Meadowood: All Topics
The text below includes all the major topics available on the Native Arboretum page, except for news items.
About Meadowood
Meadowood Recreation Area lies on the southern flank of the Mason Neck Peninsula, in the Belmont Bay drainage. (Belmont Bay combines with the Occoquan River estuary to empty into Occoquan Bay.) The peninsula is shaped like a foot, with the toes pointed south; Meadowood is in the ankle. Meadowood is in the interior of the peninsula: It does not include any shoreline.
The Mason Neck Peninsula is a great place to learn about local history and the nature of the mid-Atlantic coastal plain. Most of Mason Neck is protected for conservation. In addition to Meadowood, the peninsula is home to Pohick Bay Regional Park, Gunston Hall Plantation, Mason Neck State Park, and the Mason Neck National Wildlife Refuge. Meadowood is Mason Neck’s newest protected area; it was designated in 2001.
Most of Meadowood is covered by magnificent beech and oak-hickory forests. The forests cover about 600 of Meadowood’s 800 acres; another 150 acres is ungrazed field. Horse pastures account for nearly all of the remaining land. The pastures are grazed by the horses boarded at the property’s large barn. The property is drained by three streams and their tributaries (Giles Run, South Branch, and Thompson Creek); there are also two small ponds and, in the forest, one depression that may qualify as a vernal pool. In 2009, Meadowood was recognized as an "Important Bird Area," meaning that the property provides essential habitat for vulnerable bird species.
But Meadowood has its share of ecological problems—which is hardly surprising, given its location just one and a half miles from the Route 1 / I-95 corridor. At least three of this region’s most pervasive ecological problems are affecting the property:
1. Stream-channel instability caused by heavy stormwater runoff. Heavy runoff is eroding Meadowood’s streams and has silted up the downstream reach of Thompson Creek, thereby raising the water table and killing many of the trees in the floodplain. (The dying trees had put out their roots many years ago, when the water table was lower; the roots are now submerged and the trees are, in effect, drowning.)
2. Invasive alien plants. Many invasive alien plant species are well established in Meadowood’s fields; their presence is likely to interfere with the re-emergence of native meadow. In addition to these "invasive weeds," intentionally introduced alien fescue grasses still dominate most of the property’s fields and are probably locking out many native meadow plants. (The fescues were introduced for grazing.) Invasives have also made their way into Meadowood’s forests but, for the most part, the forests remain fairly clean—infestations are not nearly as common, as large, or as dense as they are in many other northern Virginia parks. The one exception to this favorable diagnosis is an extensive infestation of Japanese stiltgrass (Microstegium vimineum) in the Thompson Creek floodplain.
3. Very heavy deer browsing. An unnaturally large population of deer appears to have suppressed native understory in much of Meadowood’s forest. And by eating so many tree saplings, the deer also seem to be interfering with the forest’s ability to renew itself—that is, there are no longer enough little trees in the forest to replace the big trees when they eventually die. And because deer favor certain species over others—they browse oak and hickory saplings heavily, for example, but tend to avoid American beech (Fagus grandifolia)—heavy browsing is eventually likely to reduce the diversity of Meadowood’s forest canopy. (To learn more about deer browsing, read our Backgrounder on White-Tailed Deer and Our Plant Communities.)
Meadowood is managed by the Lower Potomac Field Station of the Bureau of Land Management, a federal agency within the Department of the Interior. Meadowood has a small staff—and an enormous agenda. Here are the main items:
Managing the horse program,
Maintaining the property’s trails and various facilities,
Conducting biological inventories (or working with other organizations on these activities),
Conducting watershed studies,
Managing invasive alien plants,
Managing the ponds and streams for native wildlife,
Improving terrestrial habitat,
And developing a wide range of environmental education events and projects.
Our Meadowood Sites
The Sangha has both forest and meadow projects at Meadowood. To see where these projects are located, open the Meadowood Map. (The map uses large files, so a broadband connection is recommended.) All of our projects are long-term, and all involve some combination of invasive plant control and reestablishment of appropriate native plants. All of our planting stock is local-ecotype and produced at our own Wild Plant Nursery. (Our nursery stock is grown from seed, spore, and cuttings that we ourselves collect, with permission, from local natural areas.)
A brief description of each site follows. The descriptions are organized, roughly, by project start date, with the oldest projects listed first.
The Horse Barn Site
The Horse Barn Site includes about three quarters of an acre behind Meadowood’s large horse barn. Most of this area slopes and has been eroding because of the large volume of runoff that passes over it during heavy rains. At the base of the slope, just beyond the site, there is a seasonal stream—an unnamed tributary to Thompson Creek. (A seasonal stream flows during the wet seasons and dries out during the summer.) A narrow strip of forest encloses the stream, but the slope is steep and the band of forest is not broad enough to absorb large amounts of run-off, so the stream channel is badly eroded and very deep, which makes it unstable.
