Exploring autumn’s natural beauty at the new Veterans Legacy Woods in Newbury Township awakens a continued sense of possibility.
Exploring autumn’s natural beauty at the new Veterans Legacy Woods in Newbury Township awakens a continued sense of possibility.
Geauga Park District purchased the 180-acre park in the fall of 2018 with the intent of restoring the rolling scenic landscape’s former golf course to a more natural state. On Nov. 3, it had help with a tree planting project in collaboration with volunteers from One Tree Planted and Nestle’.
About 45 volunteers from One Tree Planted, a Vermont nonprofit organization focused on global reforestation, and 60 volunteers from Solon’s Nestle’ Research & Development Centre came together to plant 135 native trees and install protective fencing and caging in areas to be reforested.
The groups funded all trees and supplies for the park’s Natural Resource Management and Restoration Plan.
“This project will serve as a highly-visible and publicly-accessible learning and educational opportunity to inform park visitors of the importance of reforestation and maintaining tree canopy cover to preserve high-quality streams, restore impaired streams and help maintain cold water tributaries of the Cuyahoga River,” said Park Biologist Paul Pira.
OTP’s Community Forestry team coordinated the employee engagement event for Nestlé USA.
“While we love supporting large-scale reforestation projects in locations all over the world, we also love to buckle down and focus on facilitating smaller community events and implementing urban forestry initiatives,” said Kat Sherwood, OTP’s Eastern USA event coordinator.
A Nestle’ spokesperson said OTP recommended the veteran’s park project in Geauga County as a great way to help engage their employees and make a positive impact in the community, as Nestlé strives for a more sustainable future and a healthier planet.
Pira said the reforestation goal is to facilitate the long-term return of a large, mature, native forest ecosystem through planned habitat restoration.
“Many areas within the park have started to re-naturalize (natural tree/shrub seedling recruitment) and some initial reforestation was started in the spring of 2022, but additional trees are needed at this site to better jumpstart the recovery process while reducing the flow of stormwater and associated soil erosion, sedimentation and nutrient loading in the Cuyahoga River watershed,” Pira said. “Annual reforestation efforts are planned for one priority area each year until the site has been completely planted.”
Trees planted included Pin Oak, Sugar Maple, American Sycamore, silky and gray dogwoods and others, as well as shrubs anywhere from 4 feet to 6 feet tall.
Matt Kneitel, a GPD land steward involved in the project, said this is a special property because it is being protected from development and allowed to revert to forest.
“As that happens, there is a mix of flowering plants in the fairways, regeneration of trees, ponds and streams, all surrounded by mature forest,” Kneitel said. “This property will provide habitat requirements for migrating birds and butterflies, and will expand forests needed for hawks, owls, deer and rodents. We also protected a stretch of the Cuyahoga River watershed. As we plant fairways, we speed up the natural succession toward forest and we add to the species diversity by planting additional native trees and shrubs.”
In addition, trees were selected based on the site’s soil conditions.
“Also, very importantly, (it is) for the benefit of local wildlife,” Pira added. “We also have learned that you absolutely need to protect the trees immediately with fencing to avoid deer browsing on them. We planted most of the trees in ‘pods’ or clustered groupings that were approximately 30 feet by 20 feet and then all of them were fenced in together. This seems to be the most effective way we have found for doing these types of large-scale plantings.”
Pira hopes the project is the start of a collaboration between the GPD and many local corporations and larger outside nonprofit organizations.
Sherwood said her organization will continue to work with the GPD to monitor and maintain the trees for the first few years of their lives to ensure the highest rate of survival possible.
“We’re so happy to have been able to facilitate this event and get the community passionate about reforestation,” Sherwood added. “Having volunteers come out to get their hands in the dirt is so important to our cause. The site that was planted on used to be a golf course, so seeing people be so passionate about rewilding it was amazing. Both partners were amazing to work with and we can’t wait to coordinate more events with them in the future.”
Pira said the park district needs all the help it can get with large-scale habitat restoration projects like this one.
“We have lots of great plans for future work at this park and many others, too,” Pira said. “This is just the beginning.”
