A Satellite Garden for Pollinators...in Boston

Several years ago our son purchased a condo in Somerville, Massachusetts.  As is typical in a large metropolitan area, there isn't much land around the building, but Sean's been talking with me about creating a pollinator garden on the small plot that he has.  Over the 4th of July weekend, we were finally able to make that happen.

Here is the space that we started with.....

Of course, since we're talking an area that has been built on for over a century, there was plant material already in place.  Most of it was exotic, if not exotic AND invasive:  black swallow-wort (a vine related to milkweed), Vinca minor, white sweet clover, crabgrass, fescue, and a cranesbill of some sort.  We removed all of these except the cranesbill, which didn't seem to be invasive and which was creating a nice small carpet with a few purple flowers.

Then there were the native plants:  an oak seedling, 2 maple seedlings, lots of hay fern, and and a couple violets.  Pretty as the hay fern was, it was obviously too aggressive for this small an area, so we reluctantly removed it.  There was still plenty of it on the north side of the house. Of course, the tree seedlings had to go, too.  This is definitely not a big enough space for an oak or maple tree.  We did try to keep the violets...although they got pretty mangled during the whole process.

The large shrub at the north end of the garden space is an old privet which technically belongs to the next door neighbor, so we didn't try to do anything with it.  There is black swallow-wort and Boston ivy growing up in it, as well as a maple seedling or two, so Sean will have to keep a close eye on it to keep those plants from infringing on his new pollinator garden.

My biggest concern for this project was finding appropriate, non-pesticide treated, native plants to form the biological base of the new garden.  Searching online, I located Garden in the Woods, a nature area run by the New England Wildflower Society.  It's in Framingham, which isn't too far out of the city, and they sell native plants.  We fired up the cell phone navigation system and made our way out there on Saturday morning.  Woohoo!  Paydirt!  Even in early July, long after sensible people have put in their new gardens or renovated their old ones, Garden in the Woods still had a nice selection of Massachusetts' native plants.  My only regret in going there was that we didn't have time to hike their trails.

On the way back, with Sean's car mostly full of native perennials, we stopped at Russell's Garden Center and bought a few tools, compost and mulch (plus a small butterfly milkweed).  Now the car was really loaded down.

I should have taken a photo of the car, but I didn't think about it. I was too psyched about getting busy, digging in the dirt.

Luckily for me, I got to be the "consultant".  Sean did the vast majority of the actual physical labor, but I got to get my hands dirty enough to feel like an integral part of the project.  The steps were pretty basic: we pulled out and discarded all the plants that we didn't want, making sure that we got as many of their roots as possible, then we spread a layer of compost over the open soil to be worked in as we planted the new perennials.  Fortuitously, the soil turned out to be better than I expected.  Next we placed the plants and Sean dug the holes - same depth as the pot, but twice as wide - before he planted each new garden member carefully, being careful to loosen the root balls as appropriate and to water each one in thoroughly.  The final step was to mulch.

By Sunday afternoon, here is what Sean's new pollinator garden looked like....

The plant list includes red moss phlox (Phlox subulata 'Scarlet Flame'), red bearberry (Arctostaphylas uva-ursi), cranesbill (Geranium sp.), violets (Viola sp.), lowbush blueberry (Vaccinium angustifolium), wild strawberry (Fragaria virginiana), foxglove penstemon (Penstemon digitalis), Nicky summer phlox (Phlox paniculata 'Nicky'), showy coneflower (Rudbeckia fulgida), spike blazing star (Liatris spicata), Magnus eastern purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea 'Magnus'), wild bergamot (Monarda fistulosa), butterfly milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa), poke milkweed (Asclepias exaltata), common milkweed (Asclepias syriacus), and New England aster (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae).

The poke and common milkweed will move around;  Sean will just pull out any that come up in a place that he finds displeasing.  Hopefully the monarchs will eventually come to visit - and maybe even to lay eggs.

