Bewitched by Witch Hazel

Witch hazel in flower, with company

One of the joys of being retired is not having a fixed schedule; no one demands you show up at an office or factory at 8:30 and stay until dusk. If you’re both retired and appreciate the freedom it brings, you make a point of saying ‘yes’ to serendipitous invitations. Which is what I did on Tuesday when an email arrived asking if I would have an interest in looking at witch hazels in flower.

Last year, my garden was visited by a charming, British expatriate couple, Chris and Colin McArdle, who brought their infant grandchild. We had tea and scones on my screened porch on a beautiful May morning. Seven months later, my hospitality was reciprocated when I was invited to welcome in the new year on Greenwich Mean Time at the McArdle’s lovely home in Brookline. I found it an entirely sensible way to celebrate: raise a glass at 7 p.m. while enjoying Marmite on toast and other British goodies worthy of a hamper from Fortnum & Mason’s. Oh, and be home, off the road, and safely in bed by 10 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.

Chris McArdle, with Hamamelis

Chris McArdle, in turn, has one of the best (albeit nonpaying) jobs in the world: she’s a docent at the Arnold Arboretum. For those not familiar with it, the Arnold Arboretum (hereinafter, ‘the Arboretum’ to make things easier) is a 281-acre public park, designed by Fredrick Law Olmsted, that sits squarely in the middle of Boston. It is America’s oldest arboretum, established in 1872 and, while a free public park nominally owned by the City of Boston, it is under the stewardship of Harvard University.

Certain plant snobs turn up their noses at the Arboretum because it is chock-full of trees and shrubs from other continents that have climate zones comparable to eastern Massachusetts (6b or 7a, depending on whom you ask). Those foreign plants, though, are the whole point of the Arboretum. Back in the nineteenth century, collecting rare plants in the verge of extinction and finding a safe place where they could be propagated was the life work of many botanists.

One of Arnold Arboretum's
dawn redwoods

Perhaps the most famous example is the Dawn Redwood, which was discovered as a fossil in Japan in 1941 and thought to be extinct – except, by stunning coincidence, that very same year a forester in China noted a tree that he had not seen before. In 1946 the connection was made between the fossil and the tree. The Arboretum sent money for seed collection. Seeds arrived at the Arboretum in 1948 and were shared widely. Today, Dawn Redwoods are found in multiple sites, including more than 200 at the Crescent Ridge Dawn Redwoods Preserve; a private, 50-acre site in the mountains of western North Carolina.

281 acres. Double-click for full screen

All of which is prelude to explaining how I came to be part of a small tour, conducted by Chris McArdle, to see the Arboretum's comprehensive collection of Hamamelis - better known as witch-hazel.

Witch hazel, blooming in the snow

Witch-hazel gets its name from a combination of its pliable branches (Old English wice, meaning "bendable") and its historical use as a ‘witching stick’ for dowsing. In 1588, an assistant to Sir Walter Raleigh exploring the lands along the east coast of America, (lands Raleigh named Virginia after the virgin queen) mistook the wood used for bows by indigenous people as that called witch-hazel at home.  In fact, it was a different plant, but it was the North American plant that Linnaeus included in his list of Genera as Hamamelis in 1742 and then named the only species of which he knew as virginiana in his list of species in 1756. There are three distinct North American species as well as species from Japan and China. Growers all over the Northern Hemisphere experiment with crosses of these species.

Ozark witch hazel (H. vernalis)
blooms with an orange flower

The most common witch hazel growing in the wild in this country is Hamamelis virginiana. There is also the Ozark witch hazel (H. vernalis), found in Missouri, Arkansas, and Oklahoma; and a relatively recent find, H. ovalis, which was discovered in Mississippi in 2004. The Arboretum has mature specimens of everything described above.

The common element of all witch hazels is that they bloom when other trees and shrubs are biding their time.  The virginiana both blooms and bears fruit from last year’s flowers in the fall but the other witch-hazels bloom in the cold of winter from January to March.