In collaboration with the Lake Braddock High School Environmental Science program and Meadowood staff, we began planting this area in May 2008, with the aim of reducing run-off and restoring the area to woody oldfield and, eventually, forest. (Woody oldfield is a transitional formation: it’s meadow on its way to forest.) Our planting includes a wide variety of native trees, shrubs, and herbaceous (nonwoody) plants. Meadowood staff also seeded the area with grasses to help control erosion while our plants grow.
The Ecological Display Site
The Ecological Display Site covers about four acres and lies close to the Horse Barn Site. When we started work here, in April 2009, the site was nearly featureless pasture, only recently fenced off from surrounding pastures. The pasture was covered entirely with a species of alien fescue, a kind of Eurasian grass introduced for grazing. The fescue is very tough and has proved both a blessing and a curse—a curse because it can outcompete the native herbaceous plants that we are trying to reestablish, and a blessing because it also outcompetes most of the other invasives that would otherwise make their way into the site. A long, serpentine depression—a little like a dry stream bed—runs through the center of the site, draining both the site itself and parts of the surrounding pastures. The depression empties into the seasonal stream mentioned above.
We are working to transform this site into a window on the ecology of the local coastal plain. Our plan calls for sample patches of several different native-plant communities: two forest types, an herbaceous meadow, a narrow, undulating “river of grass” to cover that depression, and tracts of woody oldfield. (Woody oldfield is an important habitat type that is increasingly rare in the Washington, DC, area.) All this ecological variety should pay off for animals as well as plants. Birds, amphibians, reptiles, small forest mammals, various native insects—all these creatures should eventually find a home within the site.
At the base of the river of grass feature, there is a stormwater collection pond that we hope can be managed to mimic a vernal pool. (Vernal pools go dry in the summer; they are very important habitats for amphibians because they do not contain fish. Many fish species prey on amphibians.) Other features of the site—actual or eventual—include check-dams (to help control stormwater run-off), interpretive and botanical signage, and a wheelchair-accessible trail. As with the Horse Barn Site, volunteers and interns from the Lake Braddock High School Environmental Science program are our principal partners on this project—along with Meadowood’s own staff, of course!
Eventually, the Horse Barn and Display Sites will be joined into a single planting. We began planting the area between them in spring 2009.
The Thompson Creek Site
The Thompson Creek Site is a riparian (stream-side) area along about one-third of a mile of Thompson Creek, deep in Meadowood’s forest. Although the site lies within a large forest, the trees along this part of the creek are dying because of chronic flooding. Here’s what is happening: heavy stormwater runoff is moving large volumes of sediment into the lower reaches of the creek, where it is clogging the channel and slowing the rate of drainage. The slower drainage is raising the water table, and that is killing the forest along the stream—partly because the trees’ roots grew out in response to a very different moisture regime, and partly because the current tree species composition is not well adapted to very wet conditions.
In April 2009, we started planting the area with a selection of native trees and shrubs better suited to current conditions. This should help arrest the loss of forest canopy and speed up the rate at which the forest adapts to the flooding.
The Little Meadow off Belmont Blvd.
The Little Meadow covers slightly less than an acre near Meadowood’s Belmont Blvd. office. Even though it is small, the Little Meadow is valuable because it is one of the few fields on the property that is not dominated by Eurasian fescue. Many native grasses and forbs occur here, intermingled, unfortunately, with many invasive grasses, forbs, and vines. (A forb is an herbaceous plant that is not a grass.) Various tree seedlings are also emerging in the Little Meadow. We have been working here since May 2010. We are removing the tree seedlings to prevent the meadow from reverting to forest; we are also controlling the invasives, and doing a little judicious planting.
The Big Meadow off Belmont Blvd.
The Big Meadow consists of about 17 acres of fescue-dominated field; it lies northeast of the Little Meadow. The Big Meadow is covered almost entirely by alien fescue, but along the northern edge, some tree seedlings and native grasses have managed to make their way in. Elsewhere, unfortunately, Chinese lespedeza (Lespedeza cuneata), an invasive alien forb, has formed several patches. A small stream runs down the center of the field; it is bordered by patches of marsh, which support the most diverse flora on the site. Much of this area is dominated by Rubus species (Rubus is the blackberry genus); there are also native sedges and rushes growing along the stream. We started working in the Big Meadow in April 2011. We are taking a “patch approach” here: we are discing (plowing up) patches of fescue and planting into the patches. We are also attempting to suppress the Chinese lespedeza by “solarizing” it (basically, baking it under a plastic cover).
