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The Why’s and How To’s of Land Conservation Featuring Ellen Fred
The Why’s and How To’s of Land Conservation Featuring Ellen Fred On Thursday, April 18, 2024, North Shore Land Alliance hosted two seminars about conservation easements featuring Ellen Fred, a nationally recognized legal expert and Principal with Conservation Partners LLP. She has been a frequent presenter on myriad conservation law topics since 2004, including for the Land Trust Alliance and the California Council of Land Trusts. The morning lecture featured in-depth overviews of conservation easements, drafting and negotiating easement agreements, appraisals/valuations and easement stewardship. Attendees included lawyers, accountants, appraisers, wealth managers, village officials, realtors and landowners. Each component of Ellen’s lecture offered professionals, useful background and insight. CLE credits were offered to lawyers and accountants. The afternoon session, which took place at the Land Alliance office, featured a more intimate roundtable discussion for landowners who were interested in an overview of the easement process and the potential tax advantages available for easement donors. This event showcased the Land Alliance’s commitment to engaging the community in the various elements of land conservation. A cohesive and informed team of professionals, working with interested landowners and a qualified conservation organization, creates a formula for conservation success. Many thanks to all who attended. For more information about conservation easements and the process involved, please contact the Land Alliance at 516-922-1028 or info@northshorelandalliance.org. We will be happy to share Ellen’s presentation with you.
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Tree and Shrub Pruning Workshop with Horticulturist Richard Weir
Tree and Shrub Pruning Workshop with Horticulturist Richard Weir On March 21, 2024, North Shore Land Alliance hosted a workshop for volunteers and homeowners about how to properly prune trees and shrubs. This workshop was led by Richard Weir III, who prior to retirement was the program manager for horticultural and environmental issues for Cornell Cooperative Extension in Nassau County. Richard led the group on a walk around the Humes Preserve, highlighting different tree/shrub species and explaining the whats, whens, wheres, whys and hows associated with pruning. In Richard’s book, Pruning: An Illustrated Guide to Pruning Ornamental Trees and Shrubs, he states that, “Pruning should be viewed as a regular part of a maintenance schedule rather than as a remedial correction of long-neglected problems.” The term pruning refers to the selective removal of plant parts (branches, shoots, etc.) for a reason. Good reasons include maintaining the health of the plant, preventing injury from dead or dying limbs and controlling the size of the plant or maintaining a certain shape. The type of 26 pruning and species you are pruning will determine when it should be done. Here are some basic pruning rules that are helpful for everyone to know. Maintenance Pruning, which is pruning plants in a selective manner to keep shrubs and trees in scale with their surroundings and healthy, should be done in March or April before the plant starts to bud. The plant is still dormant at that time and will heal itself quickly once the spring growth starts. It is important to determine branch configuration/ structure before the leaves come out. You can also prune in late June/July, a time when the major amount of new growth is completed. Rejuvenation pruning, which is harsh and done on overgrown shrubs, must be done in late winter/early spring. Dead or diseased limbs can be removed at any time. Saving Land – Spring/Summer Newsletter 2024When you are cutting back branches, it is important to cut back to a node. A node is the point on the stem or branch where the buds or branching twigs originate. Cutting back a branch to just above the node is important to prevent that section of the branch from dying. The other buds coming from that node will continue to grow into new branches. If a branch is clipped below the node, you leave an internode section that will die and therefore can’t form new buds. Proper pruning requires proper pruning equipment. You will need a sharp pair of bypass hand pruners, a pruning saw and long handled loppers. Richard also recommends a pole pruner for hard-to-reach branches. The choice of tool will be dictated by the part of the plant you are pruning. If it is new growth or thin branches, hand pruners should suffice. If you are working on larger branches, loppers or a pruning saw will be more effective. It is important to remember to clean all of your tool blades with rubbing alcohol after each use to prevent diseases from being transferred from plant to plant. Richard’s advice to homeowners is, “Don’t be hesitant to try pruning your landscape plants, as most of them are very forgiving (even if you make a mistake)”. If you are looking for more information about how to prune your ornamental shrubs, Pruning: An Illustrated Guide to Pruning Ornamental Trees and Shrubs written by Donald A. Rakow and Richard Weir III is available online at www.ccelivingstoncounty.org/ resources/guide-to-pruning-ornamental-trees-shrubs. #gallery-2 { margin: auto; } #gallery-2 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 100%; } #gallery-2 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-2 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */
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How Can We Help the Bees? Lecture Featuring Dr. Kate Lecroy of Cornell University