Why take the chance of blooming in winter?  Because while there are fewer pollinators around, your nectar is the only game in town. On a warm afternoon, moths, gnats, wasps and flies will come out of dormancy and descend on witch hazel. And, the shrub is playing a long game: while the insects are spreading pollen, the fertilization doesn’t take place until spring, and the ‘fruit’ – a tiny, hard nut – forms equally slowly; maturing in the fall.

A witch hazel seed or nut

Which is where the Germans get it right giving witch-hazel the common name ‘Zaubernuss’ (magic nut); a great description for how witch hazel spreads its seed. All summer long, the shrub builds up what amounts to an explosive charge for each nut. When the time is right, those seeds go flying up to 40 feet from the parent plant – establishing the next generation. Multiple sources agree getting hit by one is a painful experience.

Chris again, and my thanks!

I knew none of this on Tuesday morning. But, over the course of a leisurely walk over ninety minutes and a visit to specimens of the Asian and North American varieties of Hamamelis spread out across the Arboretum, I came away both moderately knowledgeable and a budding fan of a wonderful plant that fills a special niche in the world of horticulture.

And, it was all made possible because Chris McArdle had absorbed that knowledge across roughly four decades of being a docent… plus the serendipity of her sending out an email asking if I would join her on the walk (which was open to the public), and my having the good sense to say ‘yes’ to her invitation.

Gardeners Getting Together

 

There is a parallel universe in which, for $25, you can get an entire day of gardening education, including lunch. Last Saturday, I had the good luck to find myself in that universe.

Me, presenting. Double-click to see
at full screen size and resolution

Master Gardeners are a self-selected group of amateurs who take gardening seriously. They study for and have to pass a fairly rigorous set of courses to qualify; but that’s just the beginning. They start giving back through volunteering and through continuing education. The best part is that they’re almost always smiling.

In Kentucky, Master Gardeners are organized through the University of Kentucky Extension Service and, according to the KEMG website, sixty-three counties have programs. One of those is Hardin County where the Lincoln Trail Master Gardeners make their home.

This year, the Lincoln Trail Master Gardeners organized an event titled, ‘Can U Dig It?’ at the Hardin County Extension Service in Elizabethtown. The building is a palace. It has classrooms that will comfortably seat a hundred, state-of-the-art projection, soaring atria, and ample public spaces. Kentucky is a state that apparently takes agriculture seriously.

Valerie Hicks, looking
slightly frazzled

I had spoken in Kentucky quite a few years earlier at the state’s Garden Club Federation annual meeting. Someone remembered me from that event and thought it might be nice to offer some comic relief to close out the day. An energetic lady named Valerie Hicks got in touch and we worked out a special program titled, ‘Real Life Is Not a Walt Disney Film’. The presentation was promoted as telling the true story of two people on Social Security (and I am quoting the program) “doing what no one in their right mind should undertake: building a half-acre pollinator-friendly native plant garden that contains not a square inch of grass.”

Peggy Cornet at her presentation

I had several tough acts to follow, but the one that riveted my attention was one titled ‘Rooted in the Past 250 Years’. The talk was delivered by Peggy Cornet, who has the title of Curator of Plants at Monticello. Monticello is, of course, Thomas Jefferson’s estate in Virginia. Ms. Cornet took us on a tour of the garden and, more important, a tour of the mind of Mr. Jefferson; who was at least as interested in horticulture as he was in writing the Declaration of Independence. She shared with the audience his hand-written notes on blooming times and the plant specimens that most interested him.

My immediate reaction after her talk concluded was that I should fake a sudden illness and plead to be released from my speaking obligations. She was that good.

Me, peddling books

As I interacted with the attendees that day, what was most striking was their enthusiasm and energy coupled with the reality that these people were having an exceptionally good time. The laughter was unforced. The stories they exchanged were acknowledged with many nods of agreement and “I’ve been there, too,” expressions on their faces.

These were dedicated gardeners in their natural elements. It was an honor to be there, even though I was technically hired help.

 A few of the CanUDigIt? attendees

Except I never felt for even a moment that I was merely being tolerated. I was included in all manner of discussions, especially over lunch (ham on a croissant with lettuce, tomato, and smoked honey) where gardeners asked me how things were done in New England. I even had my own private wonderful tour guides – Keith and Karlene Well – who introduced me to home-made bourbon ball ice cream at Drewster’s, a local shop where the staff is as friendly as the product is delicious.  It was sufficiently delectable that I insisted on stopping there on the way back to the airport.

