For author Paula Whyman, what began as a plan to restore a few acres of neglected farmland into a quaint meadow turned into a years-long project. Facing obstacle after obstacle, Whyman is still in the process of transforming 200 acres of Virginia Blue Ridge mountaintop dense with invasive vegetation into a biodiverse landscape abounding with native wildlife.
The Haverford College Arboretum welcomed fiction-turned-nonfiction author Paula Whyman to campus on Tuesday, Feb. 10, to speak about her 2025 book “Bad Naturalist,” a finalist for the Phillip D. Reed Environmental Writing Award. The evening began with a casual hour-long Q&A session in the Visual Culture, Arts, and Media (VCAM) building lobby, where Whyman gave us a window into the past six years of her life, in which she has juggled both her ambitious meadow restoration project and translating that process into what is now “Bad Naturalist.” Transitioning into the VCAM screening room for a formal talk, a crowd of both students and what appeared to be passionate nature experts patiently awaited Whyman’s presentation.
According to Whyman, her project began when a realtor introduced her to the unkempt mountaintop land for sale. To provide perspective as to the scale of Whyman’s project, Haverford College’s very own campus, not unlike the Virginia mountaintop in question, is around 200 acres in size. Bryn Mawr College’s campus is even smaller than the mountaintop land, at around 135 acres. With this in mind, it is without question that Whyman’s undertaking is not for everyone. Requiring hefty investments of time, physical labor, emotion, and likely some savings, this journey is still in full swing. She notes in her book that being able to make a change in this way is a privilege, and something she would not have been able to do if not for her kids being out of the house.
While many argue that humans should stop interfering with nature completely, we are a part of nature; as evidenced by indigenous peoples who have engaged in right relations with the earth for thousands of years, to do right by nature is to be a steward. Paula Whyman explains in Bad Naturalist that, “Once a place has been disturbed by humans, the only way to repair it is to keep disturbing it, but in the right way. The tricky part is figuring out what that means.” Based on Whyman’s presentation, tricky is an understatement. With one invasive shrub cleared from an area, another would sprout up, even harder to tame than the previous. From autumn olive plants, trees of heaven, to mile-a-minute vine, Whyman had to get creative in her efforts to tackle each invasive plant. Some of these methods included highly localized pesticide use, careful mowing, and prescribed burning. Whyman described the latter as a particularly tedious process, requiring permits and the help of a fire management team. Prescribed burning, originating from the indigenous practice of cultural burning, can help clear an area of invasive vegetation, leaving biologically available organic matter for the soil to absorb and recycle as nutrients that can then be used by native plants. One of the areas Whyman has burned so far is now made up of about 80% native plants, compared to what was previously less than 50%. Towards the end of her presentation, Whyman enthusiastically noted that in the weeks to come, she would be taking a course to become a certified burn manager and conduct the process herself.
Whyman explained that the area she now calls home had been used as a cow pasture, and in the 1830s, an apple orchard, and before then, most likely a savannah. Even with a rough idea of the land’s history, there would not be a way to truly restore the land to what it once was; the only course of action was to move forward and use the knowledge of what native plants already thrive in the area to determine which plants to propagate in this new meadow. Whyman detailed her collaboration with countless conservation-centered organizations and experts who provided her guidance throughout this entire process free of charge, including arborists, ornithologists, foresters, melittologists, hunters, horticulturists, and livestock farmers. What made things more challenging was that many of these experts gave conflicting instructions; one person might be advising with protecting bees in mind, and the other birds. Livestock farmers would naturally give instructions geared toward keeping healthy sheep or cows, favoring non-native grasses that the animals prefer to eat. This led to Whyman having to make some difficult choices. Helping one thing would often inadvertently harm another; everything was a trade-off.
Despite countless tough choices and plenty of setbacks, much of her work has paid off. When a team from Virginia Working Landscapes first surveyed her land, after hours of searching, they heard a single bluebird call in the distance. This year, surveyors spotted seven blue birds within the first few minutes of their survey.
At the end of her talk, Whyman left us with some morsels of wisdom when it comes to tending to the earth in projects big and small. First, she encouraged us to consider what we are drawn to: do we want to attract more native birds or native butterflies and insects? Secondly, she urged us to choose goals that are achievable, and to celebrate the small wins when we get closer to or reach those goals. There are bound to be setbacks, and ecological restoration will never be a “complete” process; the earth is always changing, and if neglected, areas like Whyman’s Virginia mountaintop might be left vulnerable to takeover by invasive species once again. This reality highlights the importance of not only our own efforts to tend to the earth in our daily lives, but also to join together as a community to help nurture biodiversity in our backyards.
If you are interested in keeping up with Paula Whyman’s restoration journey, along with her book “Bad Naturalist”, she has a free newsletter giving frequent updates on her mountaintop adventures. If this talk seems interesting to you, keep an eye out for more events organized by the Haverford College Arboretum.
