Community Programs

Starting in 2023, the position will come with the fabulous benefit of an additional 1/2 plot which can be kept for the duration of service as coordinator.

Idylwilde Community Gardens

Garden Co-Coordinator Needed  

We are looking for someone to help out as co-coordinator for the Idylwilde Community Garden. Whether you have been at the Community Garden for one year or 10+ years, you can do this! Reach out for more information:

[email protected]

Meet your new Idylwilde Community Garden Co-Coordinator, Julia!

It is my third year in the Community Gardens and I love it. My gardening roots extend to the vegetable gardens of my native Siberia but I am a gardening omnivore and try to grow everything, from chayote to fennel.

Looking forward to the next year of gardening! (while flipping through freshly-arrived seed catalogs)

~Julia

Land Management

Meeting info here
Willards Woods Public Meeting

12/14/22 @ 7:00PM

Please join us to discuss the proposed Universal Access Trail alignment and associated parking at Willards Woods. This meeting will be held remotely via zoom.

Your feedback and participation in this process is invaluable.

Follow project here

Parker Meadow's Land Use Regulation Updates

During their 11/21/22 meeting, the Conservation Commission voted to approve updates to land use regulations on the UA trail segments at Parker Meadow. The updates include:

Bikes yield to all other users.

Yielding means:

To pull off the side of the trail to a complete stop to let the other person(s) pass, or
To dismount and walk your bike past the other person(s).

All dogs must be leashed.

Eye Spy in Nature

The Flat-branched tree clubmoss resembles a miniature tree.

Club mosses are spread over large areas of Meagherville’s forest floor.

Minute spores release in a cloud from the club-shaped sporangi. Their spore dust was once sold to entertainers to create pyrotechnic stage effects.

Meagherville's Miniature "Pine" Forest

by Conservation Steward
Barbara Katzenberg

The Meagherville conservation land is home to Lexington’s largest collection of clubmosses, specifically the Flat-branched tree-clubmoss (Dendrolycopodium obscurum). One of the plant’s common names is “Princess pine” in honor of its miniature tree-like shape. Two hundred million years ago, relatives of the clubmoss populated swamps and grew over 100’. Today’s species stand 6” high at most. The plant spreads via spores similar to ferns, and via underground rhizomes with the help of mycorrhizal fungi.

At times people have over-harvested clubmosses in the wild to make holiday wreaths. While not endangered, New York is among the states that classify the plant as vulnerable to exploitation. (We are not allowed to collect any plant material in our conservation lands.)

Compared to some of our other conservations lands which were farm or grazing land relatively recently, active management of the area stopped in Meagherville at the end of the nineteenth century. Many small lots sold speculatively for housing were left undeveloped in part because the needed roads, water, and sewer for the area were never brought in. Meagherville contains many older eastern white pines and a mature beech forest, which has been under attack from the newly arrived beech leaf disease.

Despite the beauty of clubmosses, you won’t see them available for purchase at any nursery. They are extremely slow growing and defy attempts at propagation. They are best enjoyed where they are, particularly on a fall or winter walk when the summer growth around them has died away.

Upcoming Events!!!

Citizens for Lexington Conservation Walks

Register and find out more