DeRosa Environmental Consulting, Inc.

We're more than just an environmental consulting firm, we care deeply about aesthetics as well as using innovative and sustainable solutions to help improve our clients' property. 

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Jewelweed (Impatiens capensis)

In the words of botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer in her book Gathering Moss, "Plants come when and where they are needed. They find their way to the place where they can fulfill their roles." Jewelweed, which can be found in the same wet and shadow-filled environment as poison ivy, certainly fulfills this destiny. This orange flower is not only a bright spot of color in the landscape, but its stem and leaves can be crushed to use as a topical balm for itch-relief after poison ivy exposure. We like to use jewelweed in projects within partially shaded floodplains, not only because poison ivy runs so rampant across the north shore, but also because when planted in the correct environment, jewelweed is a reliable plant that can hold its own! Quick to establish itself in disturbed soil, once this native plant species lays claim to a territory it can help keep other unwanted growth at bay. It can even stand its ground against garlic mustard. Finally, this mid-summer bloom is a great addition for anyone who already keeps a hummingbird feeder in their yard, as hummingbirds, along with bees and butterflies, are its pollinators.

Image Credit: Jewelweed, by Ted LaBar via creativecommons.org (CC BY-NC 2.0)

Kimmerer, R. W. (2021). Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses. Penguin Books. 

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Mountain Laurel (Kalmia latifolia)

Image Credit: Mountain Laurel, by C. Tolson via publicdomainpictures.net (CCO Public Domain)

This native species typically blooms in May and June—if you haven't yet seen the bell shaped blossoms of mountain laurel, you will soon! Considered by many to be one of the most beautiful blooms of New England's native species, mountain laurel features delicate flowers, often white or pink, inked with a small pattern on the petals. As an evergreen, Kalmia latifolia also brings year-round color to its surroundings. This shade tolerant shrub can make a great addition to the yard of a birder, as its nectar is a food source for a variety of song birds. However, it is important to note that its berries are poisonous to people and pets. For those of you who are gardening with pollinators in mind, bumble bees are the primary pollinators of mountain laurel. A unique feature of this shrub is the uncommon technique it has evolved for dispersing pollen. After waiting for pollinators to land in the bowl of their flowers, they use the weight of the pollinators to swing the flower, and fling the pollen up and out!        

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Another spring is behind us....

And just like that, summer is upon us again here in Massachusetts, as time continues to fly by just as fast as the spring ephemerals come and go. With summer beckoning us, much like the robins we are all re-emerging into the sun after a winter spent hunkered in our homes. Since the start of the pandemic, we've seen that an ever growing number of people are spending time working in their yards and rooting around their gardens. We know that a lot of you are committed to cultivating your outdoor spaces intentionally and sustainably, and would like to use native plant species that will provide both aesthetic beauty as well as habitat and food for our wildlife neighbors. Making a choice on which plant can both satisfy your botanical vision and thrive in the constraints of your yard can feel daunting, so this summer we plan to take time to highlight different shrubs, trees, and flowers that we love to use. Stay tuned! 

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Erosion Control Blankets

Working in coastal Massachusetts we often encounter properties where invasive plant species have taken over a coastal bank. One reason this can be daunting to homeowners is the fear of erosion if the invasive plants and their root systems are taken away. Transforming a yard from being thick with invasive species to being home to lush beautiful plants that support our ecosystem is a multi-stage process that doesn't just happen over night. As we all know, plants need time to establish and take root. In the meantime, without ground cover to keep the soil stabilized, there can be a high risk of erosion.

Fortunately, erosion control blankets can significantly prevent erosion, while still fostering seedling growth. These blankets hold sediment in place by providing a layer of protection from wind and by slowing down running water when it rains, preventing sediment from washing away into our water systems. Once the seeded and planted area has become established with the native plants and grasses, the erosion control blanket with begin to degrade, letting nature take over. Recently, we started work at a private residence in Ipswich, and we are thrilled to see how quickly the seed has taken, and how well the erosion control blanket has functioned throughout the handful of rain storms we've had so far this year. We are excited to monitor the success of this site and hopefully continue restoration efforts along the bank and bring back the native coastal bank for the wildlife and the homeowners to enjoy.

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Fauna Friends

If you want to see the fauna in your yard, you have to have the flora. When you plant with native species, you create vital habitat for the adorable animals that call the North Shore home alongside of us. This week, while out in the field, we got up close and personal with number of our non-human friends! Scroll below to see who we met and hear their stories!

This killdeer and its mate were found protecting their nest on a property next door to one of our work sites. Killdeers are type of plover who are known for their high-pitched calls and their "broken wing" method of protecting their nests. When a killdeer suspects its nest may be in danger, they flop and flutter about to imitate a broken wing, and draw the predator away from their nest. Because these particular killdeer built their nest in a yard, we staked the nest to prevent it from being trampled.

