About Me:
My name is Ben Flowers and I am currently a senior History major. East Asian history is my concentration and I have traveled to Japan with the study abroad program to further my experience. I am the president of the men's rugby team and have been playing since my freshman year. I am also currently employed by the Hiram college theatre as a set builder. My career goals after I graduate Hiram are to teach English abroad or work in some sort of historical conservation.
The background that I come from is history so I examine things such as nature and wonder what it was like long ago. The ability to take a section of land and restoreing it from a trash heap to a garden bed that existed there years before is very interesting to me. Creating antiquated gardens is extremely important in teaching the people of today about what worked before.
Activities to Improve the Watershed:
I participated in the clean up of the gardens behind the Bonney Castle English House. The gardens had been neglected in recent years and required a major change before it represented a clean well managed garden.
I first participated in weeding the knot garden which had become overgrown with various species of wild grasses. Once the weeds were removed the bed was ready to recieve mulch and the planting of more beneficial herbs and ground cover. After I finished weeding I moved onto clearing a patch of land behind the knot garden of old construction material and invasive plant species. The area that I was clearing appeared to be an old refuse site because it contained alot of broken glass from the 1900's. Along with the broken glass a significant amount of bricks were removed possibly from past construction. After the bricks and glass were removed I could focus on the invasive plant species which had moved in and were choking the native and non-invasive plant species. I first dealt with multiflora rose which are an invasive rose species orignating from Asia. The multiflora rose's were tough to remove because I needed really strong gloves to handle this thorney plant. Once the multiflora were removed I moved onto the serious trumpet vine problem that was occuring in this patch. The trumpet vines were growing roots that ran 6-7 feet away from the surface plant. The roots became entangled in the roots of healthy plants such as a boxwood and needed to be dealt with. With alot of effort and digging I removed a large portion of the invasive plant making way for mulch to be applied. After a little bed redefinition and mulch the bed looked completly different and more healthy.
Invasive Plant Links-http://www.nps.gov/plants/alien/fact/romu1.htm
http://oxbowinc.org/A-VASCULAR-PLANT-SURVEY-OF-THE-OXBOW-AREA.doc.
Skills Developed:
The work that I have done improving the watershed has allowed me to participate in an activity that benefits not just myself but the community. I have come to recognise the need to remove items that are harming the enviroment and replace them with more envirementally freindly alternatives. I have also learned a few invasive plant species and some management techniques. Improving this bed was a small effort but it has inspired me to look beyond it and to improve bigger and better things.