The Restorative Magic of Rewilding

There's not a lot I can do to affect the outcome of global warming or to stop the biodiversity crisis.  That fact tends to keep me awake at night.  However, "not a lot I can do" is not the same as "nothing I can do".  I have found a way to make a difference in both crises, even if it is a small difference, and that way is right outside our home.  Even better, every day I can literally see the difference I'm making.

What's making the difference?  Rewilding.  My husband and I are doing our best to let the land we currently steward heal itself, restore itself.  Over the last 5 years, because of our restorative choices, we have gone from seeing no moths and few butterflies or native bees to seeing all of these and more regularly.

Tiny, but mighty. In this photo, the Thin-lined Calligrapher is feeding at Blue-eyed Grass (Sisyrinchium angustifolium).   The larvae of this species of syrphid fly are fierce predators of aphids, while the adults pollinate flowers as they feed.

 

What does rewilding our yard entail?  Here are the simple steps that we are taking...or not taking, as the case may be.

1.  Leave the leaves.  Our yard is part of the eastern deciduous forest and it has many large native trees that grew within a forest setting, so they are tall and straight with few low branches.  In the fall, these trees drop LOTS of leaves, which we simply...leave.  Blanketing the ground, the leaves protect the soil from erosion, hold in soil moisture, feed the trees and other plants as they decompose, and provide habitat for an amazing number of animals.  While doing all of that, they also store carbon - and help store more carbon in the soil as they decompose.

As a caterpillar, this beautiful little Red-banded Hairstreak lived in the leaf litter and fed on the fallen leaves of various trees, such as wax myrtle and sumac.  Here it is nectaring at Blue Mistflower (Conoclinium coelestinum), a native perennial.

2.  Minimize lawn.  In our case, there was no functional lawn in the yard when we moved in...so we didn't try to add one.  Ours is a shaded yard, which grass doesn't like, so we're choosing not to fight that battle.  If we had a lawn, we'd be managing it as a "freedom lawn", free from pesticides and fertilizers and welcoming low-growing native plants like violets and nimblewill.

3.  Let native vegetation grow naturally.  As new plants appear in the yard, I do my best to identify them.  If they are native, I generally let them grow with little further fuss..  Some of these plants have actually been growing here for years, suppressed and invisible because of decades of mowing.  Other native species have come up from the seedbank in the soil.  Many natives have come from seeds deposited by birds and other animals as they move through our landscape.  Plants like mayapple, frost aster, American pokeweed, rough-leaved goldenrod, nimblewill, and numerous tree and shrub seedlings have appeared "on their own" in one of these ways.

The Late Boneset (Eupatorium serotinum) in this photo is an example of a native that seeded itself into our yard.  I found I loved it almost as much as this Eastern Tiger Swallowtail does, so I transplanted a second one from our daughter's yard and bought 3 more to add to the area.

4.  Remove invasive plants.  Perhaps surprisingly, this is an extremely valuable step.  The importance of native plants is that they have co-evolved with and are eaten by native insects and other native animals, so they support animal life.  Invasive plants, which are aggressive non-natives, don't get eaten and therefore have no limits on their growth and reproduction.  Invasives can take over entire landscapes, smothering the native plants in the process.  Think kudzu, the vine that ate the South.  It's like having plastic plants as far as supporting birds and other wildlife are concerned.

The lush green grass that's carpeting this woodland floor is actually invasive Japanese Stilt Grass.  An annual that seeds heavily, stilt grass rapidly takes over and suppresses almost all other vegetation.  Nothing eats it, so the forest floor essentially becomes a green desert where it grows.  We had a fair amount of stilt grass, which I have worked hard to suppress by hand pulling.  There will always be some, but right now it's easy to keep under control as I work on other things around the yard.

