The Hermitage


The Hermitage Natural Area in New Castle, DE


Trail map through the woods of the Hermitage Natural Area and some wildflowers seen in the meadow
Click on images to enlarge.


The Hermitage Natural Area: why it's there and how it was developed and what can you do there?

This natural area entered from 901 Delaware Street, New Castle is owned by the Trustees of New Castle Common and open to the public. It is not a typical "park" with playground, picnic tables and paved walkways like Battery Park 10 blocks away along the Delaware river. Instead, as the POSTED sign says, it's for "Hiking, photography and nature study."

"Hiking" can include walking on one of the trails on the trail map through a meadow or forest or by the marsh.
"Photography" is up to you in this beautiful quiet area (except for the calling of birds, buzzing of insects and wind. There are some pictures on the Facebook page .

"Nature study" might include checking out the wildflowers in the "pollinator meadow". Over 35 species have been seen at different times. Or, listening to the peepers in the marsh in springtime. Or look for birds. Andrew Ednie, observed 28 species in 32 minutes, and entered his list on eBird.org, a birding app.
If you see a plant or animal that you do not recognize, you can look it up via the webapp iNaturalist with your cellphone. Just click "observe", take a picture, pick "next", ask for suggestions, and if it seems reasonable, select it. Note the iNaturalist will almost always come up with some suggestion. It's up to you to consider whether it's real or not.
After the Hermitage mansion burned the Trustees considered what to do with the adjacent property they held. You can read about it in the monthly minutes from 2011 to 2017, and the Outreach Committee progress reports for 2016, 2017 and 2019.

The concept of the natural area started with the April 2014 proposal to make it a bird viewing site offering a bird viewing platform, osprey platforms in the wetlands section, and plantings for butterflies and birds. and then in 2016 to build trails in the property.

By November 2016 trails had been cleared and Tom Brightman, the principal designer of the meadow garden at Longwood, proposed a multi year approach to deal with invasive species and create a wildflower and grass area. Meek proposed to the Trustsees extending the trail concept to include a wildflower area and working with the adjacent schools to allow kids to learn about nature in the Hermitage area. He asked for a long-term commitment from the board acknowledging use of the property as a wildlife/nature area now and in the future. The motion was approved.

Note that neither the method of eliminating invasives nor what to plant in the meadow had yet been decided.

Creations of the meadow This narrative describes building the meadow starting with clearing the invasives and brush with a bush hog and 'forestry cutter', getting soil tests to learn what might grow and planning what seeds to plant. The result: most of the flower and grass seeds that were planted came up. And, as perennials, they reached reasonable size after several years .

Birds The meadow and surrounding woods are inviting to birds, both by plan and chance. Dead trees, both downed and standing (snags) are allowed to remain to act as homes for birds or the bugs they eat. The meadow contains several acres of wildflowers and grasses that serve as habitat: offering places to nest, bugs to eat and places to hide both in all seasons. The grounds are purposely mowed only in March to provide protection during the winter. Seeds are important in winter, but the major source of food for raising young is berries. Fortunately the woods are filled with American Holley, viburnum and spice bush all of which offer nutritious berries. There are some attractive alien plants like oriental bittersweet and bush honey suckle, but like sweet treats are of low nutritive value.

Fighting aggressive alien invasive plants is now the major work required to maintain the meadow. The expensive initial work was to cut the brush and small trees and big weeds to get down to bare ground. Now after planting, the challenge is to keep all types of weeds from coming back. I learned of the concept of the 'seed bank' and 'disturbed soil' where the ground has accumulated seeds for years, many of which will last for years in the soil. When exposed to sun, they sprout. The Delaware Invasive Species Council (DISC) has a list of 15 invasives. Of those, 11 occur at the Hermitage. Bill McAvoy, a state botanist published a more extensive list of 198 plants that are invasive or potentially invasive. Twenty four of these are present in the Hermitage, One of them, the black locust is 'adventive'. It is native to North America but not to Delaware.

