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!

A New Beginning and the Start of a Bittersweet Ending

Greg and I spent the month of June in Ft. Walton Beach, Florida, on "Baby Watch."  Connor finally decided to join us about 10 days ago, arriving safely but with a whole lot of uproar.  Greg and I stuck around Florida for a week or so, getting him and his parents snuggled in a bit, then we hightailed it back here to Clearwater for a bittersweet fortnight to be spent doing a final cleanup and clearout here, culminating in a total packup and moveout.
Because of Baby Watch, we've literally been gone for over a month.  We've had a great couple mowing our lawn for us, once a week, but otherwise the yard has been on its own during that time.  No weeding (during all of April and May, too, to be honest), no watering, no transplanting, no nothing.  So I had no idea what I was going to find when we got back, especially as wet as the weather was for much of May.

Doing a walkabout yesterday morning, I found some good things and some disappointing things, some expected changes and some unexpected changes. To get the disappointment out of the way without further ado, I was very unhappy to see how weedy the buffalo grass was.  After 3 years of relatively careful weeding, I was hoping that there wouldn't be much crabgrass...but I was sadly mistaken. I'm hoping to find time to weed it out one last time before we leave...but I'm not counting on it.  Weeding the lawn is a pretty low priority right now.

The front flower garden is full, but not very floriferous, a common problem for this bed at this time of year.  The rain has made everything very tall this summer, which is a little overwhelming.  The daylilies bloomed while we were gone, as did the butterfly milkweed. The lanceleaf coreopsis and the pink evening primrose were just beginning when we left;  they are completely done now, but the Echinacea is still blooming nicely.

Looking down the front walk, there is a single tall wild lettuce dominating the center stage, but at least that will be quick and easy to pull out.  The eastern gama grass (Tripsacum dactyloides) that didn't get relocated this spring is liking its spot next to the walk entirely TOO well.  If no one wants it, it will get moved to the compost pile.  Five or six foot tall grasses right next to a front walkway are just not welcome, even if they are native.

The wild bergamot (Monarda fistulosa) bloomed while we were gone and it is just about finished.  I'm going to cut most of it way, way back and see what happens.  Or, actually, I guess I won't see, but at least it won't be quite so front-and-center with its drying seed heads.  If anyone wants some, I have several nice, healthy clumps that could use a new home.....

The back courtyard is rather wild & woolly and no flowers are currently blooming, but at least there is some open space left.  Looking out my back kitchen door, I just saw some fireflies beginning their nightly display.  Somebody's enjoying the beds in their rather overgrown condition!

The back courtyard was where I started a bit of work this morning, weeding away with a will until I accidentally backed into a healthy poison ivy plant I hadn't noticed.  I tried to go on, but it was hard to concentrate while worrying about how much oil I had on my bare legs, so I gave up and went in to take a shower.  Nine hours later, I can report that the shower, with large amounts of soap vigorously applied, did the trick - no itchy rashes anywhere, at least not yet.

The vegetable garden is the real problem child right now.  We have done absolutely nothing in it all spring, and it is an overgrown disaster.  Sigh.  So much potential and it's just totally buried from sight right now.

So there's lots of work to do this week.  On the plus side, the weather is supposed to be reasonable, with one or two days in the 70s.  On the negative side, I managed to put out my back very thoroughly yesterday afternoon.  On the plus side, as long as I sit in straight chairs or directly on the ground and move slowly and carefully, I can get some work done.  On the negative side, our air conditioner wasn't working correctly when we got home.  On the positive side, we broke down and called Bob Stith Heating and Plumbing and they came to fix it today, despite the holiday.  Cool temperatures in the house is a BIG positive!

I'll leave you with several more positives from our walkabout yesterday....

First, a tiger swallowtail nectaring at the wavy-leaf thistle (Cirsium undulatum) in the lagoon.  (Yes, the lagoon needs to be mowed, but we won't think about that right now.)

Second, our beautiful patch of smooth milkweed (Asclepias sullivantii) in the Cedar Grove beyond the Draw.  (No, I did not see any monarch caterpillars, unfortunately.)

