Marching towards spring

The usual suspects: clockwise from top left we have
flowering quince, star magnolia, forsythia, and cherry.

Around Medlock, March brings daffodils, forsythias, spring magnolias and quinces. It's been cold enough that most people are still in winter mode but we will soon see more daytime highs in the 60's, which can trigger a sudden urge to head over to Intown Ace Hardware and buy seeds and plants.

Our official last frost date is listed by various sources as anywhere from  March 24 to April 10 while NOAA calls the odds for March 26 - April 18. 

Below is some historical data to add perspective.

NOAA's data for last frost dates for our zipcode, 1880-2010. Click to enlarge or view full size.
UGA expands on the above to say the last frost dates were "none" for 2011, February 20 for 2012, and March 2, 2013. Note those late frost in 2000 and 2007...

Eager gardeners do well to focus on soil temperatures, as explained in this website:

"Planting too early, before the soil has had time to warm up, can lead to seed rot, slowed germination, poor growth and disease. For example, cucumber seeds usually take less than a week to germinate in a soil of 70 degrees F. They could take two weeks at 60 degrees F. Tomato transplants need a soil temperature above 60 degrees F for growth. Setting pepper plants out before the soil temperature is 70 degrees F could stunt their growth for the entire growing season."

The above website also lists ideal soil temperatures for common crops as follows:

"60 F - tomatoes, cucumbers, snap beans 

65 F - sweet corn, lima beans, mustard greens 

70 F - peppers, watermelons, squash, southern peas 

75 F - okra, cantaloupe, sweet potatoes"

For a map of daily soil temperatures (currently in the mid-40's), see UGA's Georgia Weather website.

And now that you know what you shouldn't be doing, check out Walter Reeve's monthly calendar to get a sense of what garden tasks are OK for March. For instance, it is time to start tomato seedlings indoors and plant roses (BigLots had a bunch for $3.50; caveat emptor).

If gardening is not your thing, there's no dearth of chores to consider during the month of March.

Coming up: daylight savings on March 10, and spring on March 20.

International Community School lottery [March 8]

Applications for the ICS lottery for school year 2013-14 are due Friday, March 8th. The lottery will take place on March 14.

The  application form and other materials required to participate in the lottery are listed on the right margin of ICS admissions page.

The lottery will take place on March 14th at 4 pm in the cafetorium.

More condos coming to City of Decatur?

The Atlanta Business Chronicle announces that Atlanta-headquartered developer Carter has a new mixed-use development planned for City of Decatur.

Carter has about 2.5 acres on West Ponce De Leon Avenue under contract and would develop about 240 apartment units and 10,000 square feet of retail. The project would be anchored by the existing 125,000- square-foot office building known as Decatur Court. It was recently purchased by an affiliate of Weaver and Woodbery and Redstone Investments. The affiliate paid almost $9 million. Read the rest @ Atlanta Business Chronicle.

Per leasing information posted online, Decatur Court is a 10-story building and a significant portion of its space has been unoccupied.

 Decatur Court, at 315 West Ponce de Leon Avenue, appears to the middle of the image. 

Last month, the Atlanta Business Chronicle mentioned that Cousins Properties is interested in investing in downtown Decatur, and discussion is ongoing on the future of the Callaway Building (at North McDonough Street and West Trinity Place). DeKalb County owns the property and would sell it to the City, with Cousins as redevelopment partner.

This is good news for Decatur, and hopefully a sign of an improving real estate development environment that will help the City reach its planning and fiscal goals without having to invoke the dreaded annexation option.

Federal judge allows removal of several Board of Education members

Greg Bluestein at the AJC reports that

The governor said the court’s decision “allows us to take the next steps toward protecting the futures of DeKalb’s students and maintaining the school system’s accreditation.” The focus, Deal said, will now shift to a five-member panel that will suggest replacement board members. Read the rest @ AJC.

The unseated DeKalb BOE members can continue to fight the ruling at the GA Supreme Court. The federal judge "asked the two sides to agree on which questions, and gave them 10 days to submit them."

For continued coverage, visit the AJC's Get Schooled blog.