The Gravel Quarry Meadow
This little meadow lies to the south of our Ecological Display Site and is reached by the same trail. It covers about three-quarters of an acre and lies in a depression created by gravel quarrying many years ago, when Meadowood was still a private farm. This area is already home to a diverse native-grass community but has been invaded by two species of native trees: sweetgum (Liquidamber styraciflua) and Virginia pine (Pinus virginiana). Both of these species are native, and Virginia pine is a kind of “pioneer species”—something that you would expect to find colonizing a site like this. Sweetgum is one of the most common trees in this part of Meadowood; it is very efficient at seeding itself into open habitat. Since we and Meadowood staff are committed to conserving this area as a meadow, we are taking down the sweetgum and thinning the Virginia pine. We are also extending the grasses upslope a little, just to prevent erosion. We started work in the Gravel Quarry Meadow in March 2011.
Volunteering or Visiting
The Meadowood Recreation Area is a property of the Bureau of Land Management – Eastern States. Meadowood’s recreation areas (but not its buildings) are open seven days a week year-round, from dawn to dusk. There are no admittance fees. All you have to do is show up!
Please consider volunteering with us at Meadowood. The property itself is beautiful and interesting—and we need all the help we can get. At the beginning of 2011, we launched a large-scale meadow restoration project for Meadowood, in collaboration with BLM staff. Meadow restoration is challenging and labor-intensive. We have forest restoration sites on the property as well. Our sites host a wide range of native plants and animals. Volunteering is a great way to learn about them—while working to improve their habitats.
Nearly all of our work at Meadowood involves the management of vegetation, both native and alien. We generally work on scheduled field days, which are listed in our DC-area field schedule. You can also sign up for Lisa’s email list, which carries field announcements. To learn more about our work at Meadowood, read about Our Sites, view the slide shows listed in the links panel of the Meadowood page, or look at the Meadowood News. For general background on our volunteer work, take a look at the Volunteer page.
When you’re coming out to volunteer, please wear solid work shoes, rather than sandals or open-toed shoes. If it’s hot, light-weight long pants are usually a better choice than shorts. And please bring a bottle of drinking water and work gloves if you have them. (If not, we’ll supply.) We supply all tools.
In addition to our projects, you can also volunteer directly with Meadowood itself. Meadowood has a very small staff but a very big agenda, so our BLM colleagues are always looking for competent volunteers. They need people to help around the horse barn, to help build and maintain trails, and just generally to keep the place running smoothly. If you would like to volunteer directly with Meadowood, it’s best to call Meadowood’s office, at (703) 339-0410, during regular office hours. If you would like to volunteer on the Earth Sangha’s Meadowood sites, you can contact Lisa Bright, at info@earthsangha.org, or (703) 764-4830.
Driving Directions
The Meadowood Recreation Area lies along Gunston Road (Route 242), on the Mason Neck peninsula. The street address of the main entrance is 10406 Gunston Road. (See the ADC Northern Virginia Map Book, map 5993, square J3.) Take scenic and bucolic Route 1 to Lorton and turn east (left if you’re traveling south) onto Gunston Road. Stay on Gunston Road for about 2 miles; shortly after Gunston Elementary School, you’ll find the main entrance to Meadowood on your right. A large sign marks the entrance. Please drive slowly on the Meadowood entrance road—Meadowood is home to lots of horses! View Meadowood’s location on Google Maps.
Some of our sites are closer to Meadowood’s Belmont Blvd. office, rather than the main office. The street address of the Belmont Blvd. office is 10705 Belmont Blvd. (Route 601). (See the ADC Northern Virginia Map Book, map 5993, square G4.) To get there, stay on Gunston Road about 2 miles from the Route 1 intersection, just as if you were heading for the main office. Shortly after Gunston Elementary School, turn right onto Belmont Blvd. Stay on Route 601. The BLM office will be on your left, a little more than a mile from that turn. You’ll find a sign (also on the left) and a small parking lot. If the lot is full, you can park along the road.
Partners
We are grateful to the following organizations, who have helped fund our work at Meadowood or have provided substantial support for our efforts there.
The Arlington Regional Master Naturalists,
The Arlington County
Long Branch Nature Center,
Friends of Meadowood,
The George Mason University chapter of the Alpha Phi Omega community service fraternity,
Lake Braddock Secondary School Environmental Science,
The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, and
The Virginia Department of Forestry
We also thank the many organizations and individual volunteers who have worked with us in the field at Meadowood. Our are volunteers essential to every tree that we plant, and every square foot of meadow that we restore!
Federal Disclaimer
The views and conclusions contained in the documents on this web site that pertain to Meadowood are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the opinions or policies of the US Government. Mention of trade names or commercial products does not constitute their endorsement by the US Government.