Managing Ralston Creek with Gabions
October 12, 2017 6:00 pm Leave your thoughtsFor more than a century, Iowa City has encroached on Ralston Creek. The runoff from the outlying suburbs is managed... Read More →
Author Archives for Lon Drake
About Lon Drake
This old guy's favorite large-scale conservation projects include integrating soils, water, plants, and animals, especially native species. I still bike through my South Sycamore stormwater management system from 2001.
The Burning Butterfly Problem
October 5, 2017 6:00 pm Leave your thoughtsI went out to hunt up a couple of pawpaws late in the afternoon in late September, and noticed a... Read More →
The Value of Drought
September 28, 2017 6:00 pm 4 CommentsThis year, spring and early summer had quite adequate rainfall. But as we slip into late summer and early autumn,... Read More →
Rose Mallow: Our River Flower
September 21, 2017 6:00 pm Leave your thoughtsThe mallow family is quite extensive in the tropics, with fewer species as one proceeds poleward. The domestics probably most... Read More →
Record Rains
September 7, 2017 6:00 pm 2 CommentsTwo decades ago I was still teaching Engineering Geology, with several weeks of lecture, lab, and field trips devoted to... Read More →
Why Do We Care?
August 31, 2017 6:00 pm Leave your thoughtsBarb and I recently sat out in the driveway, and watched last week’s cloudy eclipse come and go. And to... Read More →
Teenage Hummingbirds Tag-Team Their Mom
August 24, 2017 6:00 pm Leave your thoughtsLast April I posted a blog about my large trellis array covered with flowering native trumpet honeysuckle. It’s still in... Read More →
Coralberry: Opportunity for Pollinators and Birds
August 17, 2017 6:00 pm Leave your thoughtsOur native coralberry, AKA Indian current and buckbrush, is pretty much ignored by conservationists. It is a small shrub, often... Read More →
Shellbark Hickory, The Tree That Used To Be
August 10, 2017 6:00 pm Leave your thoughtsToday almost all hickory trees in Johnson County live on the uplands. You probably know them well – shagbark, bitternut,... Read More →
George Palmiter Invents Green Stream Management
August 3, 2017 6:00 pm Leave your thoughtsFollowing up on my recent Clear Creek blog, this is a little behind-the-scenes look at the history of stream management,... Read More →