Support our wild pollinators

Most people have heard of bee colony collapse disorder and its potential impact on our food supply. Insect-driven pollination is said to be responsible for one-third of human crops; that includes crops we consume directly (such as fruits, nuts and vegetables) or indirectly (e.g., alfalfa and clover that we feed to livestock). Bee colony collapse was first reported in 2006 and shows a puzzling pattern whereby the adults appear to weaken and die away from the hive. The result is a bit Twighlight Zone and a bit Fastball:

Honeybee on rose bloom.

The children woke up
And they couldn't find 'em
They left before the sun came up that day
They just drove off
And left it all behind 'em
But where were they going 
Without ever knowing the way?

A number of explanations have been posited, with a strong indication that the neonicotinoid insecticide imidacloprid plays a key role. Imidacloprid is considered safe for general use, however, recent research indicates that imidacloprid builds up in the bee's body until it reaches a lethal level. Bees are exposed when they consume contaminated pollen, and exposure also increases if bees are fed corn-based syrup by their keepers when blooms are not available (corn is often treated with the pesticide).

An article in Wired magazine characterizes pesticide's effects as follows:

"Honeybees are clearly exposed to [pesticides] throughout the year and through multiple environmental routes. At certain times, especially in spring, death often follows exposure, and even non-lethal exposures may disrupt bee learning and navigation. Neonicotinoids also appear to make bees especially vulnerable to certain parasites and may interact similarly with other stressors."

The European Union is taking the threat very seriously, going so far as to issue a Honeybee Health report. In the US, a similar report on bee health was prepared for Congress, and includes this figure:

A recent study emphasizes that wild pollinators enhance fruit set regardless of honeybee abundance. According to The Guardian's summary of the report,

"Wild pollinators perform better than honeybees because they deploy a wider range of pollinating techniques, such as "buzz" pollination. They also visit more plants, meaning much more effective cross-pollination than honeybees, which tend to carry pollen from one flower to another on the same plant." 

The bad news is that wild pollinators are in world-wide decline too, due to the double threat of insecticides and habitat loss.

Try a wildflower mix. It's fun to see what grows, and
you benefit from both a crop of fresh flowers to enjoy
indoors or out and increased fruit set in your garden.

What can we do? Other than the obvious avoidance of imidacloprid whenever possible, one way to help wild pollinators is by choosing plants that offer them shelter and food. The following articles discuss how you can beautify your landscaping, feed wild pollinators and provide shelter for (good) pest predators by choosing beneficial companion plants:

Party @ Black-Eyed Susan's! Rudbeckia hirta
is a hearty native that is sometimes a biennial,
and reseeds itself quite well.

• Beneficial flowers for borders

• Growing plants to attract beneficial insects
• Native pollinators boost crop yields
• Wild pollinators of eastern orchards
• Native plants for Georgia
• Best backyard pollinators
• Flowers in the vegetable garden

Treefall

The AJC has an article discussing why we can expect to continue to see trees fall:

"The problem goes back to the drought. For a period of several years, the soil the trees are planted in has gotten progressively drier and drier and it has damaged the tree roots. It causes stress, and the trees don’t do as good a job getting nutrients and water (killing many of the micro roots that help hold the tree in place). Then you have this bad foundation and squishy soil from recent heavy rain, so there is even less holding the tree up. Add to that the wind and you have the perfect storm. You have this massive column of weight and the least amount of wind can topple it over." Read the whole article @ AJC

For other posts on tree health , see http://www.medlockpark.org/search/label/trees

Decatur Waterworks: then and now

DeKalb County Parks has an aerial photograph of the old Decatur waterworks on its website, and who could resist comparing it to how the area looks today?

To the left, an archive photo of the Old Decatur Waterworks. To the right, GoogleEarth view of the same area.
Using the railroad tracks for orientation, it is then easy to match some of the ruins. On the archive photo, note the now-gone dam and lot of water under the elevated part of the railroad track. The dip in the land is still perceivable except now it is densely forested. Click to enlarge.

Aerial views of the old Decatur Waterworksvia the Digital Library of Georgia: to the left, 1940; to the right, 1960.

For some photos of the area, at ground level, see this older post as well as photos posted by CHCA [ PATH construction | Waterworks ]. Additional information is available in the County's Mason Mill Park page.

In Peachtree Creek: A Natural and Unnatural History of Atlanta's Watershed, David R. Kaufman reserves a chapter for the South Fork of Peachtree Creek, and gives us some history of the waterworks and the Medlock area. Courtesy of Google Books, you can read this chapter online.