Green happenings: Charlottesville environmental news and events

Each week, C-VILLE’s Green Scene page takes a look at local environmental news. The section’s bulletin board has information on local green events and keeps you up to date on statewide happenings. Got an event or a tip you’d like to see here and in the paper? Write us at news@c-ville.com. Funds for farms: In the wake […]

Ivy Creek Foundation hosts last plant walk of the year

“Plants are a lot like people—they have their redeeming qualities even when they’re hard to tolerate,” Tony Russell said as he gestured at an invasive vine winding its way up a willow oak tree. Russell is a member of the Virginia Master Naturalists, and has been an active volunteer with the Ivy Creek Foundation and […]

Archaeologists dig up James Madison’s threshing machine, find human story

Archaeologists at James Madison’s Montpelier have spent the last three years excavating bits and pieces of the president’s world, searching for clues about his life on the plantation. A team led by archaeologist Dr. Matt Reeves—working with a grant from the National Endowment for Humanities for a study of slave communities—spent years digging up layers […]

Center for Watershed Protection works to care for waterways

Dave Hirschman and Laurel Woodworth are serious about their work with the Center for Watershed Protection, a national nonprofit with a mission to clean up and care for waterways in Virginia and beyond. But they try to bring a little levity to the job when they can. Hirschman, the director of CWP’s Charlottesville office, and […]

County, plant experts roll out new native species database

Those seeking guidance in the garden have a new resource at their fingertips: the Piedmont Virginia Native Plants Database, a searchable list of 341 native grasses, trees, and wildflowers, all found in the region before the arrival of European settlers, and all accompanied by information about where they can be put to best use. Want […]

Rockfish Gap Hawk Watch keeps tabs on raptors

On a slow September Saturday back in the early 1990s, Brenda Tekin took a drive up Afton Mountain in search of something to occupy her for the afternoon. She’d read about the Rockfish Gap Hawk Watch, a group of birders who kept tabs on migrants from the parking lot of the Inn at Afton each fall, […]

Green happenings: Charlottesville environmental news and events

Each week, C-VILLE’s Green Scene page takes a look at local environmental news. The section’s bulletin board has information on local green events and keeps you up to date on statewide happenings. Got an event or a tip you’d like to see here and in the paper? Write us at news@c-ville.com. Night watch: Get a […]

Amateur mycologists go to ground in search of seasonal mushrooms

David Via’s first memories of mushroom hunting are from his Crozet childhood. His father—a descendant of early Blue Ridge settlers who grew up in a high hollow on Buck’s Elbow Mountain—would take him out hunting for morels each spring. They would follow the time-honored seasonal cues locals use to mark the start of the treasured mushroom’s […]

Growing good wine in Virginia’s unlikely clime

Ever since Virginia’s first settlers planted wine vineyards in the Tidewater, the challenges of growing good grapes here have been apparent. The varieties we know, like Chardonnay, pinot noir, and cabernet sauvignon, all belong to the European species vitis vinifera, which tends to favor a dry Mediterranean climate. Those vines didn’t take kindly to Virginia’s […]