Eco-gardening is at its best in The Monday Garden
Issue 191, Part 5, January 21, 2006
SOUTH OF SCALZI PARK
note: This entry is part of a series on Stamford's Mill River. Click here for the introductory page to the series.
The Mill River riverwalk in Stamford, CT, begins just south of Bulls Head and runs south between the east bank of the river and Washington Boulevard down to the foot path at the base of Scalzi Park. Here, the river turns west-southwest away from Washington Boulevard. The walker can go south along the sidewalk and pick up the river again at the Broad Street Bridge. If you go over the footpath, instead, the riverwalk continues along what's now the north bank, at the south end of Scalzi Park, south of J.M. Wright Tech, to Cloonan Middle School on North Street. There, the river walk ends and the walker needs to resort to the side streets until the riverwalk resumes at Broad Street.
Older homes and businesses line much of the banks along this strip; there are also some highrises. For the most part, the water is confined between old stone walls.
PICTURE: Looking north the Mill River, from the Woodside Firehouse, just south of the Scalzi foot bridge. Summer 2005. This side of the river is lined by a stone wall, across the river is the path to Cloonan. The trees between the viewer and the water are red maples, except the second one from the right is a silver maple. Note its shaggy bank.
PICTURE: Side view of the same trees and bank as above, December, 2005. Click here for the same view in December 2006.
PICTURES (ABOVE AND BELOW): The path to Cloonan. ABOVE: Looking back towards Scalzi Park on the path to Cloonan, October 2004. BELOW: Looking orth on the path to Cloonan, into the Wright Tech parking lot, December 2005. Unfortunately, the path sides are infested with the invasive Japanese knotweed, so in the summer the view is nothing but green knotweed leaves (See view summer 2003). The knotweed leaves are visible in the lower center of the above picture, and its dead winter stalks are on the left in the picture below. If you walk through the gate and turn left, there's a stunning native trumpet vine growing on the fence. In the summer, watch the vine for hummingbirds.
Picutre: a squirrel along the path to Cloonan demostrates how to tap a maple tree. Click here to learn what squirrels want. Click here to learn maple tree tapping.
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PICTURES: This giant cow parsnip (Heracleum lanatum) and this wild sunflower are two of the native wildflowers hardy enough to co-exist with the knotweed. The cow parsnip grows an impressive 6 to 8 feet high and is often mistaken for its dreaded kin, the poisonous invader Giant Hogweed. Hogweed can be distinguished by its red-purple stem markings. The cow parsnip is surrounded by the ferny leaves of that environmentalist's headache, the invasive ubiquitous mugwort. (Both pictures: summer 2003)
PICTURE: View from the northwest river bank as the river turns south at Cloonan, December 2005. The trees and shrubs along this part of the river bank includes silver, red and Norway maples, ash, locust, various hickory nuts, black cherry, linden, crabapples, American beech, invasive honeysuckle, and the squirrels' delight, red oaks. The small tree holding on to last summer's leaves, now cooper-colored, is a very young American beech.
PICTURE: Red oaks along the path next to Cloonan middle school (looking east at the river).
PICTURE: View from the southeast bank of the graceful 3-arch stone bridge at North Street. Cloonan is visible to the upper left. Jan. 2006.
PICTURE: View from the North Street Bridge looking back north up the river. Jan. 2006. View North Street Bridge Plaque.
PICTURE: View of the foot bridge just south of North Street, from the east bank, October 2004. Maples, mostly red, but some silver and (invasive) Norway, contribute the glorious color. Note how low the water is compared to the views from winter 2005 and 2006. Muskrats have been seen just south of here where human access to the water's edge is limited.
PICTURE: Playing soccer in Dr Jacob Nemiotion Park to the east of the foot bridge, on North Street, between Cloonan Middle School on the north side of the street and Hart School to the south. Jan. 2006
PICTURE: View west from the end of one of the side streets below North Street. The multi-trunked tree is another one of our silver maples.
PICTURE: View looking east from the end of one of the side streets below North Street, to the west of the river. The two trees at the river edge with red trunks are our native red junipers -- great "bird trees" that provide shelter year round and that provide winter survival food in the form of the blue waxy berries that the birds don't like much but will eat when nothing lese is available.
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PICTURES: A gracious brick home harks back to the days when Washington Boulevard was a quiet lane; and one of the many charming older homes in the maze of side streets east of Washington Boulevard. High-rises may be a much better use of our limited land -- I live in one myself -- but the aesthetic charm of these vintage homes can not be denied.
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Photo credits: Sue Sweeney © Sue Sweeney 2006