Perhaps the best part is that I can hope to have a repeat experience in just a few weeks. Another group of Master Gardeners, this one in McHenry County, Illinois (northwest of Chicago) has invited me to present at their ‘Gardenfest and Expo’ the second Saturday in April in Crystal Lake. While I’m not a Master Gardener, I do have a badge that says I’m a Master Gardener Groupie.  I intend to wear it proudly.

 

March Sadness

Enough already.

While the calendar admittedly says winter runs from December 22 (the winter solstice and shortest day of the year) to March 21 (the spring equinox when you can purportedly stand an egg on its end); the weather folks have a much more agreeable idea: ‘meteorological winter’ is the months of December, January and February. Meteorological spring begins March 1. Let the crocuses bloom!

For the past two years, New England has abided by the ‘meteorological’ calendar. In fact, winter – at least precipitation-wise – was almost a no-show. My snow blower was dutifully hauled out and placed its ‘ready for duty’ position at the front of the garage where it gathered cobwebs for three months. We never had enough snow to matter; and what fell, invariable melted in a few days. We had worse winters in Virginia.

The view, of lack of it, from the
screened porch during the blizzard.

While it isn’t the winter of 2014-2015 (120 inches of the white stuff; the last of which didn’t melt until mid-April), this winter has produced about 60 inches of snow. And, the temperatures in February were much below-average 20 out of 28 days. I was greeted on the first day of meteorological spring by two inches of fresh snow. I was welcomed this morning by temperatures in the low teens. As this is written, the outside mid-afternoon temperature is all the way up to 28, and the little weather widget in my computer says to expect one-to-two inches of snow tomorrow.

The snowblower on skis.

Admittedly, we did get some melting over the weekend. As readers of this blog know, for environmental reasons, we do not have an asphalt driveway. We want the precipitation that falls on the property to stay on the property; not go down a storm drain. The asterisk to this otherwise agreeable declaration of eco-friendly awareness is that snow blowers are designed for asphalt and concrete. Put one to work on a surface covered with pea gravel, oyster shells, or stone dust, and you will be rewarded with a spray out the chute of, yes, snow; but also, the aforementioned gravel, shells and dust. Which you will be picking out of your garden for the next four months.

Down to bare slate

My snowblower is mounted on short lengths of skis, elevating the machine’s maw about two inches above the surface. As a result, it leaves the gravel in place. It also leaves two inches of packed snow. On Sunday, it was warm enough to (almost) completely melt the snow on the driveway. This morning, the driveway was again coated in white. I shoveled the sidewalk down to bare slate. I just grumbled at the idea of hand-shoveling the driveway.

Medfield, which is southwest of Boston, had two big storms last month: 16 inches at the beginning of February and 24 inches in the Blizzard of ’26 on February 22 to 24. The snow from both storms is still there. If I go out the front door (I say ‘if’ because apparently it is against the law to use your front door in New England, though it is tacitly agreed you must shovel the sidewalk), I walk through a two-foot-wide trench that still has two feet on snow on either side – and this is after compaction.

The trench to the feeders

In fact, I have multiple trenches on the property; suitable for my own private re-enactment of the Battle of the Somme. There is one from the side door of the garage to the bird feeders 20 feet away. And, of course, the snow has to be dug away from the feeders so as to thwart our high-IQ squirrels that would otherwise leap from the top of the snowbank onto sunflower-seed heaven. There is a side spur that leads ten feet to our home’s generator because, if the power goes out and the generator goes on and finds its outlet vent is packed in snow, it will promptly shut itself down, negating the purpose of having spent $11,000 to have uninterrupted power during a storm.

Yet another trench leads from a corner of the driveway down four steps and ten feet to get to our composter bins (which also had to be dug out).  And a final trench leads from the garage side door twenty feet to the driveway because, if I am taking a bag of kitchen scraps to the composter, I don’t want to have to unnecessarily put up the garage door; allowing frigid air to further freeze the pot-bound shrubs and perennials huddled in a corner of the garage against the quasi-warm wall of the house.

