Gardening has two aspects on these two acres. One is gardening in the traditional sense of growing and cultivating ornamental plants for their loveliness and useful plants such as vegetables, fruits, herbs for eating. The second aspect is more land restoration, the process to restoring this little bit of Connecticut to a more natural state for the benefit of the wildlife.
The nasty, thorny and rampant...
The worst of the lot was Japanese barberry (Berberis thunbergii), multiflora rose (Rosa multiflora Thunb.), oriental bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus Thunb.) and wineberry (Rubus phoenicolasius Maxim). Unfortuately we have three Norway Maples that are a good 100 years old and too big to drop. The other tree invader is “Stinking” Chinese Sumac (Ailanthus altissima). Why they call it “Tree of Heaven” is beyond me. Both of these species not only block out native trees but they prevent anything from growing up around them. Lower on the list is common mullein (Verbascum thapsus L.) and garlic mustard.
But not all was bad…
There are lvery old sugar maples and graceful red maples (Acer rubrum). There is a pin oak (uercus palustris ) with its very distinctive and unusual branching habit. The upper branches are upright, middle ones horizontal and its lower limbs slant gracefully towards earth. There are black walnuts, small tulip poplars and a lone pussy willow (Salix discolor). There are river birch (Betula nigra), stands of sweet birch (Betula lenta) and very graceful pair of grey birch. And everywhere are young and old eastern red cedar (Juniperus virginiana) which are important providers of protective cover for birds and small mammals, as well as nest sites for birds.
Winterberry holly (Ilex verticillata) with berries that turn red in early fall hugs a stone wall. Throughout the glen are spicebush (Lindera benzoin) , a small understory shrub that is one of the first shrubs to flower each spring. This plant is an important host plant to butterflies in the swallowtail family, especially the Spicebush Swallowtail and the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail.
There are swaths of False Lily-of-the-valley (Maianthemum canadense) which is a perennial groundcover and has an "endangered" or "threatened" status in some areas as well as squirrel corn (Dicentra Canadensis), an herbaceous plant with finely dissected leaves, and white heart-shaped flowers that is threatened in the state of Connecticut.
In the woods are Jack-in-the-Pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum), skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus), trillium foetidissimum (Perennial Foetid Trillium) and ferns of all sorts.
Donated plants from friends and family are starting to fill out the flower beds near the house and the herb garden that stands in front of the outhouse was started as well.
We have work to do but certainly a wonderful starting place. | 