Third, my Pitcher's clematis (Clematis pitcheri) is looking better than I've seen it look in several years!  Here are a couple of the blooms, on a stem weaving through one of the rose bushes.  They're not colored as deeply blue-purple as usual, but they are still quite attractive in my opinion.

And, finally, a gorgeous patch of whorled milkweed (Asclepias verticillata) next to the path in the Front Tallgrass.  The pollinators were literally dizzy with delight as they fed on the blooms!

Wish us luck!  I'll try to share our progress over the upcoming several weeks.....

Tolerating the Uglies

I think one of the most important concepts in healthy gardening is also one of the simplest.  Do YOU always look camera-ready??!  I highly suspect not.  I certainly don't.  And neither should our gardens.  As with any living organism or community, sometimes life is messy but that doesn't mean anything is wrong at all.

When I give garden talks, I talk about this and one of the phrases I use - and it almost always gets a sympathetic laugh - is that we should learn to "Tolerate the Uglies" in our gardens.  What do I mean by that?

Well, any number of things can occasionally be ugly in a garden, but I first came up with the concept in relationship to leaves that have been eaten by caterpillars.  What do YOU do when you see leaves disappearing, slowly or (even worse) rapidly?  Most of us, I suspect, run for the pesticide.  After all, isn't a good gardener supposed to protect her plants?!

Actually, no, that sort of protection is not necessary.  Mother Nature has designed an entire type of animal, predators and parasites, that will take care of leafeaters for you...if you give them a chance.

My first conscious lesson about this idea of learning to tolerate ugliness came about 7 years ago when I was beginning the front garden at this house.  I had planted a couple young Echinacea plants, two of the "Sky" series, earlier in the spring.  They were establishing well, I thought, until one day in mid-June I looked out the window and saw what appeared to be black mildew all over the leaves of one of them.  Damn!

I went outside to look more closely and realized that the leaf damage I was seeing wasn't mildew at all.  The leaves had actually been skeletonized by a large number of little, hairy, black caterpillars.  The poor leaves were also covered in frass, a.k.a. caterpillar poop.   If I'd had any in the house, I probably would have grabbed the Sevin right then and there, but luckily I didn't.

So I went back inside the house, got on the computer and looked in books, and did some research.  Without too much trouble, I learned that the caterpillars I was seeing were the half-grown young of pearl crescents, one of those pretty little orange butterflies you commonly see on flowers in the summer time.  Their young feed "gregariously" (in a group) for the first several stages of their lives, then scatter to finish feeding before they pupate and change into adults.

What to do?  I wanted butterflies.  I like butterflies.  But I also like my plants and I'd spent $4 or $5 each on those 2 Echinaceas.  I didn't want to lose them.  I decided that I'd go out the next morning and move the caterpillars to other plants throughout the garden where their eating habits wouldn't be as easily noticed.

When I went out the next morning to carry out my plan, the caterpillars were gone.  They could have all been eaten by some predator, but I suspect they'd reached the age/stage where they naturally scattered to find more food on their own.

And the Echinacea they'd thoroughly skeletonized?  Three weeks later, it bloomed on schedule - see the photo above - and within a couple months, you had to look hard to see the remains of the damaged leaves.  By the next summer, it was a beautifully healthy plant with no sign that anything had ever munched hard on it.

I, the brave gardener, did nothing but accidentally Tolerate the Uglies.  The plant survived and thrived.  The butterflies survived and thrived.  And I survived and thrived.  A big win for doing nothing at all (except observing and learning).

I'll share another couple stories about tolerating occasional garden uglies in the next post or two....

An Unexpected Visitor: Anise Swallowtail

Late yesterday afternoon, when we went out to do some work in the garden, I noticed a different looking swallowtail nectaring on the Echinacea.  Grabbing my camera, I started trying to capture it on "film".

The swallowtail was much more skittish than most of the other butterflies I see in the garden.  At first, it was hard to get within 15 feet of it, although after a while, I was able to sneak up a bit...

...especially when it started interacting with a tiger swallowtail female that was also nectaring on the Echinacea.  I don't recall ever seeing an aggressive butterfly before, but that's what this individual acted like.

He (?) would come up behind the female and sort of dive bomb her.  Then they would do a circling dance through the air (was it a male trying to initiate a courtship dance?).  Eventually they would both settle back down to nectaring again.

