Hike Local: South Peachtree Creek Trail

 

A friend invited us to see this local (Atlanta) trail and an adjacent park, Mason Mill Park. We were fresh off a trip to see gnome houses at Chattahoochee Nature Center with our grandson, and she promised a nice trail with good native plants and gnomes too.

After the hike, she shared a copy of “Hiking Atlanta’s Hidden Forests: Intown and Out” by Jonah McDonald. This hike is featured on page 39. [We actually entered via Mason Mill Park (good parking) instead of the Scott Circle entry point.] This is a wonderful book, full of trails to hike and the details needed to get there, plus a map of the hike, some of the history of the area/trail, as well as important details like fees, hours, and facilities. While documenting hikes both inside and outside the Perimeter, this book also offers some details about interesting trees (noted as Sentinel Trees) on the trail and birds you might see. Pick up a copy if you’d like ideas for hikes without having to drive to the mountains.

The arrow shows where we started

The hike is one of the PATH Foundation’s trails and it has some wide paved areas as well as some dirt footpaths. There were a fair number of walkers on the paved areas with much fewer on the footpaths (which is also where we found the gnomes). From the parking area, we turned right to walk that part of the trail (best viewing for gnome houses), passing over a railroad track and Burnt Fork Creek.

Our favorite gnome house

Invasive plant removal continues to be a task for the folks maintaining the area. We immediately saw blooming bush honeysuckle (Lonicera maackii) in addition to the usual privet (Ligustrum sinense). As we crossed over the creek on a stone bridge (turn left after the bridge to see a few gnome homes), two different non-native ferns were colonizing the high streambank: autumn fern (Dryopteris erythrosora) and Mariana maiden fern (Macrothelypteris torresiana). Local parks are a good place to volunteer to help manage invasive plants as a community project.

Autumn fern and Mariana maiden fern

Natural stands of mountain laurel (Kalmia latifolia) were just starting to bloom along the trail near our first gnome house. We also passed sweetshrub (Calycanthus floridus), see photo on  left, on the climb back to the paved trail. 

There we found blooming fragrant yellow azaleas (Rhododendron austrinum), part of an earlier beautification project. Nearby were two fringetrees (Chionanthus), both of them were blooming. However, the larger one is a Chinese fringetree (C. retusus); it was my first time to see one in bloom. Next week’s blog will compare the two.

Hexastylis arifolia

Maianthemum racemosum

We transitioned again to a dirt path to find more gnome houses and saw some great native perennials such as heartleaf ginger (Hexastylis arifolia), Solomon’s seal (Polygonatum biflorum), and Solomon’s plume (Maianthemum racemosum). During a break on a large rock next to Burnt Fork Creek, we explored the sandy edges where the creek occasionally jumps the bank (kids love sand, you know). Here we found more infestations of autumn fern, undoubtedly being spread by the water; one clump was partially uprooted, ready to be washed downstream in the next big rain event (increasing the spread even further).

Autumn fern washed into this beech's root zone

From here, we walked back towards the paved path, passing a nice stand of Virginia sweetspire (Itea virginica) along the way. Our friend then took us to an area where a group of volunteers have been working to eradicate English ivy and other invasive plants (and doing a fantastic job). A blooming native azalea, apparently naturally occurring, was a bright orange-red; I believe it is Oconee azalea (Rhododendron flammeum). If you get a chance, explore this trail for yourself and, if you have some time, volunteer to help remove some of the invasive plants. You’ll learn a lot in the process and help nature grow just a little bit more.

 

Perhaps this tire is protecting the azalea?

Hike Local: Stone Mountain Park

 

Winter hikes can be useful for kids during the winter break so we took our 5-year old grandson to hike the walk-up trail at Stone Mountain this week during his school break. He was interested in all the rocks (examining small bits of it for minerals), but I was interested to see what plants I could recognize so this blog is about what I found on what is called the walk-up trail that goes to the top of the mountain.

Winter can be a challenge for identifying plants that have gone dormant. However, many of them leave clues behind (dried leaves, distinctive twigs, even a few tardy leaves, plus fruit and seeds) and I found enough clues to keep me busy (and lagging behind while the youngster raced ahead with my husband).

Quercus georgiana

Quercus georgiana

The first plant that caught my attention was Georgia oak (Quercus georgiana). This lower-growing species of oak is endemic to granite outcrops. Most of the plants were still holding onto dried leaves but I found a couple that still had good green-red leaves. Next I spotted the first of what would be many populations of sparkleberry (Vaccinium arboreum). Many of them still had a few reddish leaves and had fruit on the branches. Apologies for the blur; those little berries make it tough for the camera to focus.