The garden is planted fairly densely;  the look will hopefully be "cottage garden" in style.   I'm really excited to see how it grows and matures over the next few years.  Most of all, I'm looking forward to seeing the pollinators that it will be supporting.  Every little bit helps!

Texture in the Prairie Garden: Bold

I gave a talk yesterday at the Spring Gardening Workshop here in Sedgwick County.  As always, I'm afraid, I had more that I wanted to share than I had time to talk in. (My Uncle Ed used to call me Windy Cindy when I was a child...probably with very good reason!)  I thought it might work well to share some of the ideas and suggestions I had for "(Re)Creating Naturally Functional Landscapes in our Yards and Gardens" on my blog. 

So let me start with one of the biggest problems I've run into as I continue to develop my own prairie gardens:  texture.   Many, if not most, of the prairie plants are medium in texture.  The leaves are medium in shade of green and medium in size.  The flowers are medium in size.  The plants tend to be 3-4 feet tall and about as wide.  It's very easy to get an overwhelming mass effect, but much harder to have a variety of different textures that create interest based on contrasting sizes, shapes, and forms.

First though, before I share some of my "secrets," I'd like to point out that the triumph of the "medium" in the prairie is, in great part, due to natural constraints.  Large leaves have large surfaces that tend to lose lots of water, which isn't good for plants growing in an environment famous for extended droughts and unceasing winds.  Speaking of those winds, they have a major tendency to rip large leaves and flowers to shreds which, ironically, leaves you with medium-textured pieces hanging on.

Color is another drought issue.  Generally, the wetter the climate, the deeper the green of the plants that grow there.  Hot, dry climates favor gray-greens.  The prairie, being half way in between those two extremes (and enjoying wild vacillations between the two), tends to stick in the middle with medium green shades.  In short, "medium" is so abundant in the prairie because it works very well there.

Medium, however, presents us with a problem of "too much of a good thing" when designing interesting gardens.  So here are some suggestions for prairie plants that break out of the "medium" mold, starting BOLDLY with plants that bravely present big leaves to the prairie winds.

Giant Coneflower:

Used increasingly in professionally designed landscapes, giant coneflower (Rudbeckia maxima) steers clear of medium in almost all aspects.  In the photo below, the giant coneflower is in the bottom lefthand corner, at the front of the flower bed....

Native to the southern Great Plains, it boasts large, gray-green leaves with a soft, waxy look that stay in a beautiful low rosette for much of the year.  During early-mid summer, giant coneflower sends up 4' tall spikes crowned with a single, large "boned" bloom:  a tall central cone, surrounded by drooping yellow petals.

If you can refrain from cutting off the finished blossoms to tidy up the garden, they provide a good seed source for winter birds while giving vertical accents to the winter landscape.  The hollow, dried stems are also great habitat for solitary bees, those native masters of efficient pollination.

Compass Plant:

A classic prairie plant and widely distributed throughout the center of the country, compass plant (Silphium laciniatum) is said to have helped pioneers navigate because its large, deeply lobed leaves tend to line up in a north-south orientation in order to capture the strongest rays of the sun.

When you touch the leaves of the compass plant, you understand how it compensates for the large leaf surface that it exposes to the prairie winds:  the leaves are very rough, thick and coarse to the touch, almost like a form of sandpaper.  Despite that unappealing feel, apparently cattle graze the leaves with great relish, so compass plant doesn't last long in pastures.

Although the leaves provide a basal rosette that is only 18"-24" tall, like the giant coneflower, the bloom spike pushes up 4-5' into the air.  Unlike the giant coneflower,  though, this spike is ornamented with 3" wide sunflower-like blooms along its entire length.  Compass plant blossoms start opening at the top of the spike and slowly work their way down the length of the stem over a period of several weeks.

Again, if you leave the spike intact when the blooming is complete, it provides visual interest as well as bird food and insect shelter throughout the winter.

Milkweed:

There are several beautiful milkweeds that provide thick, large leaves and big balls of fragrant pink blossoms for bold texture in the garden.  The three that I'm most familiar with, and that occur naturally on our property, are somewhat hard for me to tell apart, but all three are very appealing plants.  All, too, are monarch larval plants and thus VERY important to plant for trying to save one of our favorite native butterflies.

