The Dirt Blog

You may recognize Japanese honeysuckle as the species you harvested as a child for its honey-like taste.

  TLC is thrilled to welcome five students from Knightdale High School (KHS) into our inaugural cohort of the Pathways into Natural Environments and Science (PINES) Fellowship program. Please join us in welcoming Daniel Ivan Vargas, Zoe Grandy-Richardson, Raphael Mukondiwa, Hanna Camptella, and Quinten Jones into the TLC community! This year’s cohort of PINES Fellows […]

The Triangle is now flush with the coldhearted princess of invasive plants, Chinese wisteria (Wisteria sinensis). While you’re distracted by its beautiful grape-like clusters of flowers and sweet scent, its vines are slithering up and suffocating trees in search of the sun. This woody vine grows rapaciously through runners and seeds, but there are ways […]

ORANGE COUNTY, N.C. — TLC’s Brumley South trail expansion project open to the public  This expansion adds 1 mile of hiking-only trail and 1.6 miles for multi-use open to residents and visitors to escape into nature and experience one of the County’s most popular preserves. “Brumley is TLC’s most popular preserve, so when the opportunity […]

Written by Patrick Boleman, Land Stewardship Manager East Callery Pear (Pyrus calleryana) With spring on the horizon, early-blooming plants are beginning to show their colors heralding the coming of warmer weather. Pinks from redbud trees, subtle reds from maples, and a myriad of colors from spring ephemerals are beginning to pop throughout the landscape. One […]

  So far, TLC staff hasn’t actually seen a timber rattlesnake on the newly conserved, Rattlesnake Range but that’s how we, or at least some of us, prefer it. This 76-acre property in northern Durham County is the third acquisition made by TLC in partnership with the National Guard Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration (REPI) […]

Bluestem Conservation Cemetery, the first conservation burial ground in The Piedmont, will open in February on a gorgeous 90-acre property in Cedar Grove. Bluestem will place the property under a conservation easement to be held by Eno River Association and Triangle Land Conservancy. In 2015, long-time conservationists Jeff Masten and Heidi Hannapel started LandMatters to […]

By Madeline Joslin, Williamson Preserve Community Engagement Associate AmeriCorps member Chinese privet (Ligustrum sinense) Ligustrum sinese, known commonly as Chinese privet, is of the genus Ligustrum which contains 50 species native to Europe, North Africa, and Asia. European privet and Japanese privet are also invasive, but not as abundant or aggressive in the piedmont of […]

By Hannah Royal, Stewardship Associate Local amphibians In North Carolina, we are fortunate to have nearly 30 species of frogs and toads and more than 60 species of salamanders. The state’s rich habitat diversity, spanning coast to mountains, supports a wide assortment of wildlife. Here in the Durham – Chapel Hill area, rainy summer nights […]

By Madeline Joslin, Williamson Preserve Community Engagement Associate AmeriCorps There is nothing that sets off winter ennui quite like seeing Christmas tree carcasses tossed along the roadside in January. Live Christmas trees are undoubtedly better for the environment than artificial trees, but there are multiple ways to extend the use of your tree beyond the […]