How Can We Help the Bee Lecture Featuring Dr. Kate Lecroy of Cornell University Did you know that there are more than 20,000 bee species in the world? Of those, 450 species are native to New York State, and they come in all shapes, sizes and colors. There is still so much that we don’t know about bees. Many are smaller than a grain of rice and almost 10% of bees in America are yet to be described. Despite the diversity, every bee has the same job – pollination! Native bees play a huge role in our ecosystem, pollinating almost 80% of flowering plants around the world. Based on a study by the Cornell College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, many important, high-value crops are dependent on bees for successful production. Some of these crops include apples ($250M/year), squash and pumpkin ($74M/year), tomatoes ($47M/year), strawberries ($7M/year), cherries ($3M/year) and pears ($2.5M/year). Unfortunately, many of our native bees are in decline. In a recent Land Alliance guest lecture by bee expert Dr. Kathryn Lecroy, we learned that more than 50% of 34 North American native bee species are in decline and nearly one in four are at an increasing risk of extinction. Why are these bees in decline? According to Dr. Lecroy, most bees are threatened by agricultural intensification, habitat destruction, overuse of pesticides, climate change, urbanization and predation by nonnative bees. Dr. Lecroy has also found that non-native bees outcompete native bees in developed areas, while native bees thrive in open spaces. There are so many things we can do to help native bees thrive in our own back yards. Most importantly, we can support bee communities by providing habitat. Some of the best practices suggested by the Empire State Native Pollinator Survey include: Reduce pesticide and herbicide use. Control invasive plants and maintain native species. Aim to plant species that bloom year round to provide a long-term food source. Mow your yard less and cut at the tallest setting. Preserve bee habitat by letting native flowering grasses bloom longer. Minimize outdoor lighting as it can disrupt foraging behaviors of bees. Leave coarse woody materials on your property for nesting habitat. Bees are in serious trouble. Native bees are indispensable to the health of the natural world and are perilously under protected. Let’s start helping bees by making small changes in our yard because, without these tiny, tireless creatures our world would be a dreary and impoverished place. #gallery-3 { margin: auto; } #gallery-3 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 100%; } #gallery-3 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-3 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */
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Land Alliance Long Island Water Education Program Surpasses 10,000 Students Served
Land Alliance Long Island Water Education Program Surpasses 10,000 Students Served After a pandemic year+ of postponement and a second year of remote learning (with supplies packed and delivered to schools) educator Karen Mossey finally returned to the classroom (with some interruptions!) during the 2021/2022 school year. And an exciting year this was with the total number of students served since the program’s inception surpassing 10,000. Enterprising as always and like educators everywhere faced with dramatic changes the pandemic required, Karen managed to add new school partners (Hewlett and Ogden in the Hewlett-Woodmere school district and St. James in the Smithtown school district). She nimbly adapted to remote learning. She did this by creating a video of the “build an aquifer” session and distributing a set of supplies for EACH student to the schools. Her efforts were carried out while getting her own school-age children through remote learning at home. Cheers to Karen, and educators all over.
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Reflections from a Long Island Water Education Teacher
Since 2014, the North Shore Land Alliance has been visiting my West Side School sixth-grade science classes in Laurel Hollow to teach about the effects of pollution on Long Island’s aquifer. I have been teaching for over 30 years, and this workshop/field trip is by far my favorite! Two classroom workshops are held by Karen Mossey from the Long Island Water Education Program, in preparation for the field trip to the Shore Road Sanctuary. Through hands-on inquiry, Ms. Mossey engages the students to think about the amount of drinking water that is on Earth, which leads them to question about our drinking water here on Long Island. Ms. Mossey brings in supplies so the students can build their own aquifers, which allows them to visualize the different layers of Long Island’s Magothy aquifer. The kids are always amazed to discover that we rely on water that comes from an aquifer and how important it is to keep it clean. The hands-on field trip to the Land Alliance’s preserve in Cold Spring Harbor connects what the kids learned during Ms. Mossey’s classroom visits and their own world. My students are always delighted to discover the grassland, shoreline and life buried in the sand and under the rocks, while testing water quality and soil permeability. Every year one of the highlights is discovering the abundance of the Asian Shore Crab species, first found on the North American Atlantic coast in 1988, and the impact invasive species have on our ecosystems. The students love to find mussels, (especially after learning that just one consumes four gallons of water every day), and blue-blooded horseshoe crabs that have been inhabiting our shorelines for over 450 million years. Volunteer educators explain that each day, litter finds its way to our shores. This program has truly impacted my students over the years – they leave the experience always wanting to educate others. Since its inception, the LIWEP has reached 7,708 students in 25 schools in 14 school districts from north to south. This impact would not have been possible without dedicated funding from the Scotts Miracle-Gro Foundation, the Merrilyn Foundation, the Rauch Foundation and the Weyerhaeuser Family Foundation.
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