From a Mountaintop, UMD Alum Encounters Toxin-Emitting Olive Bushes,…

Whyman had long harbored a love of the outdoors. As a child in
Maryland, her parents grew exotic plants like Chinese silvergrass and a
mimosa tree in their yard. (Now, Whyman knows those plants were
invasive.) “I spent a lot of time letting insects crawl on me, digging
for bugs, watching bees and ants under a magnifying glass,” she said.
She became a junior farmer at Wheaton Regional Park’s Old MacDonald
Farm, where she took care of chickens, sheep and goats.

After graduating from the University of Maryland with a degree in
English, Whyman worked for years as an editor and freelance writer
before going back to school at American University, where she earned an
MFA in literature. While there, she created an independent study to work
one-on-one with a biology professor and gain foundational knowledge in
conservation biology.

Whyman was inspired in her quest by the 2019 book “Wilding,” in which
British author Isabella Tree tells the story of returning her farmland
to an untamed state. Now, on her Virginia mountaintop, Whyman is working
to tip the balance to native plants, especially in the 75 acres of open
meadow atop the mountain. There, invasives like Japanese stiltgrass and
spotted knapweed competed for space and resources with native species
like little bluestem, milkweed, and prairie rose.

“What if I could return this mountaintop to its natural glory?”
Whyman writes. “It would serve as a living example of how to restore
native meadows! Pollinators would come from all around! I pictured sheep
grazing on one of the hillsides.”

Working with experts from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology
Institute and the Natural Resources Conservation Service, Whyman
encountered a bushel of challenges. The prolific autumn olive bush,
which emits nitrogen into the soil that can create toxic algal blooms in
streams and rivers, kept popping up in new places. Thorny bramble
quickly took over acres of fields. And the suffocating vine known as
mile-a-minute for its ability to invade new territory sunk its leafy
teeth throughout the property.

She also learned the nitty-gritty of land restoration: the critical
role played by prescribed burns, the near impossibility of eradicating
invasive plants, the inherent imprecision of conservation efforts.

“I thought there would be one right answer: Here’s what you should
do,” she said. “And people did give me guidance and say, ‘We think the
best approach is X.’ And then someone else might say, ‘Well, I think the
best approach is Y.’ And someone else would say, ‘It could be Z.’ That
was really eye-opening—the idea that it’s a science and it’s also kind
of an art.”

In “Bad Naturalist,” Whyman “complicates traditional conceptions of
nature and belonging,” wrote Publishers Weekly. “The result is an
enchanting complement to Isabella Tree’s ‘Wilding.’”

Today, Whyman and her husband spend about 85% of their time at their
mountaintop home. Now she is turning her attention to this year’s burns
and deer management. She still hopes to raise a small flock of sheep.

“I hope readers will come away with a feeling of hopefulness, that
they’ll be inspired to look more closely at the natural world where they
live,” she said. “If you’re in the city, maybe you’ll see birds on a
ledge, or plants growing along a sidewalk. Just ask questions, because
attention breeds action.”