StarNews - 11/21/2020 Page : C02

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C2 Saturday, November 21, 2020 StarNews StarNewsOnline.com

Probably best known as the land you drive over after crossing the Memorial Bridge, or as the home of the World War II battleship USS North Carolina, Eagles Island holds a far more significant place in our regions history than most people are aware. And now, with the formation of a new local group, there are plans for the entirety of the island to be preserved as a “central park” for our region.

Eagles Island gets its name from Richard Eagles, an English native, merchant, and planter who came to the area from Charleston, S.C., in 1734. It spans approximately 3,110 acres, with the major-ity of the land in Brunswick County except for a portion of the eastern shore that is located in New Hanover County, and is bounded by the Brunswick River to the west and the Cape Fear River to the north, east, and south.

One of the most interest-ing features of Eagles Island is that is has been formed by both natural and human influ-ences over time. The south-ern tip of the island has been shaped almost exclusively by dredging deposits from the US Army Corps of Engineers, creating important migratory bird habitats. In addition to the unique plants and animals found there, Mother Nature has shaped the island over millions of years of weather events, which now includes the challenge of climate change and rising sea levels.

Eagles Island has long been a fixture for the inhabitants of

the lower Cape Fear region. The stories begin with the hunting and gathering of the regions Native American tribes, and include the history of the naval stores and ship building industries that were located there centuries ago, the shipwrecks and archaeo-logical treasures littering the eastern shore, and culminate with the rice and indigo cul-tivation of the Gullah people who fled the island after the insurrection of 1898.

Conservation efforts for Eagles Island began in 2002 with an unsolicited dona-tion of 53 acres to the New Hanover Soil & Water Con-servation District, which triggered further acquisitions by the District and the Cape Fear Resource Conserva-tion who proceeded to pur-chase over 500 acres of land on the island. In response of this effort, the Eagles Island Coalition was formed in late 2010 to move beyond the task of acquiring individual properties and towards an integrated approach of work-ing with private and public stakeholders for the holistic conservation of Eagles Island.

On the back of the mas-sive work that has already been accomplished, recently a group of us have formed the Eagles Island Cen-tral Park Task Force in an effort to bring the vision of maximizing the public ben-efits of the islands resources towards the possibilities of recreation, education, and preservation to reality. The consortium of individual, corporate, and governmental stakeholders in Eagles Island make for a challenging col-laboration of interests, but also a fitting exercise in the regional cooperation that is required to do great things.

Given the unique and

important history of South-eastern North Carolina, the need for more recreation for our growing population, and the inevitable development of much of our regions natu-ral lands, now is the time to recognize the extraordinary opportunity at hand. But this vision will not happen for us, it will happen because of us.

Turns out that the story of Eagles Island has yet to be written, and we are the ones we have been wait-ing on. Join the effort by following our FaceBook page at http://fb.com/eaglesislandcentralpark.

Evan Folds is an elected super-visor of the New Hanover Soil & Water Conservation District serving as co-chair for Eagles Island Central Park Task Force with Lloyd Singleton, director of the N.C. Cooperative Exten-sion, New Hanover County center at the Arboretum. Reach him at lsingleton@nhcgov.com or 910-798-7660.

G R O W W I T H E X T E N S I O N

What is the story with Eagles Island?

Few plants please their grow-ers more than the Christmas and Thanksgiving cacti.

I get so many letters about them and photos every year that I can’t even acknowledge them all, much less answer them.

Here are some letters from recent days and from the past that were of great interest to me:

Dear Roger: Something is eating my Christmas cacti. I keep them outside during warm weather and bring them inside in the fall. However, I don’t want to bring them in until I find whatever is eating them.

Flashlight in hand, I carefully inspected all five plants and found one tiny (½ inch) worm on my largest cactus. Don’t know if that’s the bugger. I did not find a worm on the others, but I may have missed it/them. My question is, what insecti-cide can I use to safely treat all the plants before I bring them inside? — Barbara McClure, Laurinburg

Dear Barbara: It’s time to move your cacti indoors now.

The villains attacking your cacti are probably slugs, not insects. Look for these crit-ters under the pots and under nearby items. Clean them off before plants go indoors.

No insecticide is needed. You should thoroughly wash both sides of the leaves with a stream from a hose on a warm day. That will dislodge and remove most spider mites, which are the worst enemy of house plants when they are moved indoors in autumn.

This is a good practice for all house plants that are moved

indoors for the winter. If youhaven’t done this, wait for awarm day, take the plants out-side and have at it.

Another good practice is toinvert plants and dip the leavesinto a tub filled with soapywater. Soapy water removesmany insects and will dehydratemost that are not removed. Youmay spray with a hose afterdoing the dip.

Many plants are too largeto be picked up, inverted anddipped. For the big ones, use aspray bottle with a soap solutionor neem oil, plus soap. Thenspray with a hose.

Avoid spraying with toxicinsecticides and then movingplants indoors. Your ownhealth is more important thanthe health of your plants.

Do not fertilize in winter.Wait until late April, when youare preparing to move plantsoutside.

Proper winter care is cru-cial for Christmas, or holiday,cacti. The earliest types bloomat Thanksgiving. Later schlum-bergeras and related genera andspecies bloom at Christmas,Easter or later.

Holiday cacti are true cacti,but they are not desert dwell-ers. They live on tree limbs inBrazil. That means their rootsneed a light, airy, fast-draining,potting mix.

Short days cause these cactito bloom. By short, I mean nomore than 11 hours of daylightper day. Ten hours will causemore blooms sooner. Andcool nights in the low 50s willhelp even more. Blooms willappear after two months ofshort days or cool tempera-tures or both.

Send your questions and comments to Roger at orders@mercergarden.com or call 910-424-4756. You may message photos and text to that number. Send pest or plant samples to Roger at 6215 Maude St., Fayetteville, N.C. 28306.

Tips for holiday cacti

Evan FoldsEvan Folds

Eagles Island. [CONTRIBUTED

PHOTO]

Roger MercerRoger Mercer