Some of these alien plants are present, but not particularly problematical. Currently the worst of them, in approximately decreasing order are: Japanese bush honeysuckle, mile-a-minute, japanese stilt grass, garlic mustard, oriental bittersweet, Japanese honeysuckle vine, porcelainberry, Japanese angelica, Japanese knotweed and tree of heaven.

Help is available online to learn to identify the plants. For example, The New York Times article "The Dirty Secret About Weeding" is a good start, especially for mugwort and garlic mustard. Mistaken Identies is a great tool for alien plants from look-alike natives. For example, it helped to distinguish (page 8) Japanese Aralia from native devils walking stick. Knowing the plant was alien made it easy for me to decide to remove it with i.t. (intra trunk) injection of glyphosate. Eliminating invasives can allow native plants to rebound.


Although eliminating bush honeysuckle is a serious problem, a little bit of humor is good. The authors at the Missouri Dept. of Ag. have a couple of suggestions. But, there are many more suggestions online for getting rid of the weed. For example, one suggests 32 ways to remove bush honeysuckle. I've tried methods 1,3,5,6 successfully, depending upon stem diameter, and am trying method 17. We'll see. Then there's the "tug-a-suckle" method. I'm looking forward to trying it when covid disappears and we can have groups of volunteers working.

Knotweed at the Hermitage initially surrounded the parking lot and blocked all sight of the marsh, meadow and woods. First attempts at cutting it down were unsuccessful as was spraying with glyphosate during the spring or summer. Spraying in the fall caused an almost complete disappearance, but will need to be repeated for several years.


The Wonderful Forest Full of Trees After dealing with weeds, it's great to walk in the woods among the trees. So far, we've see about 38 species in all. You can see 20 of them on just the 0.25 mile green trail near the parking lot. Although the trees are 2nd growth and only 70-100 years old, they still look tall to me. As noted in the green trail page [in progress], a pin oak on the red trail may make it into the Big Trees of Delaware book. Bill McAvoy measured it at 42.5" diameter=133.5" circumference at breast height which would be the 3rd largest in the state.

School Usage At the suggestion of Anna Wik (who had attended Carrie Downie School as a child), the original concept for the natural area was to include outdoor classrooms adjacent to Carrie Downie and New Castle Elementary schools. After the initial introduction to the area, Carrie Downie used the outdoor classroom area next to their playground 4-5 times a week (prior to the pandemic) and used the adjacent trails by the after school run club.

Maintenance in the future The original plan was that after four years the natural area could be maintained simply by annual mowing in March and spot weeding by volunteers. Over 60 volunteers from the community have helped one or more times to cut vines, pull weeds, maintain the trails and identify plants. In January 2020 the Trustees listed the Hermitage as a "Local Organizing Partner", of the Delaware Master Naturalist Program and began to accept trainees. They commit to doing 40 hours of community service. The eight trainees so far have been a great help. Right now (October 2020), mile-a-minute is not yet gone, porcelain berry is climbing the trees by the railroad, and I'm starting to wonder if the goldenrods and false sunflowers will come to blows. Mother Nature brings surprises every year.

Volunteers have been of tremendous help. And very pleasant to work with and share the enjoyment of the meadow. I thank: Alice Jarvis, Bill Dukes, Bruce Burk, Carol Hickman, Catherine Cambridge, Chuck Byrnes, Dawn Kackley, Dorsey Fiske, Ed Betz, Ed Ryan, Gail Levinson, Janet Wurtzel, Jim Sidlowski, John Burkert, Joseph Blake, Karen Brown, Katie Trachtenberg, Lois Barth, Margaret Crosby, Michele Weiner, Pam Weiss, Phee Price, Rita Meek, Russ Smith, Staci Pinkowitz, Susan Keyser, and Suzanne Souder. I especially thank Bill Dukes, Jim Sidlowski, John Burkert, Katie Trachtenberg, Lois Barth and Suzanne Souder for their contributions to the project.

http://www.inaturalist.org/observations?project_id=48906

Jim Meek 2020
NC-CHAP