen several times already this year. It has been very cold. I have been working with the people in charge of the wetland on the area around it. When you are almost to the place where two trails join, look to your right.

This is the biggest, healthiest fern in the entire garden. It stands alone, in an island of land between the trails. Half-a-dozen people helped to plant it. This Sword Fern, like many other plants in the Ecotone, came from an area that is scheduled to be logged next Spring. When you come to the joining of the trails, turn left.

Until about a week ago, this Big-leaf Maple stump was growing large branches. Then someone cut them all off. They will grow back. Bruce Miller does not want any shade in this area of the garden. I disagree with him on this, and if I had my own way it would probably become a big willow thicket, but I won’t argue. As you wander along this trail, notice, on your right, the mound of soil. This berm helps to keep floodwaters away from the drier parts of the garden. When you reach another intersection, turn right.

As you look down this trail, you can tell by the direction of the grasses, that the floodwaters stream down this path straight towards you. The area on the left will one day be a fern garden. Turn right before the path becomes shaded.

There are two species of Horsetail in the Wet Ecotone, including Common Horsetail (Equisetum arvense) and Scouring Rush (E. hyemale). The latter is visible in this photo. Also visible are the two top entries in my list of “Plants I Could Do Without Very Happily”, Himalayan Blackberry and Buttercup. Continue on the trail.

On your right, if it isn’t covered by leaves, is the beginning of my nettle patch. Now step up onto the berm and look inside the hollow stump.

The spiky, very well-camouflaged stem is one of my Devil’s Club plants. Hopefully, next Summer it will have leaves, and be much easier to see. As you step back onto the trail, notice the salmonberry and huckleberry and coltsfoot plants.

On the left side of the trail, if you know where to look, you can see and smell my Wild Ginger.

As you leave my trail, look back at the dancing, lightning-struck maple tree. If you climb up into it you can see all of this beautiful, resting bit of land.

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Goodbye.

Aliyah Shanti

December 3, 2003