This year, I have been invited to many people's houses to come and look at their natural areas and help them identify plants, and so far, I've had the opportunity to get to 3 of them. All 3 were so amazing, I just had to write a post about them!
The first was a property in Mount Penn. Contrary to my assumption that Mt. Penn was basically just Perkiomen Avenue, and perhaps a side street or two, I soon discovered that there is an entire village built right into the side of the mountain, which really shows how sheltered I've been that I didn't know this existed! Winding my way through the narrow streets, passing house after house that seemed to have been carved right out of the bedrock, each different and unique, many extremely quaint, I really had the sense that I wasn't in familiar territory. J. greeted me on the steps of her house, which had to be at least 30 ft. above street level, but was only about 10 feet from the street. Considering the extreme slope of her front yard, I vowed to never complain again, EVER, about my terrain. You saw it in writing here.
Turns out her property continued up at the same extreme angle in her backyard, so walking to look at plants felt a little like climbing Mount Everest. I was frankly amazed that J. managed to plant anything at all, considering how precarious it would be to set foot on one of those hills and attempt to dig a hole, but plant things she had. She chuckled when we passed the spicebush she'd paid $20 for the previous year, only to realize later that her property was covered with mature specimens already!
J.'s property, like the other 2 properties I visited, was a beautiful woodlands property, with a canopy of mature chestnut trees and an understory of - yes! - spicebush, but invasives were lurking everywhere. J.'s major problem plant appeared to be multiflora rose, but we also saw a new stand of mile-a-minute weed dangerously close to some beautiful colonies of Jack-in-the-pulpits. Our major discovery was a young paw-paw tree, which J. first thought she recognized, and then we confirmed - and not only that tree, but several babies all around it! J. was overjoyed, and we determined that her first priority would be to keep the multiflora rose away from that small stand, to let it continue to grow and develop. J. was fanatic about the invasives, and described to me her continuing efforts over the years. Even as we walked along, she was pulling them here and there. In addition to keeping close tabs on the invasives, she had industriously planted many natives throughout her property, including a hazelnut most recently.
The other 2 properties I visited were even closer to home, just a few minutes away in Robeson township. However, they could have been a world away for all I could recognize of the landscape - these two properties were like fairylands, yet they were inhabited by real people. Perhaps the feeling I was in fairyland was heightened by the amazing, sinuous cob wall at the front yard of the first property - a hand-made earthen wall, with a slate-tiled roof, and beautifully gnarled branches accenting and forming the windows and doors. Now that's just something you don't see every day!
But, back to the properties. Here was a situation where two neighbors, with contiguous properties, realized they were gardening soulmates, and have been jointly gardening and caring for their two properties ever since. Their properties were also on a hill - one at the top, one at the bottom - making for another steep descent and climb, although not nearly as extreme as Mt. Penn. And it was yet another example of people who have managed to coax the beauty back into their landscapes, which had been completely taken over by invasive plants when they first moved into the houses. D. described the property thus: "It was like the forest around Sleeping Beauty's castle - so dense, you couldn't even see your way in." D. also called the tree of heaven the tree of hell (just like I do!), and from her description, she and her husband had taken out hundreds of them, big and small, over the course of many years. The same with the multiflora rose, which undoubtedly was a major contributor to the Sleeping Beauty effect. And their efforts paid off - the understory was lush with Christmas fern, lady fern, cinnamon fern, spicebush, massive rosebay rhododendrons, pinxterbloom azaleas, and white wood aster.
The other D.'s property, nestled in a small valley at the bottom of the hill, boasted a babbling brook running right alongside the house, with a steep slope of mountain laurel, in full, gorgeous bloom, directly opposite. It really seemed like the kind of place that people would pay several hundred dollars a night just to have the opportunity to see that vista when they woke up. Everywhere we walked, they talked about their ongoing projects - here a native meadow border, there a new cob cottage, here planning to put some natural stairs near an amazing-looking rock formation, there clearing away the plants to reveal an old stone wall, nestled deep in the woods - and everywhere, how to best control the invasive plants encroaching from all angles. We identified a few plants they were dismayed to learn were invasive plants, which were in their woods - barberry, burning bush, and the first-year form of garlic mustard, which is just an attractive looking mound of leaves with pretty scalloped edges - in addition to commiserating about the ones they already knew about and were dealing with.
Coming away from these visits, I felt more invigorated than ever in my own small battle to take back the woods around my house, and the Sugarbush property, which is also a nearly impenetrable thicket of invasive plants - because these 3 homeowners had showed me what was possible, with some extreme dedication and time committment, to the task of managing the invasive plants. Perhaps my property doesn't have the same "wow!" potential that theirs do, even with lots of work, but I'm sure it can at least be a decent Pennsylvania woodlands, which is really all I want, since a decent PA woodlands is one of the most beautiful landscapes going. And if they can do it, so can I - and so can you!
Now would be a good time to mention a few good invasive plant websites that can help you ID your own invaders:
Weeds Gone Wild: http://www.nps.gov/plants/alien/factmain.htm
DCNR Invasive Plants Tutorial: http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/Forestry/invasivetutorial/List.htm
Wishing us all good luck!
Friday, June 5, 2009
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Spring inspiration is all around us!
