We invite new and old members alike to take advantage of your Land Trust’s lands. This month, we are highlighting beautiful Butler Preserve!

This 118-acre preserve located in Hazle Township hosts rare, dense thickets of scrub oak barrens and cool wetlands enveloped by a looming forest along the Dreck Creek Reservoir. The Butler Preserve is ideal for a variety of outdoor activities including birdwatching, hiking and biking.

Butler Preserve can be accessed through its intersection with the established Greater Hazleton Rails to Trails. Instructions from Interstate 81: “Take Exit 141, turning right onto 4242 Arthur Gardner Parkway. Travel east about 4 miles until it dead ends at State Route 93. Turn left at the 93 intersection. The trail entrance and parking lots are immediately on your right and well-marked by a large sign.”

Supporting Early Pollinators

“Save the bees” means more than just setting down that fly swatter! The transition between winter and spring is a dangerous time for all our area invertebrate pollinators from native butterflies and moths to European honeybees.

Native pollinators start early in their search for suitable nesting spots, and beehives are often running low on last year’s honey. NBLT’s Rylan Coker and Karley Stasko are both beekeepers here in NEPA and are working hard to make sure their bees are healthy this spring, but anyone can help our flying pollinators thrive!

What can you do? Avoid upsetting leaf piles before the last frost. Many of us are tempted by yard work the moment it is sunny enough, but those cozy leaves are the late winter homes of many invertebrates. And early spring frosts can be deadly. Furthermore, you may want to hold off on your first lawn cutting or weeding of the season until the weather is consistent. Early bloomers like phloxes, thymes and dandelions are essential food sources for pollinators when other flora have yet to bloom.

March Conservation Tips

Start Small: Whether you have a tiny window box or hundreds of acres, growing your own herbs and produce has a huge impact on conservation. By growing a single sage plant, not only can you harvest as you need, reducing food wastage, but you have also prevented a plastic container from being produced and ending up in a landfill and saved hundreds of miles in transporting that sage from the farm to the manufacturer to the grocery store and then to you.

Dream Big: Have a little more space? Maybe a lot more space? Now is the time to transform your yard with native and drought tolerant landscaping! Green pastures might be alright for golf or livestock grazing, but if you are hoping your yard is as eco-friendly as you are, it may be time to ditch the lawn. While we recommend visiting your local garden center for help tailoring your landscaping to your property’s unique conditions, consider trees and shrubs whose large root systems hold more groundwater than non-native grasses.