Neither my Kansas City butterfly guide nor my Peterson's Eastern Butterfly guide had this swallowtail in it, but I finally found a photo in another, nationwide, guide that I have.  I verified my identification by checking it against anise swallowtail in Bugguide.  Sure enough!  That was it!

Now I'm left to wonder if this individual was an accidental import on a plant (or firewood? or a vehicle?), or if it is simply a stray, far from its normal range in the western parts of the U.S.  I doubt I'll ever know, but I'm sure glad I happened to notice the visit of this charismatic stranger.

Early June Plant Combination Ideas for a Prairie Garden

Despite the beauty and hardiness of native plants, they are still relative newcomers to the garden scene.  Consequently, there aren't very many "tried and true" combinations of native perennials (and/or annuals) that bloom concurrently for the best garden bed displays.

I've been trying to capture combinations that appeal to me when I see them, which is usually a rather serendipitous occurrence.  Here, for example, is a pairing that I found last week, at the Sedgwick County Extension Arboretum in Wichita....

The bluish-purple of the leadplant (Amorpha canescens) blossoms, with their orange anthers, really struck me when I found them in close proximity to the brilliant orange blooms of butterfly milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa).  I believe this was an accidental planting - the butterfly milkweed had moved here after originally being planted about 20 feet away, but what a lucky accident!  The leadplant's spiky sprays of grayish, tiny leaved foliage make a nice counter to the rounded mound of the bright green butterfly milkweed, too.  Best of all, these two prairie natives require essentially identical conditions, so where one does well, the other one should too.

Nearby the leadplant-butterfly milkweed pairing in the Arboretum was Husker Red Penstemon (Penstemon digitalis 'Husker Red') planted in front of bloody cranesbill (Geranium sanguineum). 

While I would personally put the penstemon either in back of or beside the cranesbill, the echoes of purple between both plants and the overlapping bloom times, as well as contrasting foliage and plant shapes, made a pleasing combination to my eye.  One of the best things about this combination is that it will do well in part shade, which is rather rare among plants that do well on the prairie.  By the way, the bloody cranesbill is not native to North America, but it's been selected as one of the Great Plants of the Great Plains and there are others in the Geranium genus that are native here.

Some other plants blooming in the prairie right now that could be creatively combined for special garden displays:

Purple horsemint, aka lemon beebalm (Monarda citriodora), an annual that reseeds pleasantly.

Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta), a well known, short-lived, garden perennial.

Catclaw Sensitive Briar (Mimosa quadrivalvis), a rather sprawling perennial with classic mimosa leaves and spectacular bright pink flowers.

Spiderwort (Tradescantia spp.), which provide both a nice linear foliage and beautiful blue blooms.

Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriacus), Smooth Milkweed (Asclepias sullivantii), and/or Showy Milkweed (Asclepias speciosa), 3 milkweeds of open grasslands that sport large pink pompoms of blossoms with incredibly sweet fragrance.  Shown in this photo is smooth milkweed growing naturally in a grassland; all 3 species look very similar in general appearance and all 3 are excellent monarch larval plants.  Being good larval plants means their foliage can get quite ratty by the end of summer so planting them amidst a "filler" like aster is probably a good idea.  All 3 will form open colonies.

Purple Poppy Mallow (Callirhoe involucrata), also called wine cup, which brings a strong magenta blossom to the mix.  Its trailing stems can meander between other plants, but in the prairie they often seem to climb UP its neighbors to provide the plant with the sun it needs.  It's not a heavy or a smothering plant, so this can actually work quite well and look very attractive.

Echinaceas, the classic prairie coneflowers.  While Black-sampson (Echinacea angustifolia) is the native here in south central Kansas, there are many other Echinaceas available that will do well in prairie gardens, including Purple Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) and Yellow Coneflower (Echinacea paradoxa), which are both relatively easy to find in nurseries and garden centers.  Pictured here, of course, is yellow coneflower.  Echinaceas are a North American genus.

There are other native wildflowers that are blooming right now, but these are the main prairie forbs that are currently blooming in my yard and gardens.  What combinations would you put together?! 

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!