5.  Avoid using pesticides (including insecticides and rodenticides), fungicides, herbicides, and artificial fertilizers.  ("-cide"means "to kill").  Your rewilding landscape will re-establish its own balances and counterbalances, remaining much healthier than it ever could be by using toxins and artificial chemicals within it.  The only exception to this rule is the judicious use of specific herbicides, if necessary, to help remove particularly problematic invasive plant species.

Doing its best to imitate a half-eaten stem, this inchworm is one of many caterpillars that now call our yard home...that is, they call it home until they get eaten or until they pupate and change into moths or butterflies.   Inchworms are the larvae of geometrid moths;  this one is feeding on Rough-leaved Goldenrod.  Dr. Doug Tallamy reports that 95% of all woodland birds raise their young on insects, especially caterpillars.  If you want birds, you have to have caterpillars.   If you want caterpillars, you can't use insecticides.

This is what happens when you "sit on your hands" and don't use insecticides.  See that little orange "bug"?  That's an oleander aphid on swamp milkweed...being eaten by the larva of a lacewing!  There was a pretty good crowd of oleander aphids for a little while, but the lacewings and syrphid flies moved in and feasted.  Within a couple days, the oleander aphids were gone.  If you want lacewings and syrphid flies to do your pest control, you can't use insecticides...or even squash or wash off the aphids.

6.  Plant native plants that fit our specific ecosystem community.  In our eastern deciduous woodland yard, for example, we have added blueberries, beauty berries, Christmas ferns, bloodroot, mayapple, and pawpaw, among others.

Here a Variegated Fritillary is laying an egg on a decrepit looking Common Violet (8/3/24).

7.  Observe what's going on!  It's so common for gardeners to be "all work & no play" in their gardens, but I consciously and regularly take time to walk around, just to look and learn - and to take photos.  This is how I find new species appearing and it's an important way I figure out how different plants and animals are interacting.

A case in point.....

There haven't been many, but each summer or fall I usually find a monarch caterpillar or two on the Swamp Milkweed (Asclepius tuberosa) that I have planted around the yard.  I found this one and a sibling in early September.  True to form, after a few days the caterpillars disappeared.  I always hope they've pupated and flown off successfully, but it's rare for me to know with any certainty.

In this case, I was luckier than usual.  At the end of October, I noticed this little bit of "debris" in amongst the seed heads of this Late Boneset (Eupatorium serotinum), located about 15' away from the swamp milkweed where I'd observed the monarch caterpillars 7 weeks earlier.  If you look closely, you'll see that this is an empty pupa, with the monarch having successfully hatched.   Presumably, by the time I found this bit of evidence, the monarch was well on its way to Mexico.

8.  Learn.  Then learn some more.  There are so many fantastic resources these days, from books to YouTube videos, from our local native plant societies to online seminars, from native plant nurseries to websites, from podcasts to Facebook groups.  Fellow wildlife gardeners and rewilders can be especially fun to learn with and from.

After years of seeing this book, I finally read it this summer - and it was amazing.  It's about an English estate whose owners were losing money in traditional agriculture, so they decided to "wild" it.  Even though the species discussed are British, the concepts are universal and I learned an incredible amount from reading it.  I'll never look at an ancient, half dead tree the same way again.

9.  Put up signage in your yard to showcase what you are working to accomplish.

We put up this "real estate" box near the road to share updates about why and how we are rewilding our yard.  I try to put out new updates several times a year.

10.  Share news of your discoveries and successes with others, through photos and Facebook posts and conversations.  Who knows?  You may even want to start your own blog!

August, 2023, was the first time we saw this beautiful species in our yard.  It's called a Common Buckeye and the caterpillars feed on Wild Petunia (Ruellia sp.) and Plantain (Plantago sp.), among a few other species, both of which we now have in our yard.   Here the adult is nectaring at Hairy Elephant's Foot (Elephantopus tomentosus).

Are my husband and I making a difference?  Yes, I know we are.  