Did you ever notice this phenomenon: as soon as you learn to identify - or even begin to pay attention to - a certain flower, shrub, or tree, you begin noticing it everywhere?
I've had this happy occurrence many times this spring so far, and I've been very close to home when it happens - even at home, in one case!
Although the forest behind our house is cursed with every known invasive species of plant in PA, or so it seems, before all of the multiflora rose and Japanese bush honeysuckle leafed out again, I saw that I had spicebush (Lindera benzoin) growing far back in the woods - out of the reach, for now, of these aggressive invaders. I felt like I'd discovered a treasure! Seeing a stand of spicebush in the woods in early April is like looking through a haze of a fading yellow sunset - a far different experience from looking at the screaming yellow of forsythia, which overlaps in bloom, and is pretty hard on the eyes. I much prefer the understated beauty of spicebush, and once I saw it blooming this spring, I saw it everywhere.
Another is may apple. When this emerges in the spring, it looks for all the world like little fairy houses popping up where you least expect them. And they now seem to be everywhere, at least along my daily commute.
Speaking of commutes, my commute is one of the most beautiful drives there is, along the back roads of Chester County. There I started seeing great masses of Virginia Bluebells (Mertensia virginica) under the high canopies of the deciduous forest, and the most beautiful stand I saw was on the shore of a creek.
And it gets even better...look at this beautiful scene from a natural plant community at one of my favorite places, Camphill Special School - Beaver Run: right at the entrance to the school is a little hollow, also on the higher bank of a stream, where Virginia Bluebells were blooming along with bright yellow Golden Ragwort (Packera aurea) and wood poppy (Stylophorum diphyllum), fronted by the amazing foliage of may apple (Podophyllum peltatum), interspersed all around with ferns. The most experienced landscape designer couldn't have done a better job than Mother Nature did here, with each of the flower and foliage colors and forms complementing each other beautifully. This is the kind of scene that can inspire gardeners to try to recreate these pleasing plant communities in our own backyards.
Here's a wildflower I hadn't specifically known about before, except for having heard the common name from time to time: Quaker Ladies, or bluets. I first saw this lawn blooming along Rt. 10, and thought it must be moss pinks (Phlox subulata), but after seeing the same mass of color closer by on another roadside and pausing for a closer look, I realized it was not! It was my helper, Jan Slater, who clued me in to the true identity of Houstonia caerulea, and then, of course, I started seeing them everywhere. Funny that I've lived here for a long time and never noticed it before! Since it's not like these drifts of flowers just appeared this year, it must be because I haven't taken the time to notice them before.
Now, over to Nolde Forest....you don't have to walk far to find something amazing to draw inspiration from, even on wet, dreary days like the day I was there this weekend. Here's a stand of Canada Mayflower (Maianthemum canadense) just emerging right along a pathway. It won't ever knock you over, even in full flower, but even just the scattering of these diminutive, glossy green leaves among last fall's leaves is beautiful in an understated way.
Walk a little farther and you'll find the aforementioned spicebush blanketing a steep bank going towards a creek, with a lush carpet of wild ginger (Asarum canadense) and ferns at its feet. Even when not in bloom, the spicebush lend an elegant air to its companions, with its vase-like shape, dark brown bark, and of course, that wonderful spicy scent.
And wild violets? They take on a whole new persona when given free reign in a shady woodland setting. Wild violets seem to get a bad rap, for no reason that I can see....it's not often that beauty and ease of growth go together so effortlessly. And have I mentioned that violets (Viola spp.) are host plants for fritillary butterflies?
I hope you're enjoying this beautiful spring as much as I am. Stay awake to the possibilities of implementing some of these nature scenes close to home!
I've had this happy occurrence many times this spring so far, and I've been very close to home when it happens - even at home, in one case!
Although the forest behind our house is cursed with every known invasive species of plant in PA, or so it seems, before all of the multiflora rose and Japanese bush honeysuckle leafed out again, I saw that I had spicebush (Lindera benzoin) growing far back in the woods - out of the reach, for now, of these aggressive invaders. I felt like I'd discovered a treasure! Seeing a stand of spicebush in the woods in early April is like looking through a haze of a fading yellow sunset - a far different experience from looking at the screaming yellow of forsythia, which overlaps in bloom, and is pretty hard on the eyes. I much prefer the understated beauty of spicebush, and once I saw it blooming this spring, I saw it everywhere.
Another is may apple. When this emerges in the spring, it looks for all the world like little fairy houses popping up where you least expect them. And they now seem to be everywhere, at least along my daily commute.
Speaking of commutes, my commute is one of the most beautiful drives there is, along the back roads of Chester County. There I started seeing great masses of Virginia Bluebells (Mertensia virginica) under the high canopies of the deciduous forest, and the most beautiful stand I saw was on the shore of a creek.
And it gets even better...look at this beautiful scene from a natural plant community at one of my favorite places, Camphill Special School - Beaver Run: right at the entrance to the school is a little hollow, also on the higher bank of a stream, where Virginia Bluebells were blooming along with bright yellow Golden Ragwort (Packera aurea) and wood poppy (Stylophorum diphyllum), fronted by the amazing foliage of may apple (Podophyllum peltatum), interspersed all around with ferns. The most experienced landscape designer couldn't have done a better job than Mother Nature did here, with each of the flower and foliage colors and forms complementing each other beautifully. This is the kind of scene that can inspire gardeners to try to recreate these pleasing plant communities in our own backyards.
