About The times. (Gainesville, Ga.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (March 20, 2020)
Nick Bowman Features Editor | 770-718-3426 | life@gainesvilletimes.com She (Times gainesvilletimes.com Friday, March 20, 2020 The great outdoors A perfect place to practice social distancing SHANNON CASAS I The Times Redbud trees are beginning to bloom on Thursday, March 19, at the Linwood Nature Preserve off of Thompson Bridge Road in Gainesville. Linwood Nature Preserve offers nature-based stress relief to get through coronavirus precautions BY NICK BOWMAN nbowman@gainesvilletimes.com You need to go outside. Working from home probably means you’re working longer, irregular hours. Checking email first thing in the morning. Popping into Slack while your kids are hav ing breakfast. Taking a call in the bathroom (be honest). Screens, beeps, dings, rings, key board ticks and taps — it’s getting old. But outside, Hall County is new again. Spring is poking its head up from the endless (really, really endless) rain that’s been cover ing the area for the past couple of months. Georgia’s state parks are staying open amid the outbreak of corona- virus in the state because residents can enjoy the outdoors while prac ticing effective social distancing at the same time. Recommendations call for maintaining a distance of 6 feet from others. But if you don’t want to head down to Don Carter, there’s a nature preserve within a stone’s throw of many of the neighbor hoods along Thompson Bridge Road. The Linwood Nature Preserve is a splash of color, a breath of fresh air, waiting down Linwood Drive in Gaines ville for resi dents who have been cooped up at home for too long. “It’s essential right now that you take those breaks from all the stress,” said Sally Reynolds, a frequent visitor to the preserve. “The radio, the TV, the social media, and just listen to nature. It gives you a chance to relax and unwind.” And Reynolds isn’t just a fan: She’s a local cardiology nurse who sees the effects of stress and lack of exercise day-in, day-out. She and her dog, Remi, a 6-year- old, three-legged black Lab, hit the trails of the preserve three times a week for 60 to 90 minutes each trip. She could walk on neighborhood streets or a sidewalk, but she goes to the preserve for a simple plea sure: The dirt beneath her feet. “You’re not hearing constant sounds of the city. Your ears are not getting that same decibel level of cars, horns, trucks — that exhaust smell, that chicken truck smell,” Reynolds said, laughing. “That can hit pretty hard in the summer.” The preserve maintained by the Redbud Proj ect, a chapter of the Georgia Native Plant Society, includes about 2 miles of trails that run through Geor gia’s various native ecosys tems — forest, prairie, wetlands and others. Preserve land is owned by Gainesville Parks and Recreation, which has kept its other parks open as well. Parks are open from dawn to dusk. “Those trails go through this 30 acres of Linwood Nature Preserve, and they go through the different ecosystems,” said Margaret Ras mussen, executive director of the Redbud Society. “It’s not a cookie- cutter kind of thing — here’s the old hickory forest, here’s the wet lands, here’s the prairie. When you walk on a trail, you go through each of those. You just wind through them. You can see all the different aspects of that particular ecosystem.” The preserve is a haven for the Peach State’s native plants, including ■ Please see NATURE, 5B ‘It’s essential right now that you take those breaks from all the stress.’ Sally Reynolds Preserve visitor Photo courtesy Sally Reynolds Remi, a three-legged, 6-year-old black Lab visits the Linwood Nature Preserve at least three times a week with her owner, Sally Reynolds. The entire preserve is dog-friendly. Social distancing: A great time to knock out some projects I am working on fin ishing up an addition to my house and doing a bunch of little “punch list” items. The final products turned out really great. And for me —someone who could possibly need therapy for loving to do proj ects more than most anything else — extra virus home time hasn’t bothered this obsessive piddler in the least. Our office is open, but we are running a short staff and doing what we can from home. I am using a little vacation here and there to enjoy the new addition and spend some time with the family. If you are home, I have some landscape-related things you can do instead of riding around look ing for toilet paper. CAMPBELL VAUGHN ecvaughn@uga.edu My agent friend in Jones County, Michael Abney, gave me some ideas to consider relating to equipment maintenance. Get that equipment out and try to fire it up. Good spark plugs and clean air filters are essential to all gas-pow ered lawn care equip- ment. If the air filter is still good, make sure to properly clean it and remove any debris. Replace the spark plug if the engine isn’t catching quickly. Check for loose and broken parts. Tighten and replace as needed. Changing the oil on lawn mow ers every year is good mainte nance practice. Most vehicle oil changing service centers will let you deposit the used oil in their containers. Grease fittings for smooth and squeakless operation. I preach the gospel according to non-ethanol fuels. If you do get your equipment fuel right out of the “regular” fuel tap, quit. Etha nol gas will ruin small engines in a hurry. Use products like Stabil or Sea Foam when you store gas in a container for a long time. If you have ethanol-laced gas and haven’t cranked your equipment in a while, drain the fuel and replace it with non-ethanol fuel. Lawn mowers need sharp blades, especially on zoysia grass. Clean cutting promotes healthier grass and reduces tearing. Tear ing is bad. If you can’t sharpen the blades, a new set of blades prob ably isn’t going to break the bank. If you have a weed eater and you haven’t used it in a while, within the first 2 minutes of using it the string will run out. There are multiple studies confirming that. The only solution to this issue is to replace the string in the weed eaters now. It is a great time to put pre emergence herbicides on your lawn and flower beds. If you are really ambitious, hand-weed your shrub and flower beds to get them looking sharp. The first step in planning a vegetable garden is to soil sample to know what needs to be added to get those seasonal tasty treats moving in the right direction. For those who don’t soil sample and haven’t limed in a while, lime now. Twenty-five pounds per 1,000 square feet is my standard. Use dolomitic lime (pellet lime) over large areas. Powdered lime is good for small garden plots. If you try powdered lime over your large lawn, you will only make that mis take once. Remember dusting chalk board erasers in elementary school? Multiply that times 100. Avoid fertilizing for a little while longer — mid-April for shrubs and mid-May for lawns. Try and not use the least expen sive 10-10-10 (the numbers refer to the percent of nitrogen, phospho rus and potassium) off the shelf because there are some better formulated fertilizers with micro nutrients such as iron, zinc, and magnesium added. Slow-release fertilizers are a big bonus too. My rule of thumb is to buy the more expensive fertilizer if there is an option. For ornamentals I like to use 14-7-7 and for turf 16-4-8. I know this confinement is tough, but enjoy some time at home and knock out some things off the list. Your landscape (and the neighbors) will appreciate it. Campbell Vaughn is an agriculture and natural resource agent with the University of Georgia Extension in Augusta. He can be reached at ecvaughn@uga.edu.