Did I mention digging out the mailbox?

I am all too aware I am grousing about what are politely known as ‘first-world problems’. On Cape Cod, there are still 50,000 people without electricity more than a week after the last flakes fell. World Central Kitchen has set up food wagons in Yarmouth and Hyannis. I should count myself lucky and shut up.

But this is the winter of my discontent. It has gone on too long and was too ferocious to appreciate. My Wednesday walking group cancelled several weeks because of the cold or excess of snow (and on one memorable week, we walked through thigh-deep snow for 90 minutes before admitting defeat). And the seven-day forecast? Snow, rain, and overnight lows below freezing.

Basketball fans are getting amped for March Madness. Me?  It’s March sadness.

  

How I spent Christmas afternoon, the 2025 edition

Six years ago on Christmas Eve morning, my wife, Betty, got out of the shower and almost immediately passed out on the bathroom floor. It wasn’t the first time she had inexplicably lost consciousness for a few seconds. Extensive testing over a period of months however – up to and including wearing a portable cardiac monitor for two weeks – had failed to undercover a cause. This time, though, the fall resulted in a serious scalp wound and Betty was transported to Newton Wellesley Hospital.

There, she lost consciousness again – this time in front of medical professionals. Over the course of three hours, her heart would stop beating for up to thirteen seconds. Against her wishes (“I’ll come back after Christmas! I promise!”), she was admitted. A few hours later surgeons would thread the wiring for a temporary external pacemaker through her arteries. However, no surgical team was available for Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. On Boxing Day (December 26 for those not familiar with the UK custom) a permanent pacemaker was installed. After one more night, this time in recovery, she was released.  The pacemaker has been doing its job ever since.

I spent most of those three days at Betty’s side and, because a good part of it was while she slept or was under medication sedation, I had the opportunity to interact with the hospital staff. I learned something that, in hindsight, ought to be obvious: hospitals do everything possible to discharge patients for major holidays. They do so both to allow for minimal staffing and to avoid undue stress on both patients and patient families. My ‘thank you’ to the on-duty staff on December 26 was a tray of full-size chocolate croissants from a wonderful bakery in Wellesley.

But I also tucked away an IOU. Unless you are under sedation, stays in a cardiac intensive care unit are ones of unrelieved boredom for the patient which, in turn, raises anxiety levels. Someday, I would like to do something to brighten the spirits of those ICU patients who were too ill to be even temporarily discharged… or who had no one to go home to.

17 of the Cardiotonics. That's Dr. Michel 
in the white coat. (The accordion is also
a giveaway)

I got that opportunity this Christmas afternoon. Jill Schiff, a member of the Wednesday Walkers of which I am a part has, for more than a decade, been a part of the Cardiotonics, which come together once a year on Christmas Day to sing carols and holiday songs to patients and staff in the cardiac care building at MassGeneralBrigham’s Longwood campus.

The instigator of the group – which has been in existence for fifteen years, is Dr. Thomas Michel, a cardiovascular medicine specialist at the hospital. In addition, Michel is a professor of medicine (Biochemistry) at Harvard Medical School and the associate director of the Harvard/MIT MD-PhD Program. He is also an accomplished accordion player; his instrument’s name is Rosie.

Roughly 20 of us – the size of the group would change as members were called away to medical duties – assembled at 2 p.m. As near as I can tell, I was one of only two participants who were not active or retired medical professionals; and one of only six who were there for the first time. In addition to the accordion, we were joined by a violinist who was not only competent on his chosen instrument, but able to play Christmas carols by ear, including making key changes on the fly when dictated by Dr. Michel.

In a patient's room. It's well-nigh impossible
to capture twenty carolers in one photo.
That's Dr. Michel with the accordion.

Most of the group being old hands, we practiced for about two minutes, using Dona Nobis Pacem as a guide to which of us were sopranos, altos, tenors, basses… and who should just hum along. There was also distributed a 20-page book of traditional and modern holiday songs.