From rarely seeing any insects when we first moved in (fall 2019), to documenting over 550 species of animals in the yard during the last 2 years, it's obvious that our yard is now supporting much more biodiversity.  The majority of those newly documented species are the all important insects.  Does that mean we are overrun with "bugs"?  Not at all!  I actually have to look hard to see many of the insects living here. A huge proportion of insects, it turns out, are predators on other insects, working to keep our little ecosystem balanced and functioning smoothly.

Not only are we making a visible difference through our choices, this is frankly fun.  We see small iridescent green bees and big yellow striped swallowtails, robber flies and lacewings, tree frogs and skinks.  A wide variety of birds hang out in our yard, providing a background chorus for much of the year.  Our grandsons are becoming excellent birders and sharp observers of the natural world.

We can't save the entire world by ourselves, but we can do our best to save our little corner of it.  The more of us working together on wildlife gardening, even rewilding, the larger our impact will be.

Slut Shamed, Homeowner Style

Pardon my French, but "slut shamed" rather perfectly describes what I feel like about this....

I came home last Wednesday night to this unsolicited message, gathered up with the mail and lying on our dining room table:

Presumably Greg found this tag, a "lawn report card", if you will, hanging on the handle of our front door.

Apparently, a total stranger happened to come by our house and felt compelled to stop and leave a written note for us, telling us that our lawn needs weed control, fertilization, pre-emergent treatment and pest control.  Our lawn is also apparently suffering from freeze burn.  This stranger repeated that our lawn needed pre-emergent and weed control.  Evidently the situation is dire because he exclaimed about how badly it needed these things.  He also told us that grass plugs would be available soon.

Call, he said.  It was underlined to underscore the urgency.

I am rather amused by the depth of my angst about this.  Of course I understand that this is purely a marketing ploy, done to drum up business, but it still really bothered me when I read it.

Because I consciously and conscientiously garden to provide habitat for pollinators, birds, and other wild creatures, I don't use commercial pest control or pre-emergents or weed control.  Insecticides, herbicides, and even standard fertilizers work against my goal.  After all, "-cide" means "-killer" and there is no pesticide, herbicide or insecticide that can differentiate between "good" and "bad".  They just kill what they are designed to kill:  "pests", broad-leaved plants, grasses, insects, etc., depending on the chemical formulation of the -cide being used.

Taken yesterday, this is a photo of our front lawn, 4 days after our failing report card was hand delivered to us.  We have done nothing to the lawn or to the gardens in those intervening days.  To be honest, we really haven't done anything in our yard or gardens in several months now, and there IS obviously work that needs to be done as spring begins to sneak up on us.  There is also lots more gardening, planting, and growing that I want to accomplish.  However, given all that, I am comfortable with the general appearance of our lawn.  It seems to balance reasonably well between looking rationally maintained and providing healthy habitat.

Here is our front lawn in early October, while it is still green.  Far from perfect, but it still seems acceptable to me.

Truthfully, I am rather astounded by how unsettled having this "report card" left on my door actually made me feel.   If receiving this little "reminder" upset ME this much, when I am knowingly making the choices I am making for reasons that are very important to me, what does an unsolicited report like this do to the average homeowner, who is just worried about property values and neighbors' approval? 

I KNOW our lawn is full of non-grass plants, also known as weeds.  Some of these plants are native, most are not.  I remove the really problematic ones by hand, but if the non-grass plants will handle being mowed, I generally don't worry too much about their inclusion in our lawn.

What I DO manage for - and worry about providing - is a healthy mix of plants and animals in our yard overall, a mix that includes pollinators, predators, and a good selection of native plants to feed leaf and seed eaters, as well as pollinators, birds, toads, anoles, and all the other wonderful life forms that I've observed just in our little 0.4 acre lot over the last 2 2/3 years.

Is our yard "pristine"?  No.  I don't want our yard pristine, I want it ALIVE. 

