This is the second
installment in an occasional series about volunteers for Evanston’s natural
areas.
At a certain angle,
meandering the paths at Harbert-Payne Woods, Celia Michener might herself be a
woodland creature checking on the beds of wild ginger and mayapple. She watches
for the deer that wander through the shrubs and trees, including Caesar, a
grand and antlered buck that wandered the woods last year. She named him. Now
there is a young buck resting a wounded leg near the mayapple beds.
Harbert-Payne Woods is in
the 13.5-acre
Harbert-Payne Park located
on the east side of the North Shore Channel from Main Street to Dempster
Street. With brambles of invasive buckthorn, but also cottonwood, walnut, cherry,
redbud, and other trees that offer good forage, the park is filled with
migratory birds in spring and fall.
Ms. Michener is one of two park stewards
at Harbert-Payne Woods, who plan and oversee habitat restoration by community
members: removing invasive plants that are not good for wildlife and adding
paths and native plants that provide food and cover for wildlife. Harbert-Payne
Woods in particular is benefitting from the Channel Habitat Fund, a new grant
from the Illinois Clean Energy Foundation that will apply up to $28,000 to
restore and expand natural habitat in Harbert-Payne and Ladd Arboretum.
“I always loved playing in
the dirt and I have never become tired of that,” Ms. Michener said.
“I grew up in Kansas and loved
the outdoors. As a child I dug clay and made my own tiny tea set out of clay.
Nearby there was a creek and undisturbed woods. There was an outcropping of
limestone. I would watch the flying
squirrels and walk the shallow creek.” Not just watching the birds and wildlife
in the park, Ms. Michener enjoys seeing kids running roughshod and wild in the
natural areas of the park. It is clear she feels their joy of discovery and
freedom.
Moving to Evanston in 1969 after
her husband took a position in the Northwestern African Studies Library, the
couple with their son and daughter lived in an apartment in southeast Evanston.
“I felt so constrained because I didn’t have my outdoors,” she said. She
planted flowers near the abandoned railway tracks along Chicago Avenue. Eventually
she secured a plot at the James Park community garden, where she staked out the
original garden plots.
About 11 years ago, she moved
to a house next to Harbert-Payne Woods, a quiet corner of Evanston. “I can see Harbert from my front window,” she
notes. “When I moved here, it was just a park people passed through jogging or
on bicycles, not heavily used. Then I saw people working to remove buckthorn. I
said, ‘Hmm that’s great.’”
During the pandemic,
Evanston parks, including Harbert-Payne, are heavily used, say the stewards who
oversee the parks. Many Evanstonians are taking stretch breaks and mental
health and exercise breaks outdoors with walks, jogs, and chats in Evanston
parks.
Harbert-Payne also is the
site for a dozen or more volunteers weekly, led by Ms. Michener and Allison
Sloan, the lead steward at Harbert-Payne.
They remove invasive buckthorn and plant natural habitat for birds and
wildlife. Common
buckthorn is a non-native invasive plant common along the North Shore
Channel, which runs beside Harbert-Payne Woods. Common buckthorn suppresses and
squeezes out native plants. It also provides poor quality food for bird: its
berries can cause a severe, laxative reaction: hence the Latin name, Rhamnus cathartica.
Ironically, the buckthorn also provides cover for birds and deer in
Harbert-Payne. So rather than having it removed all at once, it will be phased
out slowly so that native plants can grow and replace the invasive buckthorn
groves. Natural
areas in Evanston are required to be maintained by groups of community
volunteers.
Ms. Sloan, the lead steward
at Harbert-Payne, invited Ms. Michener to work with plant selection, as Ms. Michener
knows so well how to germinate native woodland plants, like wild onions.
Ms. Michener is
enthusiastically adding plant diversity in Harbert-Payne. “I’m somewhat limited
in what I can do physically, but I love to help with planning, plant and seed
selection, and leading work groups.”
At 79, Ms. Michener has
survived pancreatic and breast cancer and knee replacement. She says her knees
gave out from overuse from gardening, backpacking and canoeing, but it led to
the very lucky early detection of pancreatic cancer.
Ms. Sloan, Ms. Michener, and
their loyal volunteers are planning to add many food-forest native plants, like
pawpaw, elderberry, mulberry, pecan, and serviceberry trees, as well as
blackberry and onion. It can take as much as five years for the plants to start
producing, so Michener is keen to encourage visitors to leave buds and blooms.
“As soon as a flower appears, it is picked within one or two days,” she
sighs.
The new Channel Habitat Fund
will permit educational signage too, which Ms. Michener wants carefully worded. She suggests new signs might say “Leave the
flowers for everyone to enjoy. Let them make seeds to reproduce themselves and
to feed the wildlife critters.” Signs might also explain, “We cut out the
invasive buckthorn so that the native plants can thrive. Also, we cut and
remove dead trees that have fallen across the paths.”
Ms. Michener said, “I hope
people understand why we are cutting trees in the woods and will not find it
disturbing.”
Though somewhat unsightly, wire
cages also protect new plants from rabbits and deer. Eventually they will be
removed or moved to another new plant to give it a safe start. It is critical,
Ms. Michener acknowledges, “We need to say how we develop the park for people’s
enjoyment.”
Harbert-Payne plans for the
future at are to enlarge the natural area, group species together and hopefully
let them spread. “Groups of species are easier to keep an eye on,” Ms. Michener
considers. “Easier to gauge their success. Easier for education purposes.
Easier to educate about them and care for them. Easier to understand whether
they are successful and will spread.”
“Nature will win out,” Ms. Michener
says, thinking about wild onions. “Strange thing about them – they don’t form
their bulbs the first [year]. They look like little chives with a little spear.
It’s fun for me to learn and meet these plants in more detail.”
More
about the Channel Habitat Fund: The Illinois Clean Energy Foundation will
match donations and volunteer labor with financial disbursements of up to
$28,000 for the habitat restoration and signage. Contributions to Citizens’ Greener Evanston
for the Channel Habitat Fund, up to $7,000 are matched three times the value of
the donation, meaning $7,000 in private gifts will unlock $21,000 in foundation
funds. Anyone who wishes to donate can go to https://greenerevanston.org/channel-habitat-fund