Spiders in Paradise

I've been seeing a lot of spiders in the last few weeks and many of them are new to me.  Spiders are wonderful predators in the garden, especially of insects, so I'm always happy to see them.  Of course, spiders also become prey for other animals, such as certain wasp species, as I talked about in a recent blog post.  The balance of a healthy garden community is a wonderful web of interrelationships!

For the most part, I have no idea how to identify spiders beyond the basics:  jumping spider, orb weaver, crab spider, and so forth.  So I'll share what I know - or think I know - about each spider and see if anyone can add any information for me!

Before I start, though, does anyone have a reference on spiders that they would recommend?  Bugguide.net has some information on spiders, as does Insects in Kansas, but I'm looking for a reference that would really concentrate on telling the different spider families apart, plus maybe identify some of the more common and widespread species.  I'd also like it to be primarily North American based, so that I don't get led astray with species that I wouldn't find around here.

Anyway, here are some of my "catches", in no particular order.

I think this Argiope spider (identified by the thicker zig-zag pattern in the web, known as a stabilimentum) is perhaps a young black and yellow garden spider (Argiope aurantia), those huge spiders often seen in late summer and autumn in vegetable and flower gardens, while it's still too young to have developed its adult coloring.  According to the Bugguide.net site, this more centralized stabilimentum pattern is typical of the juveniles of this species.  (The little white packet hanging below the spider is an insect, wrapped up for eating.)

Later the stabilimentum is woven in a linear pattern in this species, as shown in this web made by a slightly larger and more mature black and gold garden spider.

While the more mature black and gold garden spider was found in the vegetable garden, the juvenile black and yellow garden spider was on giant ragweed (Ambrosia trifida) in the draw, as was this next spider, a mother with her eggs and new spiderlings.

I have no idea what group to put this spider and her babies into.  Truthfully, I didn't really realize what I was looking at until I got back inside and downloaded the photos.  I just saw some lumps of spider silk attached to the upper surface of a leaf, with a small spider by them, and took a couple photos.  I was actually surprised to see that the little yellow lumps were spiderlings, presumably freshly hatched.

When I went back 4 days later and took another photo, Mom and the babies were gone, but at least one of the egg sacs was open that hadn't been open in the earlier photos, so I'm thinking even more spiderlings hatched after my first photos.  I'm also thinking that the cream colored, thicker strands to the left of the egg sacs may be some sort of fungus, but it's just a guess.

One group of spiders that I've had great fun seeing in the draw, among the giant ragweed plants, have been the jumping spiders.  These guys are incredibly alert and seemingly curious - they will turn to look at me for a bit until I stay too long or get too close, then they almost magically disappear over the edge of a leaf or down the stem.  This tan guy was just minding his own business when I took my first photo...

but he almost immediately realized I was looking at him and turned his head up to look at me.  I managed to get 3 more photos before he got nervous and disappeared.

This darker brown cutie was content to stare back at me until I started moving in a bit closer.  Then he, too, was gone in a flash.

I've seen several primarily black jumping spiders in the ragweed, with red or orange coloring on their abdomens.  I don't know if these are all different species, or different sexes and/or ages of the same species.  Here is the individual with the least amount of red/orange on the abdomen...

...and a bit of metallic blue-green on its mandibles, briefly visible in this side shot I was able to capture.

There were several other black jumping spiders with red on their abdomen, scurrying away from me so that I never could get a good shot of their face, but I think they were all the same species as this magnificent individual....

...who looked like he/she wanted to challenge me to a fight!  Notice how enlarged those extended front legs are.  Surely that will help me identify this spider down to the species level....

One last jumping that I've seen recently was this little guy hanging out on my Jerusalem artichoke (Helianthus ).  Here he/she is, peering at me to see if I was dangerous or not!

Of course there have been crab spiders in the flowers, too, like this one, hiding in a sunflower, with brown markings on its abdomen...

...and this white one that was on a purple coneflower...

...and this yellow one, without brown abdominal markings, on a Gaillardia bloom.

I have no idea if these are all the same species, or different species, and I have no good idea of how I'd go about deciding that.  So, for now, I'm (barely) content to just label them all as crab spiders.

I hope you're seeing some spiders in your gardens too.  They are a great sign that your gardens are healthy.  Those spiders will work 24/7 to make sure that your gardens stay that way!