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!

Bush Cicada: A 2+" Sign That I'm On the Right Track

According to the reading I've done, restoring prairie is very much an art.  In fact, it's as much or more of an art than it is a science.  For example, the steps you should take depend, first of all, on whether you are starting with a plowed field or an overgrazed pasture.  Even with that determined, the process is highly experimental.  After all, for over a century we've been far more concerned with breaking up prairie lands, to plant crops, than we've been concerned with restoring agricultural lands to prairie.

It's almost always easier to destroy something than it is to create it...or to re-create it.

Therefore, even the very first step of restoration was in doubt when I decided I wanted to try to return tallgrass prairie to our 10 acre "homestead", with its 5 acres of overgrazed pasture.  Should I plow up the existing vegetation and/or use Roundup to kill it all off before planting prairie seeds?  The seed I used would supposedly establish more readily that way.  Or should I try to overseed into the existing vegetation? 

I didn't see a lot of vegetation that was worth saving during that first summer we lived here.  The Back Five was filled with redcedars, western ragweed, Baldwin's ironweed, poverty grass, brome, green antelopehorn, and a little bit of yarrow - hardly an inspiring mix.  My instincts, however, told me that plowing it all up or applying Roundup would set the return of the prairie back a lot.

"Following my gut" (to quote Gibbs on NCIS), I started the next year with a spring burn.  I reasoned that it wouldn't hurt and it might help me see if there were other, more desirable, plants being hidden by their assertive neighbors.  It took us two tries, but we did get the Back Five burned that second spring.  Over the summer I watched it carefully to see what showed up.  Fresh growth took several weeks to begin emerging, as that spring turned out to be cold and dry, but eventually the temperatures started to rise and the rains to fall.

What a difference a burn makes!  Oh, there was still a lot of "garbage" vegetation, but I also found white prairie clover, a couple lead plants, wild alfalfa, dotted gayfeather, and (best of all) FIVE spring ladies' tresses.  There was no way that I was going to plow up or Roundup that 5 acres!

So I decided to overseed.  Over the last 5 years, I've scattered seed, usually in the mowed trails, and I've watched for more hidden gems to emerge from the seed bank in the soil.  As with most natural systems, progress has seemed slow.  Prairie plants put down roots first, significant leaves next, and flowers - the most visible sign that a plant has established - last of all.  It can takes years before a newly establishing perennial or grass plant blooms, which means that it can take years before you know that your seeding has been successful.  Overseeding is especially slow, since far fewer of the seeds will be able to outcompete the already established plants on the site.  Severe heat and drought over the last several years have further impeded any progress.  Finally, though, I feel like the prairie is beginning to peek out through the overgrazed pasture it's been hiding under....

The poverty grass has become a much smaller component of the flora in the last 7 years.  Whereas it used to be impossible to walk through the Back Five without getting many of its painful seeds in my socks, these days I have to search the area for a while to find any obvious stands of it.

There are swaths of tall dropseed now and well established patches of side-oats grama.   The dotted gayfeather has spread from a scant dozen plants in one, well confined area to dozens of plants, scattered in several large, beautiful patches throughout the Back Five.  Whorled milkweed has started to form graceful colonies from single plants that were easy to overlook at first.

Meadowlarks nest each summer.  I've seen a jackrabbit several times, and coyotes regularly leave signs that they, too, are enjoying the area.

Compass plants have shown up, as well.  While I scattered some seed four or five years ago, several of the first plants that I noticed, a year or two later, were already large enough that I suspect they were actually holdovers which had survived the many years of pasturage.   Now there are a couple dozen compass plants;  6 of them put up flower spikes this year.

Which leads me to my latest promising sign of the return of the tallgrass prairie.  Last Thursday, on my latest walkabout, I photographed, among many other plants and animals, a large cicada making itself at home on the compass plant flower stalk above.  Large cicadas aren't unusual around here, so I almost didn't take this individual's photo, but having one so nicely posed on the compass plant stalk was a little different, so I spent the few extra electrons and minutes to record the image.