Here's a wildflower I hadn't specifically known about before, except for having heard the common name from time to time: Quaker Ladies, or bluets. I first saw this lawn blooming along Rt. 10, and thought it must be moss pinks (Phlox subulata), but after seeing the same mass of color closer by on another roadside and pausing for a closer look, I realized it was not! It was my helper, Jan Slater, who clued me in to the true identity of Houstonia caerulea, and then, of course, I started seeing them everywhere. Funny that I've lived here for a long time and never noticed it before! Since it's not like these drifts of flowers just appeared this year, it must be because I haven't taken the time to notice them before.
Now, over to Nolde Forest....you don't have to walk far to find something amazing to draw inspiration from, even on wet, dreary days like the day I was there this weekend. Here's a stand of Canada Mayflower (Maianthemum canadense) just emerging right along a pathway. It won't ever knock you over, even in full flower, but even just the scattering of these diminutive, glossy green leaves among last fall's leaves is beautiful in an understated way.Walk a little farther and you'll find the aforementioned spicebush blanketing a steep bank going towards a creek, with a lush carpet of wild ginger (Asarum canadense) and ferns at its feet. Even when not in bloom, the spicebush lend an elegant air to its companions, with its vase-like shape, dark brown bark, and of course, that wonderful spicy scent.
And wild violets? They take on a whole new persona when given free reign in a shady woodland setting. Wild violets seem to get a bad rap, for no reason that I can see....it's not often that beauty and ease of growth go together so effortlessly. And have I mentioned that violets (Viola spp.) are host plants for fritillary butterflies?I hope you're enjoying this beautiful spring as much as I am. Stay awake to the possibilities of implementing some of these nature scenes close to home!
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Nursery Update - beginning of April 2009
We're a week away from opening, and are gearing up for the new season!
Our perennials are just breaking dormancy, so now is the time of year when I begin biting my nails wondering, "Are these plants going to look alive when the first customers roll in?" Since we overwinter all of our plants in our unheated barn, they are on exactly the same schedule as plants that have spent the winter outdoors, cozy in a garden....not forced into early greenery (or even blooms!) in a greenhouse. I'd take a plant grown this way any day, because it's already proven its hardiness. But it's not exactly instant gratification in the garden!
We've added native shrubs this year, and I have been busy lining these up from various growers, picking them up, and figuring out where we're going to put everything. Sugarbush is going to be packed this year!
As usual, the copy and print person on duty at Staples in the evening is going to be my new best friend for the next several weeks while I work on printing and laminating our customized bench cards that describe each plant we carry in great detail.
This year I am also really excited about all of the organic veggie plants we are going to be able to offer our customers. We've always done a rather bare-bones sort of veggie offering in the past, and most of it has been conventionally grown. But Erica Bowers Lavdanski, co-owner of B&H Organic Produce in Morgantown, is growing transplants for us this year (as well as speaking on small space vegetable gardening on April 18th!) - and we are going to be able to offer dozens of varieties of veggies! All will be grown organically (as her CSA farm is also managed).
Speaking of Erica, and speaking of speaking, this year we are also hosting a Speaker's Series, bringing in lots of great local people who are experts in their field and who will share their love of gardening with us. We'll have a new speaker every month, with a different and really interesting topic each time. Check out our Events page for more details.
On a final note, I would strongly advise anyone who will be visiting the nursery to WAIT to come until April 18th! The perennials will surely be looking more lively at that point, veggies will be here, and the first of the annuals and hanging baskets will also be here by then. Our April 11th opening won't be with our full complement of everything we will be offering this year. So kick back for another week, if you can! And then we'll hope to see you here soon for another great gardening season.
Our perennials are just breaking dormancy, so now is the time of year when I begin biting my nails wondering, "Are these plants going to look alive when the first customers roll in?" Since we overwinter all of our plants in our unheated barn, they are on exactly the same schedule as plants that have spent the winter outdoors, cozy in a garden....not forced into early greenery (or even blooms!) in a greenhouse. I'd take a plant grown this way any day, because it's already proven its hardiness. But it's not exactly instant gratification in the garden!
We've added native shrubs this year, and I have been busy lining these up from various growers, picking them up, and figuring out where we're going to put everything. Sugarbush is going to be packed this year!
As usual, the copy and print person on duty at Staples in the evening is going to be my new best friend for the next several weeks while I work on printing and laminating our customized bench cards that describe each plant we carry in great detail.
This year I am also really excited about all of the organic veggie plants we are going to be able to offer our customers. We've always done a rather bare-bones sort of veggie offering in the past, and most of it has been conventionally grown. But Erica Bowers Lavdanski, co-owner of B&H Organic Produce in Morgantown, is growing transplants for us this year (as well as speaking on small space vegetable gardening on April 18th!) - and we are going to be able to offer dozens of varieties of veggies! All will be grown organically (as her CSA farm is also managed).
