  |
|
|
About
Our ClubProjects and Events
Club members walk path
|
The Spring House Project
The Spring House is located deep in the Houston Mill Forest behind the Houston Mill House.
Bill Murdy, retired Professor of Biology, drew attention to the Spring House—a “natural” refrigerator—as a way to understand how we were able to have cool milk, cream, and other foods in the past, without using fossil fuels for electricity.
At the end of the Spring House restoration project, the Emory Garden Club members plan to produce a brochure (completed 2007) which will include photos and information about the wonderful rare wildflowers and huge beech, oak, elm and poplar trees that are now present around the house as well as the significance of this historical spot.
The Ad Hoc Committee on Environmental Stewardship first suggested and supported the Spring House Project, and Dr. Bill Murdy, Dr. Peggy Barlett, and Dr. John Wegner are providing instruction and guidance.
The Spring House
|
Houston Mill Forest
Provided by Dr. Bill Murdy
A natural and cultural gem is the only way to describe the hardwood forest on the slope between the Houston Mill House and Peachtree Creek. The site combines interesting natural and cultural features in a way which is unique to metro Atlanta.
The natural setting is a ravine with a spring-fed creek, and surrounded by large trees of Tulip Poplar, White Oak, Northern Red Oak, Beech and Slippery Elm. The girth of some trees reach the impressive size of three to five feet. The understory includes the relatively rare Bigleaf Magnolia, Hop Hornbeam, wild Azaleas and a variety of vines and shrubs. The forest floor is carpeted with a rich variety of native herbaceous species, including Doll's Eyes, Jack-in-the-Pulpit, Windflower, Bloodroot, Giant Chickweed and Ginseng.
The stream is fed from a natural spring, which supplied water for the main house of the former Harris Estate (the present Houston Mill House). Concrete steps descend into the ravine from behind the HMH. In the ravine itself, stairs wrap around two huge concrete cisterns, which held water for the house, and ascend to a well-preserved, beautifully constructed, stone spring house, where spring water still bubbles forth.
Timely input from the Senate Committee on the Environment was instrumental in getting the new Scholars Press moved up slope to the pine forest and away from the ravine that had been threatened by the original plans. This area, which recalls a way of life known to most of us only in books, could be restored to its former natural and cultural state with proper interest, planning and willing hands. Invasive species, such as English Ivy, Japanese Honeysuckle, Chinese Privet and Asian Eleagnus need to be controlled and fallen tree branches removed.
Dr. Sonia Altizer, Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies (ENVS) and Andrew Davis, Research Specialist, have an ongoing research project which involves comparing monarchs from across North America. Currently, we have monarchs in the greenhouse from Hawaii, south Florida, California, and Georgia. We hope this garden will allow us to collect eggs from eastern monarchs as they migrate through Georgia.
Much of this research involves ENVS students completing honors or ENVS 499R credit. Thus, this garden will be indirectly involved in teaching students how to conduct research in our lab.
We also want to use the garden for a future student project in the fall. Every fall, monarch migrate through Georgia on their way back to Mexico, and as they migrate, they stop along the way at flower gardens such as this one. We eventually hope to have a student monitor the garden during this migration and capture (and subsequently release) these migrating monarchs as they feed at the garden. This garden will then be used to study what we call the "stopover ecology" of monarch migration in this geographic area.
As you can see, this garden will be an asset to our research and thus will directly and indirectly contribute to science and to teaching ENVS students about science.
Thanks to Sonia and Andy who contributed greatly to the butterfly garden with both physical help, plants and flower seeds. Thanks to Pike's Nursery at Toco Hills and Home Depot on Lawrenceville Hwy for their generous donation of plants. And thanks to the garden club members who donated plants, time, and energy to this project.
—Hope Payne, Office Manager of Environmental Studies
Garden Club sows its seeds
By Eric Rangus
Reprinted from Emory Report, June 9, 2003It doesn’t look like much now—just a small, roughly 300-square-foot, roped-off plot of dirt behind the Math & Science Center populated by a few ankle- and knee-high plants and recently bloomed flowers—but give it a little time and Emory’s first butterfly garden will be teeming with the attractive winged creatures.
