At The Bad Grass series: new science about old trees

Christopher Roddick spoke at The White Hart Inn on Thursday, Feb. 15.
Janna Siller
Christopher Roddick spoke at The White Hart Inn on Thursday, Feb. 15.
The Bad Grass lecture series taking place at Salisbury’s White Hart Inn this winter is highlighting land care methods that increase biodiversity.
During the Thursday, Feb. 15, installment, speaker Christopher Roddick introduced upward of 60 attendees to conservation arboriculture, an approach to tree care as a form of ecosystem management.
Roddick’s career as the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s head of arboriculture and lead foreman has sent him up into trees’ canopies and down into their root systems, teaching him the difference between vigor and vitality.
“Vigor is a plant’s ability to grow,” said Roddick. “If it’s growing really fast, we assume it is healthy. Actually, what health is is vitality, the amount of stored energy in the plant. The more energy a tree has in reserves, the more it can adjust and respond to stressors while increasing habitat for wildlife.”
He gave some practical tips for how to support tree vitality: increase soil health with compost or natural materials rather than synthetic fertilizers; allow leaves to fall and decompose in place; group trees together; avoid pesticides and fungicides; avoid clearing branches from older trees unless necessary for safety; if canopy reduction is necessary, prune from the tips; start trees from seed if possible or buy saplings that are not root bound in their container; keep young trees well watered; and prune trees for the first five to 15 years if they start off root-bound.
Roddick called trees holobiont (super-organisms) and described how almost every part contains fungi and other microorganisms essential to healthy function. The tree care techniques he recommends should therefore all be in service of maintaining those symbiotic relationships.
He noted that the trees we enjoy in our yards and landscapes are the same species that relied on being part of a system when they evolved in diverse and crowded forest environments. Their health hinges on our ability to provide them a system they can thrive in. Emerging forest ecology science is shedding light on how important relationships are to tree health- relationships with microbes, with the surrounding fauna, and with other trees in different life-cycle stages.
When you’re rooted in place, you’re an easy target, so trees have evolved to react, adapt and share resources among themselves. They economize by optimizing growth, getting rid of parts that are no longer needed, and compartmentalizing. Rather than healing from injury like humans do, trees grow new cells in new positions and shed or wall off dead cells.
Imagine a bristlecone pine that sprouted 5,000 years ago. While you can touch parts of the trunk that were growing vibrantly in the Bronze Age, the oldest part of the tree that is still actively growing is only 50 years old, and the needles are only a few years old. “The great duality of being a tree is that it is both young and old at the same time,” said Roddick
For Roddick, trees’ ecosystem services — like providing nectar to pollinators, habitat for wildlife, clean air, and carbon sequestration — are as important as their beauty and recreational value.
When asked the best way to increase biodiversity and ecosystem health on a property, he extolled the benefits of veteran trees that are embarking on the long process of dying, creating hollows for wildlife and nooks and crannies where fungi thrive. He also recommended planting keystone species like oak, maple, birch and willow that can host thousands of other species.
Of all the sunlight that hits the Earth, less than 1% gets caught by organisms that can use the energy. Roddick reminded the assembled gardeners that the vast majority of those are trees. He emphasized the importance of preserving trees into their later years as a means of increasing earth’s photosynthetic capacity.
The Bad Grass series is organized by local residents Page Dickey, Amy Cox Hall and Jeb Breece, whose goal is to “promote conversation and highlight the national thought leaders and practitioners we have in the region.”
The final lecture for this year’s series will take place at the White Hart Thursday, Feb. 29, at 5:30 p.m., and will be a panel discussion with Leslie Needham, Dee Salomon and Matt Sheehan on our human role in creating and maintaining natural landscapes. More information and tickets are available at www.silvaetpratum.com
Proceeds from the series’ ticket sales will be directed toward extending Falls Village’s pollinator-friendly roadside beds to the steps of the David M. Hunt Library.
Author and cartoonist Peter Steiner signed books at Sharon Summer Book Signing last summer.
