How wet is the soil if I see skunk cabbage?

neil1967

9 years ago

I recently bought a house in central eastern Massachusetts and am staring to do some gardening/landscaping. There appears to be a perfect spot that is overrun by Asiatic bittersweet and wild grape right now, but in starting to remove some of them with an eye toward putting in grass and fruit trees, I've noticed a lone skunk cabbage hear and there (3 or 4 in total).

I know that skunk cabbages are wetland plants, and supposedly this is the wettest part of our land (the driveway repair folks told us we have a high water table on that side of the house), but I've never really seen it get so soggy that it behaves in any other way like a wetland even after sustained soaking rains that kick our sump pump on in the basement. Since I'm trying to garden in an ecologically sound manner and don't want to alter the functioning of the land, I'm wondering just how wet is it underneath and can I put grass/fruit trees in this area?

Thanks for any advice!

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Comments (3)

wisconsitom
9 years ago
Neil, wetland delineation is based on three main factors-vegetation, hydrology, and soil evidence of wetland characteristics. That last item refers to oxidation/reduction reactions which take place when soil is saturated.

Now to the skunk cabbage; You're absolutely correct-this is a wetland species, through and through. All things are possible but the existence of that plant argues strongly for that area to have wetland characteristics. As such, it would be poorly suited to fruit trees.

If I were you-and it sounds like we've got similar priorities-I'd try to find another spot for those items, and maybe enhance this wet area with additional plant species adapted to such conditions. There're a lot of them, and they are a fun group of plants to work with, I think.

+oM
neil1967
Original Author
9 years ago
Thanks, wisonsitom. Yeah, i think I'm going to see what I can do to work with some species that do well in wet conditions. One thing I'm thinking about is, since I'd really love to create more overally native habitat, if I dug down just a little, whether I'd get pooling water, which is great for birds and other animals.
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wisconsitom
9 years ago
If it's anything like the wet, skunk cabbage-supporting areas with which I'm familiar, the water table will indeed be very close to the surface. There is a hardwood swamp on property one of my kids owns in Ozaukee County WI, just twenty or so miles north of Milwaukee, which is full of skunk cabbage. This area remains wet throughout the growing season, beyond the fact that it is floodplain forest. I've got some very wet ground at our tree farm/wooded land in Oconto County WI, more than 100 miles north of that property. While this area has no skunk cabbage, as far as I've been able to tell, one can sink a shovel in the ground any time of year that ground isn't frozen, and the resulting hole will rapidly fill with water. Usually, if it really is a wetland, such things will occur, although there do exist seasonal wetlands, and every grade inbetween.

+oM