The Mother Nature Curve Ball was originally published in the BFEC Newsletter, Vol. 18/No. 3, Summer 2014.
If we’re honest, creating a "natural" area is bit of a contradiction and every now and again, Mother Nature likes to smack our arrogant little hands in way of reminder. Such has been the case down the road (along the Kokosing River and SR 229) where a very nice mix of prairie grasses, flowing plants and several hundred oak trees are currently sitting under a foot or two of water. Again. Shortly after planting, they enjoyed a six month tour of Dante’s lowest circles (the cold ones) then multiple floods rivaling Noah’s whole deal and now the Kokosing is exploring novel parts of the river valley for a fourth time in about as many months. Lesson learned Nature; touché... And yet the introduced native flora planted in our Laymon Road restoration area fared better than one might have predicted... Is it possible that nature is more resilient than Nature? In your face Mama!
Of the forty-odd oak species that were planted at our Laymon Road restoration area, only three suffered significant mortality rates. Our experimental Laurel and Water with them. So it seems Mother Nature did teach us at least two lessons: 1) White oaks are lousy at holding their breath, and 2) If you plant trees from southern ranges to see if they can survive in northern ranges in the context of climate change, don’t bank on the climate changing in a particular direction. Mother Nature is nothing if not a contrarian.