The 27th annual Sharon Summer Book Signing at the Hotchkiss Library of Sharon will be held Friday, Aug. 1, from 4:45 to 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, Aug. 2, from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; and Sunday, Aug. 3, at noon.
Friday’s festivities will honor libraries and the power of the written word. In attendance will be 29 locally and nationally recognized authors whose books will be for sale. With a wide array of genres including historical fiction, satire, thrillers, young adult and non-fiction, there will be something for every reader.
The event will include a selection of hors d’oeuvres and drinks, followed by eight festive author dinners where writers will read and discuss their work one-on-one with attendees.
Saturday will feature a new Page to Plate program that merges the literary and culinary worlds. Just as writing is a practice of patience and love, so too is the art of cooking. Cookbooks and food writing make cooking teachable to those excited to learn and celebrate the art of a perfect meal.
Through a combination of demonstrations and conversations, acclaimed cookbook authors and chefs will cover a variety of delicious topics. Highlights include a discussion with Chris Morocco, food director of “Bon Appetit” magazine and “Epicurious.” Sharon resident and chef Jessie Sheehan will demonstrate recipes from her cookbook “Salty, Cheesy, Herby, Crispy Snackable Bakes: 100 Easy-Peasy, Savory Recipes for 24/7 Deliciousness.”
With the combination of vetted recipes and thorough discussion from food experts, attendees are sure to leave knowing how to cultivate the ultimate act of service: the gift of a full stomach.
Sunday will be brunch at a private Sharon residence hosted by Graham Klemm and Cody O’Kelly to celebrate author Carolyn Klemm and her cookbook “Culinary Collection: Favorite Country Recipes.”
For more information and to purchase tickets, visit hotchkisslibraryofsharon.org
All proceeds support the programs at The Hotchkiss Library of Sharon.
Ukraine Emergency Fundraiser at The Stissing Center in 2022 raised over $120,000 for Sunflower of Peace.
The spirit of Ukraine will be on display at the Stissing Center in Pine Plains on Sunday, July 27. Beginning at 5 p.m., the “Words to America from Ukraine” fundraiser is set to showcase the simultaneous beauty of Ukrainian culture and the war-time turmoil it faces, all the while fundraising in support of Ukrainian freedom.
“Words to America from Ukraine” aims to remind and spread awareness for the suffering that often gets forgotten by those who live in comfortable worlds, explained Leevi Ernits, an organizer for the event. “We are trying to make an attempt to remind people that we are human, and we are connected with human values,” she said. “With very few words, poetry can express very deep values.”
Sponsored by the Town of Stanford, Friends of Ukraine, L.E. Design LLC, Bartelby & Sage, Oblong Books and Borshch of Art, the fundraiser will host the recitation of war-time Ukrainian poetry. Readings will include the works of Vasyl Sagaydak, Oksana Lutsyshyna, Serhiy Zhadan, Victoria Amelina, Marjana Savka, Ostap Slyvynsky, and Mariana Harahonych.
“Poems are fishhooks into our souls,” added Mark Lagus, another event organizer, explaining why poetry was chosen for the main event.
Guests will also enjoy a performance by Ukrainian Village Voices, a New York City- based band dedicated to preserving and promoting traditional Ukraining Folk music. The evening will also feature speakers Jed Sunden and Maria Genkin, along with a live auction. Food and drink will be provided by Bartelby & Sage, a sustainable, local and female-owned company.
All ticket proceeds, bids, and donations will go directly to Razom for Ukraine, a U.S.-based nonprofit. Razom, meaning “together” in Ukrainian, has the mission of “contributing to the establishment of a secure, prosperous and democratic Ukraine,” through “creating, inspiring, and collaborating on initiatives that motivate people to think, partner and do.”
Tickets, donation opportunities, and more information are all available by visiting www.wordsfromukraine.org
Celebrating its 45th year, the Grumbling Gryphons will perform at HVRHS Friday, Aug. 1, at 7 p.m.
The Grumbling Gryphons Traveling Children’s Theater is preparing to celebrate its 45th year — not with fanfare, but with feathers, fabric, myth, chant, and a gala finale bursting with young performers and seasoned artists alike.
