Updates
July 2024
The AMC Nature Preserve is now featured on the Akron Borough website!
Visit Akron Borough’s website
June 2024
Thanks to the efforts of many volunteers, the Nature Preserve and AMC’s campus are basking in spring beauty. The paths through the preserve have been covered with new mulch, the meadow is in full bloom, plants have been tended and mulched, and the new benches have been set in place.
Beside each bench is a sign which includes a QR code. The QR code can be used to access a set of meditative poems and writings using a mobile phone. We have had an educational visit to the Nature Preserve with further visits planned in the month ahead.
April 2024
Many of the trees have burst into leaf.
Tree stewards have been checking their health and the stability of the tubes and stakes.
Volunteers are in the process of adding mulch to the wood chip paths for the new season.
A new “guardian” tree, a sycamore, has been planted at the corner of the parking lot,
overlooking the entire Nature Preserve.
November 2023
In November a number of volunteers added stone around the base of each tree tube.
This was in response to research by the Stroud Water Research Center
which demonstrated that this would lessen the likelihood of voles nesting in the tree tubes,
eating the bark and girdling (killing) the tree.
October 2023
Having identified trees that had not survived this spring’s drought,
we obtained replacement tress from several sources.
With the help of volunteers and despite a rainy day, we were able to plant about
100 replacement saplings or nuts (acorns, hickory nuts) in October.
We also added new plantings around the bio-retention basin and in the area
where equipment and excess soil had been stored over the summer.
All of these new plants were numbered, tagged and mapped
in the same way as the rest of the trees.
July / August 2023
Now that the trees have been in the ground for 9 months,
a team of AMC’s trained “Riparian Rangers” and other volunteers are working to check on the health of the trees and to enable future care and maintenance. Each tree in the Nature Preserve is being examined and documented. We are weeding around the tree; checking that the stake is upright and stable and that the tube is firmly attached; identifying the species of tree in each tube; adding a tag with a unique number and the species to each tube;
documenting these facts in a log along with the estimated height of the tree.
We are pleased to note that we are recording about 80% survival rate after 9 months, despite the drought this Spring. We have marked with a clothes pin any tube where the tree planted last October has died, and these will be re-planted this coming October.