Sparkleberry (Vaccinium arboreum)

Winged elm (Ulmus alata)

Winged elm (Ulmus alata) is common there but this particular individual really caught my attention; these wings are huge! At first I thought it might be a sweet gum, which also has winged twigs, but the very slender twigs encased in these wings were a clue it was the elm. Many plants are off to the edges of the trail where plants have created small woodland communities in the cracks of the rocks in soil created over time by plant debris. I spotted this small fern several times there; I think it is a marginal fern (Dryopteris marginalis) which is reported to be in the park and can be somewhat evergreen.

Fern with native goldenrod (left) and grass (below)

Pines are all around the trail (there’s even a huge one in the middle, sharing a large crack with an oak tree). Four species are reported in the park: loblolly pine (Pinus taeda), shortleaf pine (Pinus echinata), Virginia pine (Pinus virginiana), and pitch pine (Pinus rigida). This tree at the top of the mountain was quite stunted; it is probably Virginia pine or shortleaf.

Here are a couple of photos to show perspective: the youngster running up the trail and the view from the top with protected lichens (behind the fence) with a view of Atlanta in the background.

Note: For a good reference book for plants found in association with granite outcrops, see the book “Guide to the Plants of Granite Outcrops” by William Murdy and Eloise Carter.

Hike Local posts are an occasional feature in this blog (find the previous ones here) about hikes that are fairly local to the metro Atlanta area. My focus is on the plants that I found along the way.

Graffiti dating to at least 1899 is visible on the walk-up trail. I wonder if this one was meant to illustrate the Georgia oak. Do those look like acorns on the tips of branches to you?

Hike Local: Old Mill Park

The mill dam as viewed from the upper trail

Winter days can be mild and rainy and those are perfect conditions for small outings with waterfalls. In our ongoing efforts to entertain our young grandson, we visited a fairly local waterfall this week. Old Mill Park in historic Roswell is a favorite local park for its easy trails and scenic views.

Our mid-morning arrival found plenty of parking and few visitors, allowing us to ramble mask-free along the trails on both sides of Vickery Creek. We crossed over the covered bridge and hiked up the steps to the Vickery Creek Trail, part of the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area. You can also reach this trail from their parking lot off Riverside Road.

That side of the creek has amazing native vegetation: as we walked high above the creek, the path was lined on both sides with a mixture of mountain laurel (Kalmia latifolia) and Piedmont rhododendron (Rhododendron minus). In fact, these two evergreen shrubs were so unusually abundant that the view reminded me of the more familiar, but invasive, privet. I can’t wait to go back in May and see these in bloom! In the meantime, there was plenty of Christmas fern (Polystichum acrostichoides), evergreen ginger (Hexastylis arifolia), glowing moss, and rosettes of native asters and goldenrods.

Vickery Creek Trail with Rhododendron

Rhododendron minus buds

On the Old Mill Park side of the creek, there are more facilities: restrooms, concrete paths, restful spots, and trash cans. It was the perfect place to enjoy a snack next to the roaring waterfall and answer questions like “Does the water ever stop?” Think about that … all night long, water is pouring over that dam! We also talked about the many birds we could hear around us. Sandy ‘beaches’ next to the creek keep a lot children entertained, I’m sure, and ours was one.

That side of the creek is also the place where you’ll see weedy and invasive plants; the bright fruits of the non-native Nandina domestica were showing in several places. Local parks need volunteers to help manage invasive plants as well as landscape crews educated in the plants of the area. If you’d like to help manage invasive plants at your local park, call the managing entity (city, county) and volunteer. Balmy winter days are also perfect for pulling weeds!

Ginger and Christmas next to the path

Hike Local: Gold Branch Trail

 

I have been anxious to get outside of my own yard for several weeks (but not willing to go too far) so this week I visited one of the Chattahoochee NRA hikes in East Cobb County: the Gold Branch Trail. It is one of 15 metro Atlanta area units of the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area (CRNRA), part of the National Park Service. This park is just down the road from the Chattahoochee Nature Center in Roswell.

This trail is 3.8 miles long with options to make it a shorter experience. It traverses mostly easy paths (but tree roots require careful treading) in a classic Piedmont forest with areas that border Bull Sluice Lake, a lake created when Morgan Falls Dam was built in 1904. There are a few areas with more challenging sections so a hiking pole or walking stick is very useful. I found this description very helpful. We ended up turning inland at point GB9 and clocked in at 2.3 miles. The trail has excellent signage at every junction point but no benches.