Common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) is probably the most well known of these three.  Its native distribution covers the central and eastern portions of North America.  Because of its tendency to spread by its roots, it has earned the reputation of a weed in cultivated fields and it probably wouldn't work in a formal garden, but it would be a great addition to an informal, cottage style border.

Here is a closeup of common milkweed's blooms, complete with monarch, for comparison with the next two plants.

The second milkweed, smooth milkweed (Asclepias sullivantii), is also known as prairie milkweed.  It is very similar to common milkweed, but its native distribution is much more restricted to the central prairies.  This is the one of these three "pink pomander" milkweeds that grows best for me, and it is the one that I have seen the most monarch caterpillars on.

Based on its native distribution, the third of these 3 pink milkweeds, showy milkweed (Asclepias speciosa), is almost a western version of common milkweed. 

Again, here is a closer look at the bloom.  Showy milkweed's blossoms have lo-o-ong, upright "petals", giving the bloom an almost spiky appearance.  They ARE certainly showy, though, which makes them the easiest of the 3 for me to identify!

All three of these pink milkweed species grow about 30"-36" tall.  I do not know how assertively either smooth or showy milkweed spread, compared to common milkweed.  None of the three form exclusive patches, however, in any situation where I have seen them growing; thus all three should be fine in an informal garden setting.

Before I leave milkweeds, let me briefly mention a common species that is perhaps worthy of consideration for incorporation into some garden beds:  green antelopehorn (Asclepias viridis).  Frequently seen in pastures during the spring, green antelopehorn blooms very early in the season and stays quite low, topping out at 18" but more commonly about 12" tall.  While the leaves of this milkweed aren't as big as those of common, showy or smooth milkweed, they are larger than almost any other plant growing at this time of year and thus they provide a bolder texture in the landscape, too.

Found primarily in the center of the country, this plant's creamy white flowers with eye-catching, inner purplish "clubs" are an intriguing contrast to more traditionally constructed blooms.

Oakleaf Hydrangea:

Although native just to the southeast of the U.S., I have seen oakleaf hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia) growing as far north as Ontario.  It grows well here, too, with a bit of protection from strong summer winds and from too much summer afternoon sun.

Oakleaf hydrangea is one of my favorite shrubs.  Its large, lobed leaves are attractive throughout the growing season, but they are especially vivid and eye-catching during the fall, when they turn a gorgeous burgundy, sometimes tinged with orange.  The bark is rather cinnamon colored and exfoliates as the shrub gets larger, while the dried flower heads remain throughout the winter, giving nice winter interest in the garden. 

Oakleaf hydrangea flowers, by the way, start out a beautiful, pale lime green, mature to white, get pinkish as they age, and end up a soft gray-brown, staying attached to the plant until the newly developing leaves and flowers push them off the following spring.  This is truly a 4 season plant!

Catalpa:

If, from a distance, you see a tree whose large, light, bright green, heart-shaped leaves make it stand out from other trees, chances are you are looking at a catalpa.  In the picture below, the catalpa is the tree in the middle.  To its left is a bur oak, to its right is an osage orange.  The bur oak and the catalpa were planted about 20 years ago, I believe, but I don't know how old the osage orange is. 

Note how much more upright the catalpa grows, and how much lighter a green its leaves are.  One of the latest blooming trees, catalpa blooms in June, after its leaves are fully emerged.  The white blossoms are wonderfully fragrant and occur in big, showy clusters above the leaves.  If we move in closer here, we can see (and smell) the sweet flowers.

Somewhat oddly, those big showy clusters of flowers develop into long, thin pods that remain on the tree throughout the winter.  I find the tree with its winter dress of dangling, long pods to be quite attractive, but I'll warn you that many people find the pods to be a nuisance, creating more of a cleanup chore than they desire.


