forest ecosystems | Garden Club of Irvington

If you’re not already a fan of CJ Reilly, meet the heart and soul of the O’Hara Nature Center and Irvington Woods Park.

With a passion for nature and a gift for teaching, CJ has been greening our community for the past five years. He’s not only an arborist, ecologist and plant scientist, he’s a mentor, leader, and friend to many.

CJ’s journey is as diverse as the land he cares for. As director of the O’Hara Nature Center (ONC) and Irvington Woods Park for the past five years, Charles J. Reilly III has been leading the stewardship of a 251-acre forest, selecting and caring for the trees and plants and supervising staff, contractors and volunteers. With grants from the New York State Department of Conservation, Harvard Forest, Cornell, and Westchester County agencies, CJ manages more than $500,000 for invasive species control, deer mitigation, tree planting and youth-led programs.

CJ in his ‘office’ at the O’Hara Nature Center

“My first — and continuing — passion is teaching,” he says. That’s evident in the many ways he’s teaching us how to take care of our planet and the living things growing on it. Consultant and project manager for the Irvington and Mamaroneck School Districts, he’s develops K–8 sustainability and climate education projects and aligning curricula to State and NextGen standards. In the Village of Irvington, he’s responsible for the street trees. At the ONC, he leads innovative, hands-on horticulture and land management programs, including monthly volunteer Stewardship Saturdays for adults and families.

Budding Naturalists conduct water-quality and wildlife surveys

Participants in the 2nd through 4th grade Budding Naturalists gain exposure to “backyard ecology” and learn about everything from the animals in the environment to the impact of climate change.

Changing Forest students with the Norway maple they helped take down

The 6th through 12th grade Changing Forest students are involved in projects like taking down invasive trees, making what now looks like “a messy pile of branches” into an area that in 30 to 40 years will be a sustainable host forest for varied bird and insect life.

“My family loves CJ, and the kids grow in so many ways under his instruction,” says Katherine Lark, mom of two high school students who participate in the ONC’s programs. “My husband Fritz and I couldn’t be happier with their experiences. The programs provide so many benefits, including learning about nature and environmental conservation, doing hands-on work that develops practical skills, and getting leadership, citizen-scientist and community service opportunities — welcome breaks from screen time!”

At the Old-Growth Network recognition ceremony last spring

CJ’s efforts have received many accolades, including the Old Growth Network Award for Community Forest Recognition; a Google Geo for Good Impact Award; and a Cornell Graduate Student Research Award. The Garden Club of America (GCA) awarded him the 2023 GCA Elizabeth Abernathy Hull Award for Youth Environmental Education.

Garden Club of Irvington members are longtime CJ fans; he’s been one of our most influential voices, leading us in workshops where we learned to propagate citrus trees using air-layering techniques. He’s assisted our members in planning hands-on workshops on topics like making bee hotels. Our club will be playing a growing role as ONC docents and community educators.

This past June, CJ was a keynote speaker at the GCA’s Zone III Meeting, where he shared with presidents and representatives of the 23 GCA garden clubs in New York State his successful strategies for partnering with parks departments, school districts, nature centers and community volunteers. Says Meeting Chair Anne Myers, “CJ’s training, experience and passion for forest ecology and community land stewardship captivated the audience and sent attendees home motivated to get more involved in their own communities.”

We invite you to visit the O’Hara Nature Center and Irvington Woods. “The grounds and woods are open every day from dawn to dusk,” CJ explains. “It’s a great place to come for hiking, walking and birdwatching.”

The O’Hara Nature Center is located at 170 Mountain Road, Irvington, NY 10533. Preregistration is required for the free Stewardship Saturdays. (The upcoming meetups this year are 10/25, 11/8, 11/22, 12/6 and 12/13.) The afterschool programs, have a fee. Much more information here.

Deer are an increasingly difficult problem in this region. Even if fences and sprays were effective; even if everyone planted only “deer-proof” species; even if there were no traffic accidents or cases of Lyme disease, deer herds in the woods—like those we see along the Saw Mill Parkway, on Mountain Road, and throughout the Rivertowns—are destructive to our region and our planet.

In the fragile ecosystems of the woodlands that surround and weave through our suburban areas, the deer are eating and/or have destroyed the lowest growing plants and shrubs, including tree seedlings. This is upsetting the balance of nature—of animal, insect and bird life—and is preventing regeneration of the forests, which are responsible through the carbon cycle for creating the very air we breathe.

Two recent speakers at Garden Club of Irvington events have educated members about this issue:

Carolyn Summers, a landscape architect and adjunct professor at Westchester Community College, is a local expert on biodiversity. She writes in Designing Gardens with Flora of the American East, “Instead of a sustainable number, perhaps ten or twenty deer per square mile, surveys are revealing population densities in the hundreds. Deer are eating themselves out of house and home. In the process, they are leaving little or nothing for other forms of wildlife, including the plants that support us all.”

Dr. Doug Tallamy, professor and chair of entomology and wildlife ecology at the University of Delaware, and author of Bringing Nature Home, agrees: “The deer are above their carrying capacity—that is, the herds are larger than the land can support—because we have killed all their predators. We have also created their favorite edge habitat, our gardens. In many places, the only plants the deer have left in our forest understory are invasive, unpalatable species. Our forests may appear to be healthy, but there is no recruitment; that is, the next generation of trees is being destroyed.”

Tag Archives: forest ecosystems

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