Is our yard alive?  Yes, it is.  Our yard is alive with chattering chickadees and flitting yellow-rumped warblers, with brilliant gulf fritillary butterflies and little solitary bees, with stalking preying mantids and shimmering long-tailed skippers, with watchful green anoles and fat saucy toads. 

That's worth a bit of lawn shaming any day.

A Buzz in the Meadow

I just finished reading A Buzz in the Meadow, Dave Goulson's latest book.  (He wrote A Sting in the Tale several years ago, which I thoroughly enjoyed reading last December.)  Goulson is a biology professor in England who has done some excellent research on bumblebees;  he is the founder of the Bumble Conservation Trust.  I was really looking forward to reading this book, especially as it was about the run down French farm Goulson purchased about a dozen years ago and his efforts to restore it to decent biological/ecological health. That resonated with my efforts to restore decent biodiversity on our 10 acres in Kansas, so I was curious to see what sorts of results a "professional" had had with the process.

At first I was a little disappointed.  His descriptions of the early years at the farm were fine, but they didn't spark me. In his introduction, he'd described how he'd organized the book into 3 sections, though, so I kept reading.

Things picked up as I read a bit further - some of the natural history relationships that he describes almost seem like the stuff of science fiction or legend, but they are processes that occur every day in the normal course of events.  Do hairstreak butterflies in Kansas have the same weird move, just prior to landing, that hairstreaks in Europe do?

This is the gray hairstreak, feeding on aromatic aster, in my fall garden a couple years ago.  I'll be watching hairstreaks as they land to feed now.

How long do OUR dragonflies stay coupled during the summertime - as long as European dragonflies do?  If so, why have I never noticed that before?

Can U.S. newspapers REALLY affect sexual development in European bugs?

WHY would some flowers evolve to be warmer than their surroundings?  (Remind me to check magnolia blooms in early spring, would you?!)

Apparently in Europe, treating a flower filled grassland with chemical fertilizer (even just for a year or two) will cause the flowers to disappear as the grasses go absolutely berserk and choke the forbs out.  Does the same thing happen in the American prairie???

There are also a few species of wildflowers in Europe that act as partial parasites on nearby grasses, so meadows with those flowers in them tend to have more species diversity as the grasses get kept "in their place" more effectively.  Does that happen in the prairie???

As you can tell, there were many things to think about as I read further into this book.

Then I got to the 3rd section. 

If I'd had one disappointment in A Sting in the Tale, Goulson's earlier book, it was that Goulson didn't seem too hot and bothered about neonicotinoid pesticides and their effect on bees.  I don't remember him saying much at all about colony collapse disorder.  Since he was a bumblebee researcher, this seemed like a huge omission.

Apparently a lot of other people were wanting him to weigh in on the subject, too, so he did what any REAL scientist would do: he decided to study the issue himself.   Then he wrote about what he learned in Chapter 13:  "The Disappearing Bees". This chapter gives a brief history of the issues, then goes into the research that he did on the topic of neonicotinoids' effects on bumblebees, what it revealed, and what happened after that research was published.

It's eye-opening.  If you use pesticides in your yard or garden, if you counsel people about whether they should use pesticides - I highly recommend that you read this chapter, even if you read nothing else in this book. I found my jaw dropping at times.

(Obviously I must be developing facial tics, after re-reading that last paragraph!)

Finishing up the book, the final chapter was so interesting that I read it out loud to my husband.   Talk about historical perspective! Goulson even worked the "hobbit people" in there!

Hobbit people or not, the book had important and interesting things to share.  Reading it left me feeling that I could make a real difference anywhere I lived by creating a small refuge of biodiversity in my yard and garden.  Each of us will change the world, at least a little bit.  I like to think I'll leave the world a little bit richer for my having passed through it.....

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....

HotLine Questions: Searching for a Magical Potion

Sometimes people really depress me.

Each summer I volunteer to staff our Extension HotLine for one afternoon a week.  When it's good, it's very, very good, but when its bad, it's depressing.