Good trail signs at every junction

The beginning of the path is a thick forest of oak and American beech that slopes down to a stream. The first flower that we saw was an abundant population of beechdrops (Epifagus virginiana). It was a while before we saw any other flowers in this deep forest (although the faded foliage of some spring ephemerals was present), but the diversity of plants overall was wonderful. I saw umbrella magnolia (Magnolia tripetala), numerous species of oaks and hickories, spicebush (Lindera benzoin), American hornbeam (Carpinus caroliniana), hophornbeam (Ostrya virginiana), sourwood (Oxydendrum arboreum), fringetree (Chionanthus virginicus), and a huge population of dwarf paw paw (Asimina parviflora).

Epifagus virginiana

Beechdrops with beech tree

As we approached the water near point 6, the canopy was more open and blooming white wood aster (Eurybia divaricata), white snakeroot (Ageratina altissima), and bluestem goldenrod (Solidago caesia) – all shade tolerant fall wildflowers – were blooming here and there.

Asimina parviflora

Symplocos tinctoria

More woody goodies along the path in this area were chalkbark maple (Acer leucoderme), horse sugar (Symplocos tinctoria), sparkleberry (Vaccinium arboreum), and dwarf rhododendron (Rhododendron minus). At the water’s edge were moisture-loving plants like doghobble (Leucothoe fontanesiana), river birch (Betula nigra), hazel alder (Alnus serrulata), and Virginia sweetspire (Itea virginica). Water horehound (Lycopus americanus), cardinal flower (Lobelia cardinalis) and sneezeweed (Helenium autumnale) were enjoying the wet edges as well.

Lobelia cardinalis

Helenium autumnale

As we turned back inland at point 9, we found a different collection of plants including sweetshrub (Calycanthus floridus), American holly (Ilex opaca), rusty blackhaw (Viburnum rufidulum), mapleleaf viburnum (V. acerifolium), and red buckeye (Aesculus pavia). All along the way we saw numerous native ferns (Christmas, broad beech, sensitive) and perennials (bloodroot, black cohosh). The diversity at this unit is a great representation of Piedmont plants.

Chalkbalk maple (Acer leucoderme) showing early color

Invasive species impact was fairly low. We saw some privet (Ligustrum sinense), Elaeagnus, and a princess tree (Paulownia tomentosa) plus a bunch of Jorō spiders. I found just one tiny sprig of English ivy when I went in for a close photo on something low.

If you visit this or any of the CRNRA units, a pass or fee is required: a $5 daily fee (pay on your smartphone), a CRNRA annual pass, or an America is Beautiful NPS pass. Get out and visit your local parks for short trips (and volunteer to help with projects if you are really local!).

Hike Local: Dunwoody Nature Center

Dunwoody Nature Center is a 22-acre local park that I’ve visited over the years; I’ve watched it grow from a small private park to a city-owned nature destination. 

It was once infested with English ivy and non-native wisteria. Volunteers, Master Gardeners, and Eagle Scouts have made a dent in those problems and city funding has helped expand amenities (bathrooms!) and activities (like their upcoming Butterfly Experience next weekend). This week I decided to revisit the park and explore the trails.

Black-eyed Susan near the main building

Dunwoody Nature Center trails are heavily shaded which makes for cool walks but few blooms to observe this time of year. The dirt trails are well-maintained and offer lots of interesting bits of nature, including rocky streams, lush ferns, wetland boardwalks, and even this young deer. If the kids get restless, there are several play areas with fun things to ride or climb.

This fawn was hiding behind a trail sign

Christmas ferns near the trail

My grandson loved the rope caterpillar swing

Trail signage is good and you can download a trail map ahead of time or grab one in the parking lot. Educational signs point out some of the features and large trees have blazes to help you know where you are. The park has development on all sides so you can’t go too far off course. I think it’s a great place to get kids into hiking with fun extra play spaces for them and bathrooms.

Flowers can be found at the front or around the main buildings. One structure has a green (and growing) roof and the adjacent wetland was full of blooming pickerel weed (Pontederia cordata). Most of the new plantings are native plants, but invasive plants still plague the park. Wisteria is trying hard to come back, Elaeagnus shrubs are hiding in the woodland, and the autumn fern that was planted years ago as an ornamental is invading the streams just as it has in other parts of the metro area. If you live nearby, volunteer to help identify and remove invasive plants.

Pickerel weed was full of pollinators

Autumn fern invading the creek

Hike Local: Woodlands Garden

 

I had a chance this week to visit Woodlands Garden in Decatur, GA. It is an approximately 7-acre park in an urban setting. It is open to the public every day during daylight hours (note: no dogs allowed). Originally a private residence, the garden contains the smaller Morse Family Heritage Garden – which has a selection of exotic plants – and extensive trails of Piedmont native woodland plants. A map of the grounds can be found here.