The Gryphons’ 2025 Summer Theater Arts Camp begins July 28 and culminates in a one-night-only performance gala at Housatonic Valley Regional High School on Friday, Aug. 1 at 7 p.m. Founder, playwright, and artistic director, Leslie Elias has been weaving together the worlds of myth, movement and theater for decades.
“We’re a touring company that is participatory,” Elias said with her trademark storytelling cadence. “Even when there’s no pre-performance workshop, it’s still participatory. Always.”
Founded in 1980 “in a little basement apartment on the lower east side with co-founder Vanessa Roe,” said Elias,Grumbling Gryphons (recipients of the 2003 Connecticut Governor’s Arts Award) has long occupied a unique niche: part performance troupe, part educational outreach, part community ritual. Whether dramatizing Greek myths, Native American legends, or original tales about bees and bogs, the company’s ethos centers on inclusion, transformation, and hands-on engagement.
This summer’s camp offers children ages six and up five fast-paced days of storytelling, acting, mask-making, and rehearsal. The first three days will take place at Elias’s own home studio — a tucked-away space filled with costumes, puppets, and instruments — before moving into full performance prep mode.
“In the ideal world, we would have more time,” she laughed. “It’s a lot of pressure to be performing for the public after five days. But we’re going to do our best.”
The gala performance, she explained, is a kind of theatrical mosaic — scenes and excerpts from Grumbling Gryphons’ vast repertoire, some showcasing seasoned adult performers and others giving campers center stage. The cast will include returning campers, newcomers, and guest artists drawn from the Gryphons’ decades-spanning circle of collaborators including mask maker and artist Ellen Moon.
“We’re still figuring out exactly what we’ll do,” said Elias, “but it’s kind of like a smorgasbord… a celebration. And it’s open — if anybody wants to get their kids involved, or even volunteer, we welcome you.”
Photo provided
Elias’s own theater background winds through early improvisational schools, Viennese dance traditions, and experimental spaces like Henry Street Settlement. As a child on Long Island, she studied with jazz pianist Ivan Fiedel and dancer Rosalind Fiedel, eccentric mentors who nurtured her taste for the surreal and spontaneous.
“Mr. Fiedel was a character,” she recalled. “He would smoke a cigar… and take the cigar in his ear and the smoke would come out the other end. I don’t know how he did it.”
Elias built Grumbling Gryphons with this sense of magic — not as a traditional company, but as a living, evolving story in itself. Whether working with preschoolers or middle-schoolers, audiences in botanical gardens or historic town halls, the Gryphons invite kids to become creators — to chant, to improvise, to embody archetypes from ancient lore or environmental parables.
And that’s what this summer’s camp and gala are all about. “It’s more than theater,” Elias said. “It’s myth, poetry, movement — it’s about building self-esteem, imagination. It’s about transformation.”
For more information, to register a child for the 2025 Summer Theater Camp, or to inquire about volunteering, visit grumblinggryphons.org
Attendees practive brushstrokes led by calligraphy teacher Debby Reelitz.
Calligrapher Debby Reelitz came to the David M. Hunt Library to give a group of adults and children an introduction to modern calligraphy Thursday, July 17.
Reelitz said she was introduced to calligraphy as a youngster and has been a professional calligrapher and teacher for more than 25 years.
She said there is no age barrier to learning the basics. “Once children can hold a pen or pencil, they can do it.”
Reelitz said her 5th-grade teacher introduced her to the art.
Then her mother pressed her into service doing the lettering for “4-H certificates and gift cards.”
Reelitz handed out a sampler and blank sheets of paper and then turned to the easel for demonstration purposes.
She noted that the letters (I,T,H,L,E and F) on the top row of the sampler were not alphabetically arranged.
Rather, they comprised a “latter family” of similar shapes.
Soon enough the entire group of six adults and three children were concentrating and turning out decent versions of the letters
Reelitz alternately demonstrated and encouraged the novices.
“Remember, this is not an instant gratification skill.”