If you've received a DeRosa newsletter before, you may remember that this is not our first duck rescue! Looking for a little respite, these ducks made themselves and their ducklings at home in the courtyard of a retirement home. However, when two mama ducks became territorial, putting the new ducklings at risk, relocation became necessary. Wanting to make sure both duck families had a safe and happy home, we moved them to ponds outside of the courtyard.

Finally, we saw this female white-tailed deer while working on a coastal bank restoration, reminding us that none of us are spared during greenhead season.

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USO (Unidentified Submerged Object)   

When we monitor ponds, we not only learn a lot about the health of the pond, but as an added bonus we can catch some fascinating footage of life in the “depths.” Usually we’re familiar with the critters we come across on camera, but once in a while we are stumped. These clips from this video show an “Unidentified Submerged Object.” We met this little orange guy in Dexter Pond, and it’s our Manchester-by-the-Sea Mystery. Our crew is committed to always learning, so if you recognize our new fish (or insect?) friend, please let us know!

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Dexter Pond

Many people know DeRosa Environmental for the land and shoreline restoration work we do, but we’re not afraid to dive beneath the surface as well! When we are working on property that has a pond, we find it useful to monitor the water conditions of the pond in order to gage its health. Doing this allows us to monitor the plant and algae levels and species, and it gives us other important measurements as well, such as dissolved oxygen. Dissolved oxygen is essential for aquatic life, and can be impacted by a variety of factors, such as the number of organisms in a body of water, water temperature, and fertilizer run-off.

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Big Night!

While the calendars may mark the Vernal Equinox to be the first day spring, we know that changing of the seasons is actually kicked off with Big Night. Big Night is the night when our Spotted Salamanders, Jefferson Salamanders, Wood Frogs, and Spring Peepers begin their migration to return to their birthplace to mate. Every year, on the first rainy night with temperatures between 45 and 50 degrees Fahrenheit, these amphibians will traverse through the woods, and even across highways, to return to the place of their own birth in search of a vernal pool, where they will mate a lay their eggs. A vernal pool is a temporary pool of water left behind from snow melt. In these pools, the eggs will be safe from the predators that they would otherwise be exposed to in another body of water. However, since vernal pools disappear quickly as the spring presses on, it is important that the offspring have time to be fully developed to live on land by the time the pool dries up. This is why it is so important for these salamanders and frogs to make sure they get an early start to their pilgrimage, and why Big Night occurs as soon as the conditions are right! At DeRosa, we like to get in on the action of Big Night and watch our tiny friends make their voyage. If you missed seeing it for yourself, take a look at the photos and videos below to see what it's like!

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Clippership Wharf

Sometimes a project opportunity comes across our desk, and we know right away it's going to be amazing. Sometimes we're excited because we get to work on an intriguing concept or engaging planting design of native species to create a restorative habitat, or sometimes it's because we know the project will be able to be enjoyed by the whole community. Our involvement with the living shoreline at Clippership Wharf in Boston checks all those boxes, so we were thrilled to see our enthusiasm for the development of the living shoreline matched in an article printed in the Improper Bostonian. Read the article for yourself, and see photos below of the work we did at Clippership Wharf! And if you're interested in seeing more, head to the wharf and check out the living shoreline first hand!

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Dune Restoration

With winter fading into memory, it's hard not to start thinking about warm spring and summer days that are to come. Soon it will be the season of sand squishing between our toes as we walk along our beaches or hike through our dunes. Here at DeRosa, we've begun our time on the beach a little earlier than some, as we've already started doing dune restoration work for the season. Dune restoration is a service we provide at DeRosa Environmental to help clients protect the dunes on their property. Dunes do the important work of preventing coastline erosion, while also acting as a natural flood control. We know our dunes rely on vegetation to collect sand and keep the dunes rooted in place, so when we work on a dune restoration project, we use diverse native species, such as Native Beach Grass, to reinforce a depleting dune and provide food and habitat to native wildlife. Please enjoy the photos below of our most recent dune restoration project, and please let us know if you have a dune in need of a little rejuvenation! 

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MACC Annual Environmental Conference

Those of you who have worked with us know we never pass up a chance to spread the good word about whole plant removal! At this year's Massachusetts Association of Conservation Commissions (MACC) Annual Environmental Conference, our very own Mike DeRosa and Jim Hankin had the opportunity to present whole plant removal strategies to the members of conservation commissions from across Massachusetts, and talk about the work we do at DeRosa. Using the teachings from Doug Tallamy's book Bringing Nature Home as the guiding influence, Mike and Jim highlighted the effectiveness and over-all sustainability of this non-chemical based practice. The strategy is effective because it addresses the problem at the roots... literally! Just as the name suggests, whole plant removal involves removing the entirety of the plant from the ground. This is important because many invasive species are able to regrow even from a single segment of root left in the ground. So as you can imagine, this is no easy task when you're confronting an entire field of mature glossy buckthorn or Asiatic bittersweet. At DeRosa, we call in the big guns to accomplish this task, by sending in our team of experts... and an excavator. After removing the invasive species from an area, we will plant native species to replace the invasive species and continue to engage in the aftercare required to keep the invasive species from growing back. Opportunities like the MACC Annual Environmental Conference allow us to do the important work of increasing our communities' awareness of the havoc that invasive species, such glossy buckthorn, Asiatic bittersweet, and Japanese knotweed can cause for our beloved, and ecologically significant, native species. We are so grateful to be in a position to speak on such a relevant and important topic, and was were honored to be able to participate. 