 From there, we went in search of an audience. Dr, Michel had seen most of the patients on the floors we visited as part of his rounds within the last 24 hours. He knew which patients were receptive, but always asked if they would like to hear a song and, if so, what would be their choice. We would immediately launch into the one preferred by the patient. Surprising few of the patients had visitors when we were there.

One of patients requested 'Jingle Bell Rock'.
His wife, apparently moved by the rendition,
got up and did some impromptu dancing.

We did this for three hours. The patient rooms – all singles – in the Shapiro Building are spacious, and they needed to be to accommodate all the singers and instruments. We were not especially rough the beginning but, after the first half-dozen rooms, we had cohered into a first-class group of carolers, reeling off multiple verses of ‘Joy to the World’, ‘Hark the Herald Angels Sing’ and ‘Frosty the Snowman’. I wisely hummed along to Ma’oz Tzur (Rock of Ages), a traditional Hanukkah song (the Cardiotonics membership included Christians, Jews, and Muslims).

If there were two moments that will remain in memory for a very long time, they came toward the end of our tour. One occurred when the spouse of a patient teared up as we finished ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’. “You can’t imagine what this means to both of us,” she said to the group. “Your being here gives me hope.” Those tears told me hers were not idle words.

The second came at the very end, after we had sung our last carol. Dr, Michel recognized a staff member on duty, sitting at the nurse’s station. “I remember you,” he said to her. “You sang ‘Oh, Holy Night’ in French. Would you be willing to do it again?”

She would, and she did, to a violin and accordion accompaniment. It was hauntingly beautiful.

At 5 p.m., we prepared to go out separate ways, Dr. Michel asked us to say our names one more time and opine as to whether we would be back next year. I think my exact words were, “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Autumn Garden Cleanup - the 2025 Edition

Today was autumn garden cleanup day at our Homegrown National Park in Medfield, Massachusetts.  The most amazing part is that it started at 10 a.m. and was over at 2 p.m. Four hours is likely a record that will stand for a long time.

My neighbors have either raked or blown (or both) their leaves at least half a dozen times (or had a service do it for them). My leaves aren’t going anywhere: they’re going to home for insects and pollinators for this winter. By spring (if we get a sufficient amount of snow), they’ll be largely composted, and I’ll need only clear them from the walkways.

The Magnolia bed was first on the agenda simply because I have to look at it as I pull into the driveway. The bed bordering the driveway is three layers deep: Amsonia, Veronia, and Vernonia closest to the driveway; more Vernonia (especially 'Iron Butterfly' ), and peonies in the middle layer, and Pyncantheum (mountain mints) in the rear.

Amazingly, it took less than 45 minutes to take it all down, including leaving the thick Amsonia stalks at least 14 inches long. Those stalks are hollow, and large enough to provide a home for, say, bees. The best part, though, is I don't have to look at yellowing plants any more.

The sun garden was the other major time consumer. It is now approximately 300 square feet of flowering perennials - rudbeckia, betony, oxyeye daisies, monarda, asclepias, and Carolina lupines.  But, the plants fell into two categories: spent, and those still with seedheads.

The solution was to cut down the perennials, but leave the seedheads where they fell for those plants that could still provide sustenance for birds and other creatures; but carry away everything else. Cutting was made somewhat more difficult because things like daisies and rudbeckia already have next year's greens in place.

The sidewalk bed looked, at first glance, like it needed nothing more than to be swept. That's when I noticed, with all its leaves off, the growth spurt our spicebush (Lindera benzoin) had put on over the summer.... think five additional feet on a shrub that claimed its height topped out at seven feet and would remain 'compact'.

Twenty minutes later, I had brought its height back to its prescribed level and shaped it at the same time. The more fundamental problem is that the recommended three foot distance from sidewalk to center stem is inadequate. This spicebush wants to stretch out; and its lateral growth also is impeding two viburnums (maple leaf and cranberry) from reaching their potential. I'll kick that can down the road for another year.

The back of the driveway presents its own challenge. It's where the bulk of the snow goes from the parking turnaround. In snowy years, the pile at the back can get to six feet. Perennial debris left underneath that snow will rot and become a petri dish for disease.