Blue-eyed grass (Sisyrinchium angustifolium)

The trails are easy walking and have good signage both for directional guidance and for many of the plants you’ll see. Several areas had extensive sweeps of single species of plants: narrow-leaf blue-eyed grass (Sisyrinchium angustifolium) in a sunny area, fernleaf phacelia (Phacelia bipinnatifida) just inside the shade, and in deep shade, patches of Allegheny spurge (Pachysandra procumbens) and interrupted fern (Osmunda claytoniana) were lush and full of new spring growth.

Phacelia bipinnatifida

Osmunda claytonia

You might spot several of Atlanta’s champion trees. I was able to see the champion devil’s walking stick (Aralia spinosa); it was so mature that the only spines I could see were 6 feet high on the otherwise smooth trunk. 

Foamflower and Phlox

Blooming native spring flowers were sprinkled throughout: woodland phlox and foamflower, tiny wood anemone and native ginger, and gorgeous native azaleas. In the parking area, a flowering native coral honeysuckle lit up the front of the office building while the flowers of wild white indigo (Baptisia alba) and false indigo-bush (Amorpha fruticosa) kept the native bees busy.

Two of the native azaleas

The garden is a well-managed mix of intentional design and woodland wonders. As with any truly urban garden, exotic invasive plants creep in. The staff and volunteers have regular workdays to manage weeds and keep the trails open. If you're looking for inspiration or just to enjoy some natural beauty, stop by and visit this urban gem.

Amorpha fruticosa

 

Take a Hike!

 

Georgia is fortunate to have rather mild winter weather even in the northern areas. While we have occasional snow, more often there are several warm days when we can get out and take a hike (or a walk) on well-managed paths. One day this past week we had a high of 68 degrees!

I like to encourage people to get out because I feel that time spent in nature brings us a little closer to appreciating nature (and native plants) each time that we do. I heard recently that some flowers are already blooming at The Pocket’s Shirley Miller Wildflower Trail in Walker County (you can’t get more northern than that). I’ve written several times about the flowers there; here’s a link to my blog about a February visit in 2017. I did a follow up post in March 2017.

I’m going to list some other ideas, most of which I’ve covered before. Another good North Georgia hike is Amicalola Falls State Park (this post is from a workday there). It has good trails and its steps make for good exercise; less energetic folks might opt for the West Falls Trail which is perfect for older folks and families with strollers. It can get crowded on weekends, so go early.

Sharp-lobed hepatica is always one of the first to bloom at the Pocket

In metro Atlanta, try Big Trees Forest Preserve in Sandy Springs, Chattahoochee NRA in Cobb County, or Cascade Springs Nature Preserve in Atlanta. A little south of Atlanta, I recommend Chattahoochee Bend State Park in Coweta County and Newman Wetlands Center in Clayton County.

Further south is a park that I hear wonderful things about: George L. Smith State Park in Emanuel County. It’s on my list of places to go. I have visited High Falls State Park in Monroe County and enjoyed it very much. The falls are really beautiful. FDR State Park is another excellent one in middle Georgia (here is another blog about the Pine Mountain Trail in FDR State Park from a June visit).

Providence Canyon State Park offers incredible views

South and on the west side of the state is a great winter destination: Providence Canyon State Park in Stewart County. Adults and kids alike will enjoy learning about the little grand canyon of Georgia as well as hiking the good trails and discovering native plants. In Grady County in February, Wolf Creek Trout Lily Preserve is a breathtaking sight. Visit them on Facebook for weekly updates on the bloom cycle.

Look for tiny carnivorous sundews plant in wet edges at Okefenokee

In the southeastern part of the state, visit Stephen C. Foster State Park in Charlton County. It is the primary entrance to the Okefenokee Swamp. The kids will love learning about the many types of carnivorous plants found there. Winter can also be a fun time to visit Georgia’s Golden Isles without so many other tourists; I have enjoyed several trips to Jekyll Island.

With Georgia’s plentiful winter rains, waterfalls make for good trips as well. Here is a blog post I did that listed several places in North Georgia.

All state parks require a daily fee ($5) or use of the annual pass ($50). Your fee helps pay for good parking, bathrooms, and maintained trails (you can download maps from their website). They also often have nice visitor centers during certain hours.

And don't forget your local parks. Here is my grandson on the kid-friendly trails at Autrey Mill Nature Preserve.