Last Updated on May 16, 2019
The Nature Trail Committee is beginning to stir, casting off winter’s cloak and getting ready for spring. We are now planning for our 20th Wildflower Day celebration on April 9. Nature Trail Committee members will do a clean-up of the Trail in March in preparation for the Day. Members clean up their assigned sections of the Trail, clearing downed branches, smoothing the wood chips, and removing leaves from the wildflower areas alongside the Trail. Wildflower Day is timed to not only “officially” open the Trail after winter, but it also coincides with the first wildflowers coming into bloom along the Trail. Actually, the first wildflowers typically are the little yellow blossoms of the Lesser Celandine plants, which carpet eastern stream and river valleys in early spring with green. The green and yellow carpet is pretty, but the plant is non-native and very invasive, suppressing other spring plants. There is little we can do about the Celandine short of massive chemical spraying, which would wipe out the other plants also. So we have to put up with it.
There are two other projects in development to look forward to which are associated with the Nature Trail and the Lake Trail. One is a narrated video about Herbert Run, our stream through campus which flows alongside the Nature Trail. Residents George Miller, George Brenneman, and Bert Clegern are developing the video, which will show and describe our 5.5 mile East Branch of Herbert Run as it begins near the adjacent Veterans’ Cemetery, flows through campus and Arbutus, and eventually joins the Patapsco River, which is the main input to Baltimore Harbor.
The second project is the Old Stone Bridge Trail, which will be a short loop trail off the Lake Trail below the dam which forms Lake Charles. Most residents aren’t aware of the bridge, because
it if not visible from the Lake Trail, even in winter, and most folks don’t venture down into the woods below the dam. The 1906 bridge will now be accessible via the foot trail, which is currently being completed. The bridge was for a lane which ran from the old East Entrance when St. Charles Seminary property extended to Wilkins Road.