Speaking of Erica, and speaking of speaking, this year we are also hosting a Speaker's Series, bringing in lots of great local people who are experts in their field and who will share their love of gardening with us. We'll have a new speaker every month, with a different and really interesting topic each time. Check out our Events page for more details.
On a final note, I would strongly advise anyone who will be visiting the nursery to WAIT to come until April 18th! The perennials will surely be looking more lively at that point, veggies will be here, and the first of the annuals and hanging baskets will also be here by then. Our April 11th opening won't be with our full complement of everything we will be offering this year. So kick back for another week, if you can! And then we'll hope to see you here soon for another great gardening season.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Gardening in Winter - Managing invasives has never been so much fun!
Most gardeners are bored to tears in the winter months. With all of those seed catalogs flooding our mailboxes and inboxes, tempting us with the promise of spring, the wait till we can get our hands dirty again is pure torture. Fortunately, there is at least one activity that can be done in the dead of winter to satisfy those gardening blues - managing invasive plants.
There are a few very good reasons for doing this in the dead of winter. First, you've got some time on your hands, which is not true for most gardeners anytime the weather is warm. There is usually just too much weeding, mulching, planting, transplanting and the like to get anything else done. With all of those options unavailable in the winter, selectively "editing" plants from the landscape (I borrow that wonderful idea from Claire Sawyer's recent book, "The Authentic Garden") becomes a perfect activity.
It's easy to see the outline of shrubs and vines in the winter, and thus to know what to cut. In fact, the winter landscape, at least at my property, highlights the problems with invasive plants in the landscape perhaps even more than in the summer, when they are in all of their glory. It's easy to see the vines climbing over everything - way up into trees, and covering over shrubs - in my yard, those vines are mostly Porcelain-berry and Japanese honeysuckle vines. It's easy to pull most of those down, as well - unless they're 60 ft. up into the trees, that is, and then the next best thing is to just cut them at the base and pull down as much as you can.
The outlines of Japanese bush honeysuckles are also easy to pick out, even at a distance - strongly striated bark on mature shrubs, with ID confirmed by a hollow pith (cut a 1/2" branch and look in the middle).
It's also the best time to manage multiflora rose, a landscape pest par excellance. When in full leaf, it becomes a real challenge to deal with larger specimens - but in the winter, I've found that chopping 2' long pieces all around the shrub, to slowly be able to get at the base of the plant, is the most effective method yet.
While most gardening is productive - with gardeners helping to coax life from the earth - this kind of gardening is satisfyingly destructive. Wielding my saw, lopper and pruner on a foray into the wilderness of the edge of our woods, I feel the very image of Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction. Or an invasive plant hit-man.
I am waiting for the balance of the scales to tip once again in the favor of the environment that is supposed to be predominant in our woods - that is, native plants. Right now, they are distressingly few and far between. In fact, my discovery late this summer of two tiny ferns growing in our woods - not planted by me - lead me on a week-long celebration that I found hard to explain to all of the people who just say, "That's nice.....but aren't ferns supposed to be in our woods?"
Of course they are - that is the point. But in places like mine, and in so many others, the plants that are supposed to be there are simply not there - outcompeted by invasives that germinate more quickly than natives, shade out natives at crucial times in the growing season, produce more seed than natives - you name it, the invasive plants have a strategy for domination that is hard to counter.
But I've heard enough stories about native plants re-emerging from apparently barren landscapes once the invasive plants have been adequately managed, with no other help from gardeners other than attempting to once again level the playing field. This is what I'm hoping for on our property, and if I'm successful, I'll give you a tour the next time you're around, and point out the fern grove growing just beyond that rise.
There are a few very good reasons for doing this in the dead of winter. First, you've got some time on your hands, which is not true for most gardeners anytime the weather is warm. There is usually just too much weeding, mulching, planting, transplanting and the like to get anything else done. With all of those options unavailable in the winter, selectively "editing" plants from the landscape (I borrow that wonderful idea from Claire Sawyer's recent book, "The Authentic Garden") becomes a perfect activity.
It's easy to see the outline of shrubs and vines in the winter, and thus to know what to cut. In fact, the winter landscape, at least at my property, highlights the problems with invasive plants in the landscape perhaps even more than in the summer, when they are in all of their glory. It's easy to see the vines climbing over everything - way up into trees, and covering over shrubs - in my yard, those vines are mostly Porcelain-berry and Japanese honeysuckle vines. It's easy to pull most of those down, as well - unless they're 60 ft. up into the trees, that is, and then the next best thing is to just cut them at the base and pull down as much as you can.
The outlines of Japanese bush honeysuckles are also easy to pick out, even at a distance - strongly striated bark on mature shrubs, with ID confirmed by a hollow pith (cut a 1/2" branch and look in the middle).
It's also the best time to manage multiflora rose, a landscape pest par excellance. When in full leaf, it becomes a real challenge to deal with larger specimens - but in the winter, I've found that chopping 2' long pieces all around the shrub, to slowly be able to get at the base of the plant, is the most effective method yet.
While most gardening is productive - with gardeners helping to coax life from the earth - this kind of gardening is satisfyingly destructive. Wielding my saw, lopper and pruner on a foray into the wilderness of the edge of our woods, I feel the very image of Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction. Or an invasive plant hit-man.