So, of course, that area, too, needed to be taken down to stubble. It all looks very nice, though I admit I miss the gorgeous gold Amsonia that occupies the space in the autumn. 

The rear garden took no time at all to clear because, well, it's just fallen leaves. And, I'm perfectly content to let those leaves lie where they are. If we get any decent amount of snow, those leaves will be partly composted by next spring. I'll need only rake them out of the paths.

The nicest part of the cleanup was that what happens on Pine Street stays on Pine Street. Every load of cut-down perennials was carted to a brush pile that is on our property but adjacent to the abutting conservation land. The brush pile will provide winter shelter to garden wildlife. Over time, it will break down into soil, with some intermediate stops.

Four hours after I began cutting the Amsonia by the garage, I realized I had nothing more that needed to be done. It doesn't mean I won't find lots of clean-up tasks. It just means that the things that were 'gotta do's' were done the day before Thanksgiving.

Now, that's something to be thankful for.

(Alright, a confession: there is a parking pad at the very front of the property that will be raked free of leaves. They, too, will go into the brush pile.)

The Upside of Downed Trees

There is nothing quite so jarring as walking out of your home at the first light of morning to find a 50-foot-long debris field of trees in your driveway. But, that’s exactly what I found three days ago when I went out to fetch the newspapers in my driveway.

The pine was basically hollow

 A cold front had come through overnight with forecasted strong winds out of the northeast. Sometime during the night, one of those gusts became the last gasp for a towering, but badly aging 50-foot-tall white pine on my neighbor’s property. The tree snapped off about 15 feet off the ground, revealing a huge, empty chamber that once had been the tree’s heartwood and pith; surrounded by a few inches thickness of still-living outer bark, inner bark, and sapwood.

The ornamental plum, 
stripped of all branches

As it fell, though, the tree smashed through two deciduous trees. One was a Norway maple (no loss), the other a beautiful, 40-foot-tall ornamental plum that had a dazzling spring bloom and lovely fall foliage. The pine’s weight and still-growing upper breadth effectively cleaved the two trees of all of their branches, leaving only tall trunks.

 Everything else was on my driveway.

The debris field stretched 50 feet

I may or may not still own a chainsaw. If I do, I have no idea where it is and I don’t keep the gas/oil mixture it requires to run. But I do have two exceedingly sharp corona saws, and so I went to work clearing enough of a pathway so I could get my car out of the garage. That took an hour. Just as I was finishing, my neighbor came over; astonished at what had happened, profuse in apology for not seeing the carnage, and saying he would get all the debris off my property using his pickup and chains.

The ornamental plum in its heyday

He did a very thorough job; even clearing the brush from what had been a twenty-foot-wide no-mans-land between our two properties. I would have pitched in but was otherwise obliged to help make ‘dump runs’ between the Community Garden and town transfer station as part of the season-end clean-up of the garden.

When I got back, I was astonished at the transformation: for the first time in a decade, the sun was shining on our perennial border.

As you can see from the shadows,
the perennial border was in shade

When Betty laid out the garden that we would have in lieu of grass, she knew there was only a narrow strip of soil between the edge of our driveway and the property line we share with our neighbor. But, it was 70 feet long and deserved to be filled with visually arresting shrubs and perennials. Our neighbor’s trees were eleven years younger and so what she chose and we planted was a mix of tall-ish flowering perennials that required six to eight hours a day of sunlight. We also built two, four-foot-by-eight-foot raised beds in which we planned to grow strawberries and leaf vegetables.

With the trees gone, there's now
hope for our raised beds.

Nature, however, took its course. To create our garden, we took down roughly 40 pines on our property (all, I might add, of a similar vintage to the one that crashed over). We filled the space with young trees and shrubs. The trees in our neighbor’s no-man’s-land promptly reached out for the now-ample sunshine to their south. Within three years, our raised beds no longer got enough sun even for a crop of lettuce. The sun-seeking perennials that did not die out began reaching out into the driveway for light. Much of the border was re-planted with shade-tolerant perennials.

 I’m now faced with a wonderful opportunity of re-planting the border with brighter, more sun-loving perennials. Yes, it will be a lot of work. So what?

 Who knew there was such an upside to having three downed trees?

