MyWoodlot Vlog

On the shortest day of the year, Tyler Van Fleet walks over the New Croton Reservoir in Westchester, NY, for a beautiful view of one of New York City’s drinking water reservoirs.

Wait, how many needles per bundle does a white pine have? Follow along as Liv Hamelin demonstrates some nifty ways to help you remember how to identify several common pine trees in Westchester County, NY.

Growing shiitake mushrooms can provide multiple benefits for you and your woods including food, income, and timber stand improvement. Tracey Testo-Smith shows you how in this 2-minute video.

One way that sediment reaches stream channels is through the concentrated flow of surface runoff over land. After a heavy summer rain event, Tyler Van Fleet found one such flowpath that entered the Kensico River in Westchester, NY.

Following a heavy summer rainstorm in Westchester County (NY), Tyler Van Fleet took to the trails to highlight the erosive power of water.

Chances are you have hiked, biked, or even driven over a water bar in your 4-wheeler or side-by-side. You probably know their job is to move small volumes of surface runoff off the trail to prevent soil erosion and sedimentation. But have you ever seen one installed? What equipment is used to make them? How long does it take?

It was early August 2023, and we discovered one of the water bars on the forest road at Siuslaw Model Forest was getting bypassed by surface runoff during storm events. With another shower looming, Tracey Testo-Smith and I took a mattock, a shovel, and about 5 minutes to restore the water bar’s functionality.

Are you curious about the soil types present on your woodlot? Do you have an upcoming project (e.g., a timber harvest, tree planting, or fencing job) that would benefit from a working knowledge of the soil types present? This vlog demonstrates how to do some virtual digging with the NRCS Web Soil Survey.

Digging post holes at the Lennox Model Forest was a unique opportunity to explore forest soils!

DEP scientists sample water quality at numerous points along the NYC water supply system, including watershed streams and reservoirs, treatment facilities and filtration plants, and just before drinking water enters city buildings, homes, and businesses. In this week’s MyWoodlot vlog, Tyler Van Fleet discusses water quality sampling at the service line, where water supply meets consumers.

Perhaps you already know that New York City’s 9.5 million residents consume 1 billion gallons of drinking water per day. We get it, you’re good at trivia. But do you know where that water comes from? Or how many times you could fill the Empire State Building with that volume of water?

Learn about purple loosestrife and methods of control such as mechanical removal and the use of beetles (what?!).

Orange jewelweed, or spotted touch-me-not, is an annual native plant here in New York. It also provides relief from poison ivy rash.

What makes for a good riparian buffer? Find out from Grace Romer as part of her vlog series called My Local Lake Shore.

Check out the difference in understory vegetation in and outside of a deer exclosure at a Saw Mill River Audubon Sanctuary.

How can looking down at the ground help with tree identification? As Tyler Van Fleet demonstrates, leaf litter and mast (e.g. acorns and other nuts) can be your friend when it comes to tree ID during the leaf-off season.

Imagine if leaf litter never decomposed. The leaf piles would bury the trees! In this vlog, Karl VonBerg digs through the leaf litter layer and into the duff (i.e., organic matter or the O-horizon) to demonstrate the transition from leaves to soil.

Did you know that one-fourth (25%) of a tree’s biomass is in its roots? Tyler Van Fleet explains how streamside trees and their roots help to stabilize stream banks and protect water quality.

A tree toppled over in the stream isn’t necessarily a bad thing for water quality. Tyler Van Fleet explains how large wood regulates flood flows and provides habitat for aquatic life.

Eastern hemlock trees along streams provide many benefits for water quality, including stream bank stabilization, water temperature regulation (i.e., keeping streams shady and cool), and in-stream habitat for aquatic life. Tyler Van Fleet explains these benefits and shares some past and present challenges for eastern hemlock trees.

Karl VonBerg shares a virtual woods walk along a quiet brook at the Nature Conservancy’s West Branch Preserve in Hamden, NY.

Woods walks are good for you, both in body and in mind. That’s what shinrin yoku, or forest bathing, is all about. Come along as Karl VonBerg shares one of his favorite forest bathing spots, the mature hemlock-white pine stand at the Nature Conservancy’s West Branch Preserve in Hamden, NY.

You can glean a lot of information about a timber harvest just by taking a stroll through it after the fact. Don’t believe me? Just follow along with Karl VonBerg on the new MyWoodlot vlog and see for yourself.

Can a native be invasive? In this MyWoodlot vlog, Jess Alba talks about New York fern, its penchant for dominating the understory, and when you might intervene to give other native plants a chance to grow.  

With a bit of experience, sometimes you can identify a tree just by the look of its bark. Tyler VanFleet knew immediately what tree she was looking at when she saw bark that looked like burnt potato chips.

When our tissue is damaged -- through a cut, bruise, or burn -- humans heal. But how do trees deal with injures?

In the new MyWoodlot vlog, you’ll learn about the components of the water cycle from a headwater stream in the Croton Watershed, which supplies 10% of New York City’s drinking water. Also, what’s the secret to NYC having such a high-quality water supply?

Beech trees are an important wildlife food source in the eastern U.S. and Canada. Check out what Karl VonBerg discovered about this while on a spring walk.

Karl VonBerg found a patch of spring ephemeral plants called mayapples in a woods that was recently harvested. Never seen or heard about mayapples?

So, you’re walking through the northern woods in late springtime, and you find a tree that’s been almost entirely stripped of its bark near the base. What do you think happened? Check out the new MyWoodlot vlog by Karl VonBerg to find out!

In this MyWoodlot vlog, Jess Alba demonstrates how to identify Japanese barberry, an invasive plant species. She covers methods of barberry removal and how this benefits forest ecology and your health.

Our front lawn is steep enough that mowing it would be very difficult, maybe even dangerous. We chose to let it grow and we were pleasantly surprised.