Mass Audubon's Ashumet Holly Wildlife Sanctuary — Attraction in Falmouth

This is a nice site with trails/ a map/ interesting plants. I enjoyed walking there with a small group twice. It seems undermanaged though. Vines are overtaking the place and this is disturbing as it affects the views and health of holly and other trees. Of less biological importance but still important is the incursion of poison ivy close to and onto parts of trails. While some of the holly's are numbered there is no way to use that for ID. The vines pose a very large problem, but at least they could be cut once every other year. The stuff already in the trees would shrivel and become harmless. The poison ivy ? Spot...

day31(11OCT2024) sanctuary65; mostly level single-track trails around pond, pretty well marked at intersections (but you'll want to have a downloaded trail map). reportedly 60 different "varieties" of holly, left over from prior use as a model farm. lots of introduced rhododendron and inkberry too. franklinia tree still in bloom today, at same time that upper leaves starting to turn color for autumn. very bad infestation of invasive porcelain berry in fields and scrub near the...

Features include Mystery tree (which location is unknown to me), Darwinia (I bought one, but it struggles), Grassy Pond, and a vernal pond with frog population for a week in spring. My walk takes 45 minutes. I do it two or three days a week. Ticks and Poison Ivy abound. One spring day a cry led me to a Bald Eagle resting on a dead branch. There are numbered tags on a few Holly trees but no key.Boxwood and Azalia mark what once must have...