Wild Ones Louisville Transforms WILDFLOWER WOODS into a Premier Eco-Restoration Site
Wildflower Woods, located in Cherokee Park, is a six acre ecological restoration project in which Wild Ones Louisville has played a key role.
This area is most notable for its display of native wildflowers in April and May, when you can find spring ephemerals such as Dutchman’s breeches, mayapple, Jack-in-the-pulpit, Solomon’s seal, Jacob’s ladder, wood poppy, coralberry.
The area had remained largely undisturbed except for the 1974 tornado. Unfortunately, every large tree except one tulip poplar came down that day and allowed bush honeysuckle and tree of heaven to come in. Wintercreeper, English ivy and Japanese Honeysuckle vine followed.
Wildflower Woods restoration started in 1998 by the Louisville chapter of Wild Ones when the chapter was organized by Mike Smiley. Every fourth Saturday from 1998 to 2012 a group of Wild Ones members, particularly Ward Wilson, Jerry Brown and Alan Nations, would cut, treat or remove invasive shrubs and vines.
Matt Spalding, a woodlands manager with Olmsted Parks Conservancy, continued to remove woody invasives like wintercreeper, English Ivy and shrub honeysuckle with volunteer groups. One year, a large group from Ford helped establish paths using wood chips. Master Gardener and Park Steward Scott Osbourne has also contributed his time and talent for quite a few years.
In March 2020 during the Covid pandemic, Barbara Berman and Hart Hagan went to Wildflower Woods many times to pull the invasive vines covering the forest floor. In the summer of 2022, Matt had an intern use an expensive organic geranium spray on large areas of wintercreeper and English ivy resulting in the emergence of Dutchman’s breeches, fragile fern, Solomon’s seal, mayapple and even cross vine.
Barbara Berman contributed 69 hours in 2023 and 68 hours so far in 2024, as of July 19. Thanks also to significant volunteer contributions from Cassandra Culin, Sara MacLean, Hart Hagan, Jacquelyn Hawkins-McGrail, and Nora Kute.
If you would like to join Barbara for a tour and/or to remove invasive species, please email [email protected].
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DID YOU KNOW THAT YOU CAN HELP US INVENTORY THE SPECIES THAT ARE IN WILDFLOWER WOODS?
If you use iNaturalist, you can upload your photos of plants, animals and fungi taken in Wildflower Woods to iNaturalist. It will then automatically place your photo in the Wildflower Woods Project. Go here to see it! https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/wildflower-woods-ky-usa
You can also join that project once you are in iNaturalist.
To use iNaturalist, download the app to your phone from your Google Play Store or Apple Store. Then once you’ve taken a photo of a species from anywhere, upload using the app. You can also visit iNaturalist.org using your computer to learn how it all works.
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In the photo, this area in Wildflower Woods was covered with wintercreeper but is largely free of the invasive vine thanks to the efforts of Barbara Berman and Hart Hagan in 2020.
The following wildflowers have emerged as a result of invasive species removal in Wildflower Woods.
Cutleaf toothwort
Blood root
Trout lily
Sharplobe hepatica
For Barbara Berman’s birthday, she invited people to join her to remove invasive species in Wildflower Woods. Pictured here top row: Carol Savkovich, Julie Speedy, Katie Cunningham, Jacquelyn Hawkins-McGrail, Sara Ceresa, Barbara Berman and Nancy Beasley. Bottom row: Cassandra Culin and Hart Hagan.
Map of Wildflower Woods