I am waiting for the balance of the scales to tip once again in the favor of the environment that is supposed to be predominant in our woods - that is, native plants. Right now, they are distressingly few and far between. In fact, my discovery late this summer of two tiny ferns growing in our woods - not planted by me - lead me on a week-long celebration that I found hard to explain to all of the people who just say, "That's nice.....but aren't ferns supposed to be in our woods?"
Of course they are - that is the point. But in places like mine, and in so many others, the plants that are supposed to be there are simply not there - outcompeted by invasives that germinate more quickly than natives, shade out natives at crucial times in the growing season, produce more seed than natives - you name it, the invasive plants have a strategy for domination that is hard to counter.
But I've heard enough stories about native plants re-emerging from apparently barren landscapes once the invasive plants have been adequately managed, with no other help from gardeners other than attempting to once again level the playing field. This is what I'm hoping for on our property, and if I'm successful, I'll give you a tour the next time you're around, and point out the fern grove growing just beyond that rise.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Nursery Update - Oct. 08
The nursery is now closed for the season - we'll be re-opening again in mid-April 2009. I want to thank all of our customers this year for supporting us, and for "showing us the love" towards our new native line-up. Thanks to a demonstrated demand, we are going to be able to go 100% native as of 2009!
This is an exciting development, and I will be spending the winter researching the initial line-up of native trees and shrubs to add to our existing perennial inventory. If you have some favorites you'd like to be sure to see, please email me. What I'll be going for are native plants that have a high value in the landscape and that also have a high value to wildlife. Lucky for me, I already did some of this research last winter, and published the results on the Sugarbush site with a neat list compiled from two different sources. Be sure to check this out if you haven't already.
Some garden tips for the season:
Don't let your fall leaves go to waste! Raking them up and bagging them for the curb is like giving away money and nutrients. You can shred those leaves and add them to your compost pile, or shred them and spread them directly on your garden now as a mulch. Either use will provide numerous benefits for your garden. The shredding is an important step to expose more surface areas of the leaves - otherwise they take a long time to break down. You can buy a shredder (I have a Flowtron), run over a pile of leaves with your lawnmower, or suck them up in a leaf vaccum that will shred them for you.
Apply corn gluten meal now on your lawn to take care of the annual weeds that germinate about now. The next application time is spring, when the forsythia is blooming.
This is an exciting development, and I will be spending the winter researching the initial line-up of native trees and shrubs to add to our existing perennial inventory. If you have some favorites you'd like to be sure to see, please email me. What I'll be going for are native plants that have a high value in the landscape and that also have a high value to wildlife. Lucky for me, I already did some of this research last winter, and published the results on the Sugarbush site with a neat list compiled from two different sources. Be sure to check this out if you haven't already.
Some garden tips for the season:
Don't let your fall leaves go to waste! Raking them up and bagging them for the curb is like giving away money and nutrients. You can shred those leaves and add them to your compost pile, or shred them and spread them directly on your garden now as a mulch. Either use will provide numerous benefits for your garden. The shredding is an important step to expose more surface areas of the leaves - otherwise they take a long time to break down. You can buy a shredder (I have a Flowtron), run over a pile of leaves with your lawnmower, or suck them up in a leaf vaccum that will shred them for you.
Apply corn gluten meal now on your lawn to take care of the annual weeds that germinate about now. The next application time is spring, when the forsythia is blooming.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Gardening to Attract Butterflies...and Caterpillars
If you weren't among the hordes of people here last weekend to hear me talk about butterflies, this blog entry is for you! (If you WERE among those hordes, you'll know how funny that intro. sentence was!)
The main gist of my talk was that attracting butterflies to your garden needs to go beyond providing flowers for butterflies. Butterfly gardens need to include trees, shrubs, and plants that can serve as food sources for baby butterflies (aka, caterpillars). Many gardeners are geared towards the end game only on the butterfly spectrum, but that is a crucial mistake.
What are Host Plants?
Many butterflies can only reproduce on one, or very few, species of plants with which they have a specific relationship. If those plants are not available in the landscape, the butterflies cannot reproduce, and we will not have those types of butterflies. Trees and shrubs support the largest numbers of butterfly species, as a general rule, although there are some butterflies that have herbaceous plants (perennials) as hosts. If you have lots of butterflies in your flower garden, you probably have a nearby wild area to thank for them. Most of the host plants for butterfly caterpillars are actually trees and shrubs, and many of those species of trees and shrubs are not common landscape plants anymore. Landscapers install, and garden centers recommend, plants that are quick-growing, easy to sell and establish, and new and exciting. These are often non-native plants, and many of them do not have any established relationships with butterfly caterpillars.
Insects and caterpillars cannot adjust quickly to a fundamental change in the plants in the landscape around them. They have co-evolved with those plants over millennia to be able to eat them and/or reproduce on them. When the plants in the landscape are replaced with primarily non-native plants, wildlife – including butterflies – directly suffers.
What are Nectar Plants?