There are actually 2 species, southern catalpa (Catalpa bignonioides) and northern catalpa (Catalpa speciosa) whose ranges overlap throughout much of the country.  The difference between the two species is very slight and, for all practical purposes, they function the same way in the landscape, so I will just talk about them as one species, "catalpa".


Both of these species originally had a very small native range in the southeast U.S., which you can see in the Wikipedia links above, but both were widely planted as settlers homesteaded around the country.  I have been told that catalpa was one of the primary species used to "claim" a homestead and that it was widely used for fenceposts until osage orange (a.k.a. hedge apple) was discovered to be even longer lasting in that capacity.  The wood, although very light, does not rot rapidly when in contact with the soil.

Catalpa is also known as the "fishing worm" tree.  Apparently the caterpillars of the catalpa sphinx moth were commonly used as fishing bait in days gone by.  Supposedly these hornworm caterpillars can get numerous enough to defoliate the tree...but I have never observed a single catalpa "worm", so it's not something that worries me overly much about using the tree in the landscape.

Well, such as they are, those are my suggestions for bold texture in the prairie plant palette.  Next on the list will be fine and ferny textured plants...but I'll leave those for another post.

If you've got any other boldly textured prairie plants that you think would be good in a garden, I'd love to learn about them!

Time For A Makeover!

I've been reluctant to share many garden photos - with plants emphasized - because, quite frankly, after 2 1/2 years of drought, my gardens are looking pretty sad.  We've received a nice amount of rain in the last couple weeks, however, and so I'm looking to revamp what's left and corral it into some sort of shape.

Because they've bloomed superbly despite the drought and a major spider mite/lacebug infection each summer when the weather gets hot and dry, I've let my aromatic asters take over the front garden beds.  I need to thin them down and provide some space for a few other plants, though.

All of these first few photos were taken yesterday in the late afternoon.

Here is the pathway through my main front flower bed, leading from the driveway to the front door.

Looking from the edge of the driveway, just a step or two into the lawn area, this is the view of the same front flower bed.  Despite my rather disjointed attempts to break up the "wall of green" effect with a clump of giant coneflowers (Rudbeckia maxima) and some grasses, it still seems like the green-shrub-mounds of the aromatic aster are prevailing.

From the front porch/breezeway, looking over the garden to the tall grass, I can frame in some color right now, but it's still primarily "mounds of green" in its effect.

And, yes, I know that the poor eastern redbud (Cercis canadensis) by the front door, a victim of redbud leafrollers for the second year in a row, looks awful.  It will either make it or not.  If it doesn't I'll replace it with an Oklahoma redbud.  I have one in the back yard and its shiny leaves seem much more resistant to this irritant.

The island bed in the front yard swale needs plenty of work, too.  Limbing up the Shumard oak a bit will help, although I'm leaving the lower limbs on right now to help give it plenty of energy to grow quickly.  Having the buffalo grass fill in will help too., simply by giving the bed a "finished frame" around it.  The small 'Dream of Beauty' aromatic asters in front have had their leaves basically bleached by the lacebugs, but will still bloom mightily and come back even more widely next year.  They need to be reduced in spread in the spring, I think.

I've purchased another switch grass to plant behind the aromatic asters on the right, to provide some balance.

Not everything is negative or "not working" in the garden.  I had the best bloom I've ever had on my butterfly milkweeds (Asclepias tuberosa) this spring.  (The photo below was taken on June 14 in the front flower bed.)

I've learned that lanceleaf coreopsis (Coreopsis lanceolata) does very well in my garden, not only returning strongly, but also doing just a bit of reseeding.  This is the island bed in the swale, in mid June.

I love this pairing of purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) and Letterman's ironweed (Vernonia lettermannii) for its foliage contrast.

Species Echinacea, in general, have been doing well for me but, like so many other gardeners, I'm finding that the cultivars are tending to wimp out.  For example, here is the yellow coneflower (Echinacea paradoxa) earlier in the summer.

Even though, technically, that's a species from much further east, it is still robust and beautiful, getting better each year.