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Important Tree Removal Reminder

Happy March, DeRosa friends! We hope you were able to stay warm this past month, especially from the fierce February winds that blew through our North Shore this past month. Unfortunately, some of our local trees did not fare so well during these gusts, and we have been noticing a significant number of newly felled trees in the area. We wanted to use this blog post to remind all of our readers that if there is a tree on your property that you fear may be susceptible to coming down in the wind that you wish to remove, and it is in a resource area or buffer zone, it is important you receive approval from your local Conservation Commission first. You can contact your local Conservation Commission to find out if they have a process for emergency tree removal to expedite the approval process. Please reach out to your local Conservation Commission with any questions, and keep your head up... spring is on its way!

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EBC: Ascending Professionals Program

This week Mike DeRosa represented DeRosa Environmental in a panel discussion for the EBC: Ascending Professionals Program. During this panel, Mike talked about the award-winning project that transformed the Shaffer Paper site into the Senator Joseph Finnegan Park at Port Norfolk in Dorchester. To learn more about the Senator Joseph Finnegan Park or the EBC: Ascending Professionals Program, follow the links below!

Senator Joseph Finnegan Park

EBC: Ascending Professionals

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DeRosa in the Community

In the past we've used this blog primarily to highlight the work we have been doing on varying projects. This week, we wanted to take a moment to celebrate the wonderful contributions of other groups in our community. Music and the arts bring invaluable joy and culture to our lives on the North Shore, and Cantemus, a local chorus, does just that. Through performances around the North Shore, Cantemus uses music to enrich the lives of their audience as well as coral members. DeRosa Environmental Consulting has been proud to advertise in Cantemus' performance programs for many years, and is thankful for their presence in our community.

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Erosion Control

On any construction site, there are countless vital components to a project designed to protect ensure safety and quality. Something you should see on every work site that may look small, but is hugely important, is erosion control. Erosion control is designed to contain runoff of the disturbed soil, preventing it from draining into a resource area.  

There are many different forms of erosion control. Perhaps the most recognizable form of erosion control is a silt sock, which acts as a barrier to keep sediment within the work zone. This form of erosion control is commonly used on the sites we work on at DeRosa Environmental.

When necessary, we may also use erosion control blankets. Erosion control blankets are biodegradable with an open weave. They protect bare soil from rain that would result in runoff, making it difficult for grass or other plants to establish. Instead, they regulate the precipitation that reaches the ground, allowing the soil to absorb the water. Eventually, the blanket will biodegrade, further assisting in plant growth.

Pictured below is an example of using seed and hay mulch as a form of erosion control. Hay mulch works similarly to erosion control blankets; they mitigate the impact of precipitation, and protect the bare soil from the wind. Furthermore, it protects the seed that was spread on the loose soil from blowing away in the wind, while holding in the moisture seeds as well. Eventually, the seed will grow in, and help stabilize the land naturally.

Before seed and hay mulch (above)

After seed and hay mulch (above)

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North Mill Pond Greenway

As we begin to new year, many of us may take a moment to reflect on what we have done and accomplished, and which track we aim to head down. It is in this spirit of building from the past, that we at DeRosa are excited to share news of our next big project, the North Mill Pond Greenway in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The North Mill Pond Greenway will transform the railway running along North Mill Pond, once vital to Portsmouth, but now unused, into a greenway to be enjoyed by the public. This greenway will restore the landscape while creating a beautiful connection for pedestrians from the West End to Downtown Portsmouth. To maximize accessibility to this beautiful area even further, we will be developing view corridors as well. We are honored to be a part of this project,working alongside Halvorson Design Partnership and Tighe & Bond, and look forward to having more updates along the way. In the mean time, please enjoy some of our drone photography of the current site location.  

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Fantastic Pelagics

In our last post we shared our experience rescuing a land-stranded seabird. Because we live in an area with so many fantastic pelagic bird species, we wanted to provide some more general information about these cool critters. 

True to their name, seabirds spend most of their life out at sea, sometimes only coming to shore only to mate. Because of all the time spent on water, almost all seabirds have a white underbelly. This feature allows them to blend in with the sunlight shining on the water... at least from the view of their predators below! When they are able to effectively disguise themselves from the predators, seabird species in general have a longer life span than other birds. To survive life on the water, seabirds have many adaptions, and different species have adapted different strategies to enable this behavior. For example, shorter wings on a seabird are likely indicative of diving as way of feeding. However despite their differences, almost all seabirds have webbed feet.  

Because of the many varieties of seabirds, there is so much that can be learned about these beautiful creatures. If you're interested in learning more, take some time to visit one of the many New England's many great birding locations, and see them in action for yourself!