Adults – butterflies - eat nectar from flowers. Nectar is similar tasting across plant species, so butterflies can take nectar from a wide variety of flowers. They are not limited when they are adults in their choice of food, in the same way they are when caterpillars. Butterflies prefer to feed on flowers that occur in tiny clusters, because there is a great abundance of nectar. Some examples are milkweed, Joe Pye Weed, mountain mint, asters, and purple coneflowers. Butterflies generally prefer to drink the nectar of native plants. However, they will also drink nectar from non-native plants, including butterfly bushes.
But, lest this be seen as an endorsement of butterfly bush, let me say in no uncertain terms that there are big problems with this pretty plant! They are on the watch list for invasive plants in Pennsylvania, due to their tendency to seed around, and displace native plants. Butterfly bushes are not host plants for any known species of butterfly. This means they are only good for butterflies when they are adults. Butterfly bushes may be covered with butterflies, but if native plants are nearby, the butterflies will usually prefer those plants. However, faced with a butterfly bush and few other food sources, the butterflies will drink the nectar from the butterfly bush. This would be like me, a vegetarian, eating at McDonald's - there's hardly anything to attract me there, but if I was hungry enough, I could eat the french fries. And I do, on occasion.
And it all boils down to...
Your garden should have a combination of host plants and nectar plants in order to support butterflies through all of their stages of growth and development. The nectar plants should have staggered bloom throughout the entire season, to provide food, and keep the butterflies in your garden.
Getting Started with your Butterfly Garden
It’s easy to incorporate key butterfly host plants in your garden.
A great one to try is parsley. It’s a host plant for Black Swallowtail butterflies. It’s a biennial, so it will stay in your garden for two years before dying; it’s cheap to buy; you can plant it among other ornamentals in your garden; and you can share it with the butterfly caterpillars for your meals. This is also a good one to try if space is limited, you garden on an apartment terrace or only have windowboxes.
If you have a shady area of your property that stays rather moist, you could plant paw paw (Asimina triloba). It’s one of only a couple of host plants for the Zebra Swallowtail butterfly.
Fritillaries use violets as their host plants. Violets make a great groundcover in the shade.
If you want to attract monarchs, you need to plant milkweeds on your property. Milkweeds are any plants in the genus Asclepias, some of which are very garden worthy. Monarch populations are in serious jeopardy due to loss of breeding sites. Monarchs make a yearly migration to the forest of Mexico, where they spend the winter. They return to the same spots in the spring and summer. Monarchs are losing habitat because stands of milkweed are being crowded out in many places by purple loosestrife, an invasive plant that thrives in the same conditions as milkweed.
Oaks are host plants for over 500 species of butterflies. Planting oaks on your property is a long-term investment towards having lots of butterflies on your property. The other major butterfly trees, in order, are cherry, willow, birch, poplar, crabapple, and maples.
Switching in native plants for non-native plants is almost always a good thing for butterflies. For example, native switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) is known to support at least 25 species of butterflies as a host plant. Non-native Miscanthus (silver-hair grass) is known to support just 1. I've got a large and very beautiful Miscanthus in front of my house which is going to be on the chopping block come spring, to make way for something more useful and just as beautiful...any takers, stake your claim now!
Also…
This may go without saying, but I'm not the silent type: Never use chemicals in your butterfly garden. Many chemicals used for weed or pest control will kill insects, including caterpillars and butterflies.
Some Additional Resources
"Bringing Nature Home", by Doug Tallamy, Timber Press, Nov. 2007. There's a great butterfly and host plant list at the back of this great book. All of my detailed info. comes from his website, where he is publishing his research on host plants for butterflies and moths: http://copland.udel.edu/~dtallamy/host/index.html.
http://home.dejazzd.com/kgard/bcn/butterflies2009.html:
Thanks to my helper this year, Jan Slater, for bringing this great site to my attention. It's a list of all of the butterfly species that have been actually sighted in Berks County in the last 5 years - much better than the larger, more theoretical lists of butterflies in PA that includes sometimes hundreds of species that may have only been sighted once, 46 years ago, in one county, by someone who may or may not have known what they were looking at. Greatly helpful as a cross-reference to Tallamy's list.
And last but not least, we've started a butterfly list as part of the Sugarbush website, identifying each known host plant that we carry that supports species of butterflies that have been sighted in Berks County, PA over the last 5 years. It's right on our plant list. Happy gardening!
The main gist of my talk was that attracting butterflies to your garden needs to go beyond providing flowers for butterflies. Butterfly gardens need to include trees, shrubs, and plants that can serve as food sources for baby butterflies (aka, caterpillars). Many gardeners are geared towards the end game only on the butterfly spectrum, but that is a crucial mistake.
What are Host Plants?
Many butterflies can only reproduce on one, or very few, species of plants with which they have a specific relationship. If those plants are not available in the landscape, the butterflies cannot reproduce, and we will not have those types of butterflies. Trees and shrubs support the largest numbers of butterfly species, as a general rule, although there are some butterflies that have herbaceous plants (perennials) as hosts. If you have lots of butterflies in your flower garden, you probably have a nearby wild area to thank for them. Most of the host plants for butterfly caterpillars are actually trees and shrubs, and many of those species of trees and shrubs are not common landscape plants anymore. Landscapers install, and garden centers recommend, plants that are quick-growing, easy to sell and establish, and new and exciting. These are often non-native plants, and many of them do not have any established relationships with butterfly caterpillars.
