A Good New Year For Lupine

Sprout Is In Upper Left


There are encouraging signs in the original planted Scrub Lupine patch.
Today I counted about 20 small lupines sprouting in the bare white sand.
There has been no significant recruitment up until now and having some is vital to the establishment of a sustainable population here to fulfill the goals of the recovery plan.
The other unknown is how many of these tiny sprouts will make it to maturity.
I guess we'll know in 2014 or 2015.
I say this because the initial planting in December 2008 involved somewhat larger plants. They bloomed for the first time in the spring of 2010.
I checked the newer planting area to the south cursorily. I found one sprout, but the Natal grass is so rife in parts of that planting area, it's difficult to tell. I didn't realize that planting area had not been weeded earlier or I would have tackled the problem.
The problem is aggravated by the fact that there's plenty of seed source for the Natal grass nearby because of the additional openings. It's too late to worry about that now. The damage has been done.

Another Preserve, Another Cleanup

I'd been doing wildlife surveys for several years in portions of Lake Wales Ridge State Forest in east Polk. One of the things that has bugged me for some time  was the accumulation of what appeared to be a lot of household trash in the woods next to the Lake Walk in the Water boat ramp, which is part of the forest property.

Two hours and six bags or so later the area looks much better.

There was a great amount of plastic waste, some of which was probably dumped there and some of which may have washed in from the lake during extreme high water, but there were many bottles. They were recycled.