Today, it was bad.  First of all were the summary sheets, detailing the questions that other staffers have taken over the last several days and summarizing the answers they provided.  We always read those at the start of our shift to get a feel for "what's going on out there" in gardening land.  (Generally each session is staffed by 3-5 volunteers at a time.  I am lucky enough to work with 4 other excellent volunteers.)

One of the big questions that our local HotLine has been fielding recently is, "What do I do about those great, big wasps I keep seeing in my back yard?"

The reasonable answer, to me, is to identify those wasps (cicada killers) for the caller and then to describe what they're doing (the males are guarding the nesting grounds to get a chance to mate; the females are digging nesting holes, catching cicadas, dragging them back to their nests, and laying eggs on them).  The male wasps can't sting, because they lack the requisite equipment, and the female wasps won't sting because then they'll probably be killed and therefore be unable to make any more baby wasps.  If, however, you do something really stupid like try to catch a female or step on one, the females can give a very painful sting.  So it's best to just leave them alone.  In a couple weeks time, this year's life cycle will be finished and you won't see any cicada killers around again until next July.  There's no need to spray anything to kill them unless you absolutely have no choice - say a young child with an allergy to bee stings.  Just leave them alone and they'll leave you alone.

Over the course of the next year, if you don't want the cicada killers back again, you can plant a groundcover, or put down thick leaf or wood mulch, to cover the bare soil that attracts these large wasps.

Otherwise, relax and watch them.  They're an important part of the balance of nature - a predator preying on a plant-eating insect.  It's a real eye-opener to watch the poor females struggling to pull a paralyzed cicada 2 or 3 times bigger than themselves back to their nesting hole.  (Where ARE those guys when you need them?  Oh, flying around looking for another female to hit on!)

However, that wasn't the answer given to all the callers that had called in with this question over the last 2 days.  No, until our crew got in this afternoon, callers were told to spray wasp killer down the holes.  Period.  No further life cycle explanation.  No discussion of alternatives.  No understanding of their role in the ecosystem.  Just kill the things with insecticide.

Then there were the snake questions.  The answer given to those was to use a liquid repellant product to "keep the snakes out".  No explanation about the fact that the vast majority of snakes are nonpoisonous and provide great rodent control around the yard.  No reassurance that the snakes are more scared of you than you are of them.  No suggestion that if you leave them alone, you'll probably never see them again.  And, most importantly, no explanation that said liquid repellant probably won't work anyway.

The big excitement for the day was when a woman brought in a snake she had killed 2 days ago, put in a plastic bag, evidently left outside in the heat, and then brought in for "identification" to be sure it wasn't poisonous.  When the sack was opened up, it sure poisoned the air, but the snake itself had not been poisonous.  The snake was black with a cream belly;  I didn't see it, but my cohorts thought it was a watersnake.  Why had it been necessary to kill it?

(As an aside, I was working a plant sale in Mobile about 10 years ago when 2 young men came up to me to ask if I wanted them to kill the rattlesnake they'd just found.  I said no, thank you, but asked them to take me to see the snake.  If it was poisonous, I wanted to warn the other workers.  The young men excitedly agreed.  When they pointed out their vicious viper, it was a red-sided garter snake.)

Killing is a huge theme among the callers into HotLine.  Another call today was from a woman with holes in her rose leaves.  We asked if she'd seen what was causing the holes.  No, she never went outside, but she wanted something to spray on the roses to kill whatever it was.  Why did she care if her roses had holes in the leaves when she never went outside to look at them?

A couple weeks ago, we got a call asking if the ladybugs that were all over the caller's tree were eating it...and what should she spray to kill them?  Nothing should be sprayed, we reassured her.  The ladybugs weren't eating her tree, they were presumably eating the insects that were eating her tree.  Leave them alone;  it'll be fine.