Insects and caterpillars cannot adjust quickly to a fundamental change in the plants in the landscape around them. They have co-evolved with those plants over millennia to be able to eat them and/or reproduce on them. When the plants in the landscape are replaced with primarily non-native plants, wildlife – including butterflies – directly suffers.
What are Nectar Plants?
Adults – butterflies - eat nectar from flowers. Nectar is similar tasting across plant species, so butterflies can take nectar from a wide variety of flowers. They are not limited when they are adults in their choice of food, in the same way they are when caterpillars. Butterflies prefer to feed on flowers that occur in tiny clusters, because there is a great abundance of nectar. Some examples are milkweed, Joe Pye Weed, mountain mint, asters, and purple coneflowers. Butterflies generally prefer to drink the nectar of native plants. However, they will also drink nectar from non-native plants, including butterfly bushes.
But, lest this be seen as an endorsement of butterfly bush, let me say in no uncertain terms that there are big problems with this pretty plant! They are on the watch list for invasive plants in Pennsylvania, due to their tendency to seed around, and displace native plants. Butterfly bushes are not host plants for any known species of butterfly. This means they are only good for butterflies when they are adults. Butterfly bushes may be covered with butterflies, but if native plants are nearby, the butterflies will usually prefer those plants. However, faced with a butterfly bush and few other food sources, the butterflies will drink the nectar from the butterfly bush. This would be like me, a vegetarian, eating at McDonald's - there's hardly anything to attract me there, but if I was hungry enough, I could eat the french fries. And I do, on occasion.
And it all boils down to...
Your garden should have a combination of host plants and nectar plants in order to support butterflies through all of their stages of growth and development. The nectar plants should have staggered bloom throughout the entire season, to provide food, and keep the butterflies in your garden.
Getting Started with your Butterfly Garden
It’s easy to incorporate key butterfly host plants in your garden.
A great one to try is parsley. It’s a host plant for Black Swallowtail butterflies. It’s a biennial, so it will stay in your garden for two years before dying; it’s cheap to buy; you can plant it among other ornamentals in your garden; and you can share it with the butterfly caterpillars for your meals. This is also a good one to try if space is limited, you garden on an apartment terrace or only have windowboxes.
If you have a shady area of your property that stays rather moist, you could plant paw paw (Asimina triloba). It’s one of only a couple of host plants for the Zebra Swallowtail butterfly.
Fritillaries use violets as their host plants. Violets make a great groundcover in the shade.
If you want to attract monarchs, you need to plant milkweeds on your property. Milkweeds are any plants in the genus Asclepias, some of which are very garden worthy. Monarch populations are in serious jeopardy due to loss of breeding sites. Monarchs make a yearly migration to the forest of Mexico, where they spend the winter. They return to the same spots in the spring and summer. Monarchs are losing habitat because stands of milkweed are being crowded out in many places by purple loosestrife, an invasive plant that thrives in the same conditions as milkweed.
Oaks are host plants for over 500 species of butterflies. Planting oaks on your property is a long-term investment towards having lots of butterflies on your property. The other major butterfly trees, in order, are cherry, willow, birch, poplar, crabapple, and maples.
Switching in native plants for non-native plants is almost always a good thing for butterflies. For example, native switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) is known to support at least 25 species of butterflies as a host plant. Non-native Miscanthus (silver-hair grass) is known to support just 1. I've got a large and very beautiful Miscanthus in front of my house which is going to be on the chopping block come spring, to make way for something more useful and just as beautiful...any takers, stake your claim now!
Also…
This may go without saying, but I'm not the silent type: Never use chemicals in your butterfly garden. Many chemicals used for weed or pest control will kill insects, including caterpillars and butterflies.
Some Additional Resources
"Bringing Nature Home", by Doug Tallamy, Timber Press, Nov. 2007. There's a great butterfly and host plant list at the back of this great book. All of my detailed info. comes from his website, where he is publishing his research on host plants for butterflies and moths: http://copland.udel.edu/~dtallamy/host/index.html.
http://home.dejazzd.com/kgard/bcn/butterflies2009.html:
Thanks to my helper this year, Jan Slater, for bringing this great site to my attention. It's a list of all of the butterfly species that have been actually sighted in Berks County in the last 5 years - much better than the larger, more theoretical lists of butterflies in PA that includes sometimes hundreds of species that may have only been sighted once, 46 years ago, in one county, by someone who may or may not have known what they were looking at. Greatly helpful as a cross-reference to Tallamy's list.
And last but not least, we've started a butterfly list as part of the Sugarbush website, identifying each known host plant that we carry that supports species of butterflies that have been sighted in Berks County, PA over the last 5 years. It's right on our plant list. Happy gardening!
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
The evil twin of native plants: invasives!
It's growing faster than a speeding bullet...it's a bird, it's a plane, it's - Tree of Heaven?!
If only this line ended differently! Alas, it does not. Plants horribly out of their context are often the fastest-growing plants in our landscapes. No holds barred, they are not subject to the diseases, pests, and growing conditions of the place to which they are native, which always kept their growth in check before. There, they were in balance with their ecosystem. Here, they are like good farm boys from Iowa suddenly on a wild weekend in NYC with no parents, and a wallet full of money. You can hope everything's going to be okay, but chances are, those boys are going to let loose in ways they never would at home.