Bogged Down in Andover, and Loving Every Minute of It

On Saturday morning, I discovered just how much I still have to learn about horticulture. And the gaps in my knowledge of glaciation. And, even of apples. And I had fun doing it.

Double-click for a full-screen image

The Trustees of Reservations has more than 120 properties under its care. Those properties encompass nearly 29,000 acres in Massachusetts. Until Saturday, I was unaware of the existence of the Charles W. Ward Reservation. It is more than a square mile (729 acres to be exact) spread out across the towns of Andover and North Andover, some 30 miles north of Boston.

I was invited by Grow Native Massachusetts, about which I have written previously) to be part of their annual ‘Ramble’. Fifteen hardy souls with hiking shoes gathered outside a house on a hilltop – excuse me, a drumlin – to explore a nearby rare quaking bog.

That's Boston in the distance

The first thing I noticed was the view. A drumlin, for the uninitiated, is a glacial deposit. As the Ice Age passed its peak 11,000 years ago, rock-laden glaciers – once a mile thick - retreated north from the coast of what would become Massachusetts. Occasionally, part of a glacier would melt, leaving behind a pile of stones collected centuries earlier. One of those deposits became a 300-foot-high hill. Looking south, I had a clear view of Boston’s skyline, with seemingly only a forest between where I was standing and the city. The vista will stay in my mind for a long time.

A boardwalk through the bog

There are 13 miles of trails on the Reservation, but our specific destination was a hundred or so feet below us: a quaking bog in a kettle hole. Translation: as glaciers retreated, they also scraped the ground bare. Occasionally, they left a large, saucer-shaped stone depression called a kettle hole. Rain would fill the kettle hole to a maximum depth of a few feet and, at its fringes, vegetation would establish itself. Over the centuries, the vegetation would gradually grow deeper into the kettle hole, putting down an advancing layer of sediment in the form of rotted leaves and such. But with no outlet for water, the oxygen in the water became depleted and, where there is no oxygen, the sediment never breaks down; it just accumulates and solidifies – sort of.

One of our guides, in orange,
identifies bag-specific plants

The result is a bog. On top, there are trees, shrubs, ferns, moss (lots of moss), and ground covers. It is all quite dense and beautiful to look at. But stepping on it is a bad idea. What looks solid on top is largely an illusion. To that end, Trustees of Reservations built a winding boardwalk through the bog. Two experts – volunteers from the Trustees – led us deeper into the bog and identified the highly specialized plants that had learned to thrive in this most unusual of environments. I managed to confidently mis-identify more than a dozen plants and shrubs before I learned to listen rather than speak.

The ‘quaking’ part of the bog came as we approached its center: to Pine Hole Pond, an acre-sized pool of open water that remained un-colonized. Here, driving footers into the bog was pointless: there was nothing solid below the vegetation. So, everything floated, even though we were ostensibly amid dense vegetation. 

Pine Hole Pond, the last 'uncolonized' 
part of the bog

I managed to keep my footing, but there is something quite disturbing about feeling the ground under your feet ‘quake’ as you walk.

One of our guides, who has lived in the area most of his life, related the extent to which the bog pond is shrinking. He opined that it will disappear in a few decades. A warming climate emboldens species to grow more aggressively. More than 90% of the pond has been ‘colonized’ over the centuries. Pulling out vegetation might delay the inevitable, but not change the outcome.

We returned to the hilltop to enjoy the view and to discuss among ourselves what we had learned.

Our luncheon spot atop a drumlin;
a beautiful space forever preserved.

At the same time, I was curious how more than a square mile of prime land had managed never to be developed. Our guide provided the answer. A wealthy colonist, Nicholas Holt, purchased much of the land in the early 18^th Century as a means of escaping the overly religious environment of Andover. Generations of his family farmed the site, leaving behind one of the most intact system of stone walls in the region. In the nineteen-teens, the Ward family acquired the estate; then about 500 acres. They were dedicated naturalists who sought to preserve the land and keep it in trust.