Over the weekend, I edited my photos and decided, somewhat on a whim, to send this image in to Bug Guide to see which cicada species this individual actually represented.  Some insects I seem to be able to identify without too much trouble.  Others, like cicadas, I have yet to learn enough about to reliably name.  Every other large cicada image I've sent in to Bug Guide has turned out to be Tibicen auriferus, the Plains Dog-Day Cicada, in one color variant or another.  This one didn't look like that, but I'd been fooled before.

This morning I received my answer from the Entomology Gods:  my large cicada is a Bush Cicada, Tibicen dorsatus. 

Why am I doing a happy dance?  Why does it matter to me which species of cicada this is?

Well, I'm probably over-reacting here, but on the Bug Guide information page about the Bush Cicada, it states, "A beautiful species that now exists in scattered isolates across much of its former range. Although listed as "secure" (i.e. "not threatened/endangered"), many populations, particularly those isolated in more developed areas, should be monitored and conserved."  I take that to mean that the species is on the decline, overall, and my little 5 acres of restoring prairie may be helping it to maintain a slightly healthier population.

Helping a potentially declining species to retain a healthier population is one of the big reasons why I garden, and definitely why I garden the way I do.   In a nutshell.  Or in a cicada cast, as the case may be.

Oh, my Bush Cicada?  Another common name for it is Splendid Prairie Cicada...and I think that's a perfectly splendid name.

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.

Stating the obvious, I haven't posted for a while.  We've had a little rain, but not enough to truly refresh the plants.  We've had some relief from the hellish temperatures, but not a steady relief yet.  Both rain and some temperature relief are looking likely by this weekend, but I'm not making any serious bets on either, based on the last 2 years' experience.

So, since being outside hasn't been very enjoyable, I've been concentrating on getting a few projects done in the house, none of which have included gardening or blogging.  The dogs, though, have been adamant in their desire for daily walks, so I've managed to photograph a few things that I thought I might share with other gardeners and nature lovers....

The dotted gayfeathers (Liatris punctata) have started blooming in the back prairie....

This year they seem to be spacing out their bloom times more than usual.  I noticed the first blooms on August 25, almost 2 weeks ago, and I would still say that the stands aren't in full bloom yet.  The first spikes, though, are almost done blooming already.

Anyway, because I was looking closely at the gayfeather blooms and trying to decide how best to photograph them, I happened to notice this garden spider in her web.  (If you don't see her,  the Liatris spike is to the left, the spider and web are in the bottom right corner.) I seriously doubt I would have noticed her, if not for the nearby blooms.

As I moved around to try to get the best photo of her, without getting too near (and without my canine destructo team ripping through), I noticed that she seemed to be pointing her abdomen straight at me - minimizing her profile, I would guess.  I'd never noticed the behavior before, but will watch for it now.

Another plant that's blooming prolifically, despite the heat and drought of the summer, is the annual, snow-on-the-mountain (Euphorbia marginata).  Solitary wasps, especially, seem to love feeding at these blooms...and I was surprised, when I got in close-up, at how pretty the flowers actually are.  I think this might make an interesting garden plant, if horticulturists would select for low-growing cultivars.

I was reminded that birth defects occur in all species when I saw this dragonfly perched out back on a metal post.  Was his malformed abdomen caused by a problem molting?  ...a genetic problem?  Was he malformed as a nymph?  How long did he survive after I took this photo?  Could he, possibly, have mated?  I've not seen him again, so I can't answer any of these questions.

This is the second time that the dogs and I have come across a box turtle chowing down on a dead cicada.  The dogs think that all cicadas were designed as crunchy, noisy dog treats, so the first time we came upon one, they stole it from the turtle before I realized what they were doing.  This time I was able to anticipate their greediness and, after disturbing the turtle long enough to get a photo or two, pull the dogs away and let the turtle finish her meal in peace.

Earlier this summer I was struck by how the abundant honeylocust (Gleditsia triacanthos) pods looked rather like party decorations, hanging off the trees.  They're still looking like that, although now they're brown spotted green streamers!

And I'll leave you, for now, with this photo of a grasshopper playing peek-a-boo with me.  When I moved, he moved.  The ensuing game reminded me of a small child hiding behind a little tree.  I guess when it's dry out and there aren't many pretty flowers, you have to find something to amuse yourself with!  (I'm speaking of me, here, not the grasshopper!  I'm sure he was trying, desperately, not to become people food.)