But, one major difference is that the farm boys can return to Iowa and repair their reputations, leaving NYC only slightly more chaotic than when they first arrived, while the invasive plants, with their unruly behavior, are here to stay. And just what is unruly behavior in a plant? If they germinate even a little more quickly, or grow taller a little more quickly than the native plants around them, the battle is over, and the invasives have won. And this is exactly why many invasives have earned themselves that name. Invasives displace native plants, along with the insects which prefer to feed or reproduce on native plants. To add insult to injury, they sometimes also release chemicals that actively kill other plants around them.
Controlling invasive plants is a major part of establishing - or protecting - natives in your home landscape. This is an ongoing task, because as soon as you think it's under control, some lovely birds - which you are attracting to your home with all of your native plants - will "deposit" seeds of some unwanted invasives, which will then germinate, and you'll start the cycle all over again.
But the situation will get better over time. Start with taking out all of the plants that are of fruiting age, because this is where the problems are starting. Then work your way down to the less mature plants, which are definitely taking up space, but are probably not going anywhere fast if they're not themselves setting seed. After a while, you'll be down to just the plants that are germinating every year, and these are easier to pull up.
How to get rid of the invasive trees and shrubs, like the aforementioned Tree of Heaven, my personal arch nemesis? Cutting them down will take away their ability to produce seed that season, but they'll resprout. You will need to kill the plant in order to keep it from coming back with a vengeance. Here are some methods to try for the larger trees and shrubs:
Of course, many invasives can be controlled by pulling them up when they are small, or simply cutting off their flowers, if they are annuals (like garlic mustard). These should always be the measures to turn to first, when they are options.
But - what if you don't know what's in your yard? Find out! The DCNR has some great tools to help homeowners identify, and learn how to control, many varieties of invasive plants. Here's a link to one of my favorites - a tutorial that includes pictures and control methods for each invasive variety:
http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/Forestry/invasivetutorial/List.htm
Take heart! There's no way your property has more invasive plants than mine does, so if you need a sympathetic ear, you've got one here. Good luck!
If only this line ended differently! Alas, it does not. Plants horribly out of their context are often the fastest-growing plants in our landscapes. No holds barred, they are not subject to the diseases, pests, and growing conditions of the place to which they are native, which always kept their growth in check before. There, they were in balance with their ecosystem. Here, they are like good farm boys from Iowa suddenly on a wild weekend in NYC with no parents, and a wallet full of money. You can hope everything's going to be okay, but chances are, those boys are going to let loose in ways they never would at home.
But, one major difference is that the farm boys can return to Iowa and repair their reputations, leaving NYC only slightly more chaotic than when they first arrived, while the invasive plants, with their unruly behavior, are here to stay. And just what is unruly behavior in a plant? If they germinate even a little more quickly, or grow taller a little more quickly than the native plants around them, the battle is over, and the invasives have won. And this is exactly why many invasives have earned themselves that name. Invasives displace native plants, along with the insects which prefer to feed or reproduce on native plants. To add insult to injury, they sometimes also release chemicals that actively kill other plants around them.
Controlling invasive plants is a major part of establishing - or protecting - natives in your home landscape. This is an ongoing task, because as soon as you think it's under control, some lovely birds - which you are attracting to your home with all of your native plants - will "deposit" seeds of some unwanted invasives, which will then germinate, and you'll start the cycle all over again.
But the situation will get better over time. Start with taking out all of the plants that are of fruiting age, because this is where the problems are starting. Then work your way down to the less mature plants, which are definitely taking up space, but are probably not going anywhere fast if they're not themselves setting seed. After a while, you'll be down to just the plants that are germinating every year, and these are easier to pull up.
How to get rid of the invasive trees and shrubs, like the aforementioned Tree of Heaven, my personal arch nemesis? Cutting them down will take away their ability to produce seed that season, but they'll resprout. You will need to kill the plant in order to keep it from coming back with a vengeance. Here are some methods to try for the larger trees and shrubs:
- You could cover the stump with a layer of thick black plastic, well-attached to the ground, and keep that in place for a year, and see if that works.
- You could keep on cutting off all of the sprouts from the stump or stem, as soon as they come out - eventually this will wear the plant out, and it will give up, but this may take a long time.
- You could try to pull out the entire stump and root mass with a big truck and a chain - although with some plants, if you leave behind even small pieces of root, those will resprout.
- Or, you could paint the newly-cut stems or stumps with a concentrated solution of glyphosate (aka the active ingredient in Round-up), to keep them from re-sprouting.
Of course, many invasives can be controlled by pulling them up when they are small, or simply cutting off their flowers, if they are annuals (like garlic mustard). These should always be the measures to turn to first, when they are options.
But - what if you don't know what's in your yard? Find out! The DCNR has some great tools to help homeowners identify, and learn how to control, many varieties of invasive plants. Here's a link to one of my favorites - a tutorial that includes pictures and control methods for each invasive variety:
http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/Forestry/invasivetutorial/List.htm
Take heart! There's no way your property has more invasive plants than mine does, so if you need a sympathetic ear, you've got one here. Good luck!
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