R.T.ECKENRODE DESIGN LLC

01/26/2025

Third times the charm

01/25/2025

Always great news to share the beauty of the many NFA's open space preserves with our community. The trail walk and refreshments were well received at our newest project Deep Brook Farm financed by generous donations from a wide variety of friends and neighbors. Thank you for your continued support in conserving some of the wildest places here in Newtown.

A nice group gathered for the hike.

01/25/2025

A letter from an attorney challenging the town’s decision to conditionally discontinue a section of Reservoir Road was filed a few days before the Borough of Newtown’s Zoning Commission continued deli...

01/25/2025

01/25/2025

See it before you Build it" Inside outside is the message here where a new bar and patio refresh happen all together as one complete design proposal. A local Brazilian Steak house gets a fresh look at the possibilities for outdoor dining and indoor entertainment.

01/13/2025

More great news and always a good time to take a hike

Our Deep Brook Farm Trail Scouting day has been rescheduled for next Saturday, January 18th. We'll be wandering the lower and upper portions of the property scouting out potential future trails. Join us for a fun day on our newest preserve. There will be a designated parking area along Deep Brook Road, we will have volunteers stationed to guide you where to go. Please RSVP to Trent if you're planning to attend.

01/07/2025

More great news from the forest

01/05/2025

Want to improve your winter tree identification skills? Here’s a good tip: Look for marcescent leaves.

Marcescence describes leaves that have turned brown and are still attached to trees. These withered leaves often persist on the trees until spring.

As you might expect, marcescence isn’t a feature displayed by too many woody plants. When you see a marcescent tree or shrub, you can narrow down your ID choices to a relatively small number of species.

In the temperate woodlands of eastern North America, marcescence is often displayed by hornbeam (Carpinus), beech (Fagus), witch-hazel (Hamamelis), hophornbeam (Ostrya), and oak (Quercus).

No one is exactly sure why marcescence exists. Here are a few hypotheses:

— It allows plants to photosynthesize longer into the autumn season.
— It deters herbivores from browsing twigs and buds.
— Marcescent trees provide shelter to animals that in turn provide nutrients to trees.
— Marcescent leaves, when they finally fall off, provide pulses of nutrients to their host trees.
— Marcescent leaves, when they finally fall off, smother new growth of competing woody plants in the spring.

All of these statements can be true to some degree, but it is uncertain whether any one of them is the true reason for marcescence.

Still, you and I can use marcescence to our advantage when attempting to identify woody plants. A good first step is to learn which woody plants are marcescent in our region. We can then seek out these plants, spend some time with them, and fall in love with the process.

01/05/2025

Dead wood is good wood!

If you have a tree that's unsafe in your yard, consider having the tree company leaving the trunk in place and just cutting it to a height that is safe. The remaining trunk will serve as habitat. (Consider planting Virginia creeper to climb up it to provide fruit for birds, serve as a host plant for hawk moths, and provide great fall color.)

01/05/2025

🐦 Some interesting advice along with a good Illustration by Shaun McCoshum PhD, from his upcoming book “Habitats and Homes”:

“A major myth often repeated promotes not "cleaning up" our yards. However, in nature before we wiped out large native animal populations, those animals trampled plants, cleared snow, and made paths. They cleaned up habitats in ways that other animals were able to utilize. Their actions provided foraging areas for birds when soils were exposed, insulated spaces where compressed vegetation held snow up and provided crawl spaces below, and cleared dead vegetation. Compressed and buried organic matter also provides necessary hibernacula and overwintering spaces for animals. 🐿

So, make sure to clear snow from some areas to expose soils for birds, trim plants some (not all) plant shoots and lay them on the ground to provide crawl spaces, and clear paths so that animals can move through snow packs more easily.” 🐦🦨

01/05/2025

New year = new skills. Why not learn how to identify oak trees in winter?

In eastern North America, oaks can be divided into a few groups including the red and white oak groups. In this image, white oaks are featured in the top row and red oaks are featured in the bottom row.

Bark patterns among oaks within a particular group tend to be similar, but subtle (and sometimes major) differences do exist. For example, white oak and swamp white oak share similar bark features (platy, somewhat shaggy), while chestnut oak is unique (ridged and deeply furrowed).

Looking at the bottom row, scarlet oak, pin oak, and northern red oak all have similar bark features, but the bark of northern red oak characteristically displays “ski track” patterns more consistently than the other two trees. The bark of black oak is typically the darkest.

If you find it challenging to identify oaks by bark alone, look for leaves still attached to the trees or those that have fallen near the bases of trunks. You can also look for acorns on the ground and try to figure out which trees produced them.

With practice, your tree identification skills will improve and you’ll be glad you put in the work. After all, and to slightly modify something Ben Franklin once said, an investment in knowledge [of trees] pays the best interest.

01/05/2025

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