by Todd S. Bergmann, Reprinted with Permission.
Originally published in the Valders Journal, Oct. 29 2020.
John Durbrow is using native grasses and trees to coax a former Two Rivers golf course back to nature.
Although it’s still under construction and has been for about a year, Durbrow said the Van der Brohe Arboretum and Bird Sanctuary is open to the public. It is located on a former nine-hole, 65-acre golf course on the north side of the city.
“Things are sort of coming together,” the Newton man said.
When asked how long construction will take, Durbrow quipped, “Oh, 300 years.”
However, planting prairie grass and more than 1,000 trees will not take quite that long.
“I am hoping that in five years, we will get most of the structured landscapes and most of the planting done,” he said. “Of course, the trees will take 80 years to grow.
“It will be prairie and pollinator meadow, primarily, for 30 years. The bird berries and the shrubs will grow a little faster.”
The arboretum will include 44 acres of pollinator meadow, Durbrow said.
“We can’t plant the prairie until the end of 2021,” he said. “We need to let everything that needs to come back come back up in spring.”
Pollinators are flowers that attract honey bees, butterflies and hummingbirds, Durbrow said.
“They all like it,” he said. “It gives them the nectar and the nesting places they desire, as opposed to a prairie, which is more grasses.”
Durbrow said he plans to ask area beekeepers to put hives in the arboretum to aid pollination.
To convert the site to prairie and pollinator meadow, a contractor used herbicide to kill the existing grass, Durbrow said.
“It is pretty much of a blank slate,” he said. “It is perfect for me to create an arboretum. I will be planting five of almost any tree that can grow in this area.’’
Currently, visitors can see remains of the former golf course grass, Durbrow said.
Atop the killed grass, Pat Gleichner of Madson Tiling & Excavating said his company recently built trails with small stones.
“After winter, it is almost like concrete,” he said.
The site will have 1.2 miles of 8-foot-wide primary trail and 1.6 miles of five-foot-wide secondary trail.
“It is a very expensive project,” Gleichner said.
Additionally, Durbrow said the arboretum will contain boardwalks through wetlands and three-fifths of a mile of mowed-grass trails.
While the former fairways will not be significant in the arboretum, Durbrow said the greens will become pads for public art.
“They are sort of sculpted land areas,” he said.
Also, the arboretum will include structured landscapes, walls covered with varieties of ivy, groves of crabapple trees and ivy-covered tunnels.
“They will all make it a little bit more exciting experience and little more interesting experience,” he said.
Trails will surround tree groups, including white oaks, birch and aspen, ornamentals, range extensions and exotics and nut trees.
Durbrow said putting trees in groups will not endanger them if disease should spread.
“In the scope of things, this is a very-small land area,” he said. “With the white oak selection, there will be 17 varieties of white oak. There are 12 varieties of red oak. The birch and aspen have many types of cultivars.
“What we will end up with is forests that have a particular feel to them.”
The arboretum will contain no traditional elm trees, Durbrow said.
The section called ornamentals, range extensions and exotics will contain hybrid elms, which are supposedly resistant to Dutch elm disease, Durbrow said.
The nut tree section will have blight-resistant chestnut trees.
“We are trying to find particular species and cultivars that can replace some of these species that have been lost,” he said.
Another section or group is hemlock, juniper and cedar.
An invasive insect called hemlock woolly adelgid is infecting hemlock trees in western Lower Michigan, according to a Michigan State University website.
“It is moving this way,” Durbrow acknowledged. “But, it is treatable. When we plant those, we will be able to treat it and maintain that population.”
Plans involve planting more than 1,000 trees in the next two to three years, including 30 species of maple trees.
“It is going to be a very diverse display of different species of trees,” he said.
Additionally, Durbrow said the arboretum will have berry plants, a food source for birds.
“There will be mass plantings of bird habitat and forage,” he said.
Currently, many evergreen and other trees stick out from the dead grass.
“We are going to retain all the trees that are on site,” he said. “But, our plans are to plant 1,093 more specimen trees.”
The arboretum will feature nine Franciscan gardens in circles around the premises, Durbrow said.
“They will be planted with native plants which offer forage and habitat to wildlife and birds,” he said.
The gardens honor St. Francis of Assisi, patron saint of ecology.
Durbrow has sponsors for three gardens and is looking for six more. Individuals or corporations may sponsor a garden for $3,800.
“It will be theirs,” he said. “They get to select the plant material, as long as it is within our guidelines.”
Tax-deductible contributions may be sent to Van der Brohe Arboretum, 9601 Lakeshore Road, Newton, WI 53063.
Durbrow said he has applied for grants and looked for funding and suggests visitors make donations.
“The project will grow as fast as the community supports it,” he said.
Durbrow sold the building and parking lot on the west side of the golf course. Instead, the arboretum has a new parking lot off State Highway 42, across from Machut’s Supper Club.
Long-term plans call for a visitors center near the parking lot, Durbrow said.
“Once we’ve got the tree collection in and established on the grounds, we will look at putting that up,” he said. “It’s already designed.”
The arboretum is near Woodland Dunes Nature Center and Point Beach State Forest, but is a different type of place, Durbrow said.
“This is going to be a little more cultivated,” he said. “It is going to be putting in more of the plants that are desired by the birds. It is a denser and more diverse setting.
“It is quite a bit different than each of them.”