The butterfly garden is the first creation of the Emory Garden Club, a campus grassroots organization (pardon the pun) that aims to promote and sustain the University’s environment. Begun almost three years ago over a restaurant conversation among friends with a common interest in gardening, the club has steadily evolved into an increasingly active organization in Emory’s prominent environmental community.
For more than a year, the friends, including Annie Carey of Emory College, Hope Payne from environmental studies and Barbara Brandt of the Information Technology Division, would meet for their monthly luncheon and discuss their gardens. Slowly, others joined them. Now the club boasts a listserv of almost 50 people.
“Some have absolutely wonderful gardens; some don’t have a garden at all, “ said Carey, facilities coordinator for the college. “It’s an interesting group. We have a hodgepodge of people.”
After their casual beginning, last winter the club got serious. They wanted to make a definitive contribution to the community, despite the fact that the club received no money from the University and relied solely on the spirit—and wallets—of its members. “We wanted to do something at Emory to show our love of plants and of nature and the environment, and to try and protect it as much as we can,” said Payne, office manager for environmental studies.
The club decided to create a butterfly garden. Payne, Carey and fellow club member John Wegner of environmental studies met with Jimmy Powell and James Johnson of Facilities Management, and they decided the garden could be developed in the forested area behind the Math & Science Center.
The garden was planted the first week of May. Its plants and flowers were chosen specifically to appeal to butterflies. Butterflies lay their eggs on milkweed, and they like to eat flowers such as hollyhock, lantana, purple cornflower, black-eyed susans and butterfly bushes as well as herbs like parsley—which also has been planted. Next to the garden is a small plot of wildflowers that has yet to bloom.
The garden’s floral inhabitants came from a variety of sources. Some were donated by club members, others from the environmental studies department and still others came free of charge from area businesses.
Not only is the garden an aesthetic attraction, but it serves an academic purpose as well. The research of Sonia Altizer, assistant professor of environmental studies, compares monarch butterflies from across North America and can play a role in the garden’s progression.
“Every fall, monarchs migrate through Georgia on their way back to Mexico, and as they migrate, they stop along the way at gardens such as this one,” Altizer said. “This garden will be used to study what we call the ‘stopover ecology’ of monarch migration in this geographic area.”
The plan is to have students monitor the garden, capture, then release the monarchs and other butterflies that visit it. Later this summer, monarch butterflies bred in Altizer’s laboratory on the fifth floor of the Math & Science Center and a Emerson Hall greenhouse on the Michael St. deck will be released into the garden, becoming its first residents.
Placing the site behind the Math & Science Center was no accident. Butterflies need a wooded, shaded place to thrive, Payne said. The proximity of Altizer’s laboratory played a role as well. Because of this spring’s heavy rains, the plants have grown slowly, but with summer’s onset they soon should be thriving. With a bench just a couple steps away from the garden, it promises to be a perfect place to relax.
“Once the garden gets established and is a place for them to eat, the butterflies should stick around,” Payne said. Only in winter would the garden not be populated with butterflies.
The butterfly garden doesn’t complete the club’s work. In fact, it is just getting started. Its next goal is to renovate the Spring House, located in the forest behind the Houston Mill House. The stone structure once was used to keep perishable foods cool before the house had refrigerators. Now the Spring House and surrounding area has become overgrown, and the club intends to work on restoring it. The project was suggested by the Ad Hoc Committee on Environmental Stewardship, which shares some members with the garden club. Payne said that work could begin in the fall.
Other plans for the future include planting native wildflowers on campus, organizing plant exchanges and planting more campus butterfly gardens. Another future plan, Carey said, is one day acquiring an actual budget.
“There is only so far that donations will go,” she said.
The garden club is open to all members of the Emory community.
© 2003 Emory University
For more information contact: acarey@emory.edu
Last Update: January 2008