The first parcels were conveyed to Trustees of Reservations in 1940 with the death of Charles Ward. His family continued to gift additional parcels for the next 50 years, and Trustees purchased additional land to ‘fill in’ the Reservation. As the accompanying map shows, it is a remarkable achievement to have conserved such a large site so close to a major city.

Oh, and as to the apples, both the Holt and the Ward families had extensive apple orchards on the property. In the past decade, Trustees has sought to honor that legacy by planting small orchards. The apple variety chosen was the Baldwin, which was first identified in the Merrimack Valley in the 1850s. A few of the century-plus-old Baldwin trees are still producing. I confidently identified the apple as a Macintosh. I was gently corrected.

My Not-So-Secret Life as a Guinea Pig

 

That's me, ready to get zapped

Just over five years ago, I came across a Facebook post offering $50 to provide a blood draw, a saliva sample, and answer a few questions about my health.  I’ve never been one to turn down easy money, and so I ventured into a building in Boston’s Longwood Medical Center complex of hospitals and labs. I did no flinch during the blood draw (I’m a long-time blood donor) and I took the questions seriously. Because I asked, I was told my ‘blind samples’ were part of creating a profile of a projected 40,000 random individuals.

Maybe it was because I asked a lot of questions (including how ‘random’ a sample could be if it drew its participants from Facebook users who had enough time on their hands and the wherewithal to travel into the city to participate), but I was asked if I might be interested in other studies. As I am always looking for a potential book story line, I said ‘sure’.

Fifteen or 20 studies later, I am now on call sheets. There is a notebook on me somewhere that says I am apparently a rara avis in the world of biomedical research. I am over 70, I have had no major illnesses or surgeries, I take only a single prescription drug (for cholesterol), I have no tattoos or miscellaneous metal parts in my body, I do not have a fear of enclosed spaces, I know how to lie still and follow instructions, and I show up on time.

Some of these are done in hospitals, some are at MIT, but the preponderance of the studies I’m involved with are at the MassGeneral Research Institute located at the Charlestown Navy Yard (CNY) in Boston. Today, if you’re looking for evidence of the presence of the U.S. Navy, it’s in the form of ‘Old Ironsides’, which is anchored at the west end of the Yard.

I’ve been in three of MassGeneral’s buildings at CNY, but the one that stops me in my tracks every time is a full block in size and eleven stories tall. For a century, the Navy made steel cables in it. Now, it is roughly a million square feet of biomedical research.  As the photos show, MassGeneral stripped the building back to its skeleton and re-built it for science. The ground floor is lots of MRI machines, meeting rooms, a very nice cafeteria and what passes for public space in a building where entry is strictly by key card.  Above the first floor? Lab space and testing rooms.

The study I’m about to complete involves TMS – transcranial magnetic stimulation. Several years ago, researchers found placing a powerful magnet on the head of someone suffering from depression, and focusing it on the very specific part of the brain that is linked to that emotional state, made a demonstrable and measurable improvement in the subject’s behavior and mood. The efficacy is sufficiently ‘replicable’ – meaning it really works in practice – that TMS for depression is now covered by insurance and Medicare. The Principal Investigator for the study with which I’m associated is looking at other areas where TMS might have efficacy. That’s all I think I’m allowed to say on the subject.

For me, the highlight of any new project is getting to meet the ‘research coordinators’. Every year, MassGeneral brings in extraordinarily bright college graduates who are keenly interested in the life sciences, but who are uncertain where their longer-term interests lie. Do they want to go to medical school? Pursue a PhD? In return for doing the ‘grunt work’ of escorting participants like me around, performing labs, and spending many hours entering data and creating schedules; they get the opportunity to see the cutting edge of science being created. They also get to sit in on talks and symposia. They get to ask questions. It’s a two- or three-year contract, after which you’re kicked out of the nest and expected to fly on your own (but with an exceptionally prestigious bullet point on your med or graduate school application).

Being an on-call guinea pig is not something I expected to occupy me in retirement, but I have my reasons for continuing to volunteer. Whenever I’m called, I jokingly ask the recruiter each time if the chances of spontaneous combustion are above or below 30%. I know I’m in demand when one quickly responded, “It’s a little over 30%, but that’s why we called you. We figured you’d still say ‘yes’.”