The nodding wild onion (Allium cernuum) looks better every year.

The fameflower (Talinum calycinum) is absolutely wonderful and requires nothing but admiration.

And I've got one Gaillardia that acts more like an annual than a perennial in its bloom pattern, but that has returned several years in a row now.  I cannot, however, remember what cultivar it is!  (This photo was taken on June 15, in the front flower bed.)

So, overall, my plan is to go with what's worked best for me over the last few years with the exception of the aromatic asters, which need to be reduced in number and impact.  So...no more Echinacea cultivars but more plants of the straight Echinacea species, more lanceleaf coreopsis, add in some species black-eyed Susans, put in more fameflower along sunny edges, move the wild bergamot out from the shade and into the full sun...and pray for more evenly distributed rain, at least for some years!

I welcome any and all suggestions...except, perhaps, to pull it all out and start over!  I'm not THAT unhappy with it...yet!

Autumn Findings....

Having taken a series of walks over the last several days, I have quite a few photos to share.  However, many of the topics aren't worth an entire post on their own, so I'll just band a few together in a miscellaneous post and call it good!

We'll start by crossing the draw and heading back to the Cedar Grove....

One of the first things I saw, welcoming me home, was this female Carolina mantis (Stagmomantis carolina) hanging on to the developing seeds of a giant ragweed. 

I love watching mantids turn their heads, following movement, and this gal kept changing her view, first watching the dogs, then turning back to look at the black tube pointed her way.  I don't see very many praying mantises, so it was a treat to see her so perfectly poised...and so full of eggs!  She seemed to be interested in me, too.

A little farther down the path, I was able to catch a shot of a grasshopper that seemed a little different from the handful of species that I normally see.  Some work with Insects in Kansas and with bugguide.net has me tentatively identifying this as a female admirable grasshopper (Syrbula admirabilis), one of the slant-faced grasshoppers.   Generally males of this species are brown and females are green.

The next thing to share isn't showing up well in my photograph (which actually just looks like a jumbled mass of tiny aster blooms), but I have a few clumps of heath aster (Symphyotrichum ericoides) that are blooming a distinct light purple, rather than the more common white.  It was a good year for heath aster, especially in the area that we burned a little over a year ago.  This photo was taken last Monday;  just a week later there is almost no heath aster left blooming anywhere.

I rather like this next little bushy guy.  Looks rather like a Dr. Seuss plant, doesn't it?  Or perhaps a feather duster?  Maybe a fancy water fountain, frozen in mid-spout?


It's actually the seed head left from the dotted gayfeather (Liatris punctata) bloom spikes that were so bright just a month or so ago.  I'm always amazed at how quickly these blooms change from brilliant to bushy, then lose their seeds to the wind.  Where purple shone just a few weeks ago, now there is simply a soft tan, getting ready to take to the air....

A very few goldenrod blooms are hanging on.  The stiff goldenrod in my front garden is finished, but the single clump of stiff goldenrod (Solidago rigida) that I discovered out in the Back Five is still in bloom.
 

The bloom I highlighted in the closeup is one of the two stalks that I thought was dying earlier this summer.  The entire tip of the shoot was black and almost lifeless, but the flower buds appeared above the blackened area and they bloomed just as strongly as any of the other stalks.  You can see the remnants of the blackened leaves below the blossoms.

There are a few lingering goldenrod blooms on other species around the yard, even though most of their flowers are already showing the tan fluff of their developing seeds.  The brown-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia triloba) in the vegetable garden is simply covered with masses of blooms, although I gave up on growing any vegetables several months ago.  Most of the color left in my yard, though, is coming from the masses of aromatic aster (Symphyotrichum oblongifolium) sprawling everywhere. I could easily do an entire post on that plant alone...and I may, if I get inspired!  Meanwhile I have dozens of photos of pollinators, gorging on aromatic aster pollen and nectar, that I need to sort through and edit.  So I'll leave you with a shot of my brown-eyed Susans and toddle off to bed.  Tomorrow's another day.