(Which reminds me of a neighbor down in Mobile:  she found 2 - TWO - caterpillars on her 50' tall oak tree and proceeded to spray as high as she could with as potent an insecticide as she could find to "save" her tree.)

"I have weeds in my lawn.  What can I spray to kill them?"

"My grass isn't as full as I think it should be.  What should I spray to kill the grubs I obviously have?"

"X is wrong.  What Y (a.k.a. what toxic chemical) should I spray to fix it?"

Sometimes I feel like telling the caller to tear up every living plant they have and put in AstroTurf and plastic plants instead.  It's obvious that they just want plastic "perfection."

This insistence on visual perfection on the part of John Q. Public, no matter what the biological cost, tells me that we have a major problem in this country:  our science classes are failing to teach people the basic information they need to successfully and safely live in our world, especially if they are home owners or do any yard care.  Fifty or eighty years ago, schools could assume that children were learning about the natural world while playing outdoors and working with their parents in the garden.  That no longer happens. The only place people seem to get information on lawn and garden care these days is from TV pesticide and fertilizer commercials - "Other than a honey bee, which will sting you, the only good bug is a dead bug" and "Every yard around the world should look like England in the spring, all year 'round" and "Oh, but this product will kill every living animal it touches, yet it's perfectly safe for your children to play on!"

On average, our yards seem to have become biologically sterile, chemically toxic "picture frames" for our houses.   Why in the world would anyone want to save life on our planet if they are convinced that almost all life outside is scary and evil and just needs to be killed off with some magic chemical potion?

We have seen the enemy, and it is us.

Learn From My Mistakes: Crown Vetch

I probably ought to make this a series - heaven only knows that I've made plenty of mistakes over my time gardening.  Others might as well learn from my hard-headedness!

So, moving on to this particular example....  Last year I was cleaning out an area where a large Austrian pine had succumbed to pine wilt.  We had had the pine removed earlier last spring, leaving a large area that was bare of almost all vegetation and coated with pine needles.  This area was right next to the northeast corner of the house, so it seemed like a logical expansion for the front flower bed.

Of course, as is typical under a large evergreen, there were a few seedlings that had grown up from seeds dropped by birds, thoughtfully provided with a little bolus of fertilizer to help them establish.  We didn't want any large trees growing that close to the house, so removing the tree seedlings seemed straightforward.  However, as I started clearing out the stray clumps of grass and other plants that had managed to claim a spot, I found a small start of a beautiful, almost ferny, low growing plant that seemed to be acting as a groundcover.

Greg loves groundcovers and is constantly on the lookout for a particularly special one.  You know the type of plant he wants, the "perfect plant":  it will grow luxuriously enough that it outcompetes any weeds, never needs to be weeded, and forms a thick, lush cover, but it won't outgrow its space or choke out any wanted plants growing in or near it.  (Yeah, I know, an impossibility, oxymoronic in fact, but a gardener can dream, can't he?!)  I showed the plant to Greg and, indeed, he did like it, so I let it grow.

I hadn't identified the plant yet, but it had come in naturally and it was quite pretty - providing a ferny effect - but obviously very hardy and definitely providing good cover.  Neither of us were too concerned about leaving it for a while.  Eventually our mystery plant started blooming, and the blooms were attractive too.

In fact, the blooms allowed me to identify the plant as crown vetch (Coronilla varia).  I knew that this species was planted along highways and other roads for erosion control, and something was tickling my mind about it maybe being a problem in some way, but the Kansas Wildflower and Grasses page didn't raise any red flags for me.  The blooms only made it more attractive.  The plant seemed to be staying closely confined, so I let it be.  After all, the prairie environment is harsh enough that many "overly aggressive" plants elsewhere behave more reasonably for us.

Boy, was letting it alone a mistake.  By last fall, I'd decided that I really didn't want such a rapidly spreading groundcover in that spot, so I tried to dig it out.  Shortly after I thought I'd got it all out, I found new sprouts coming up all over the place.  By now, the plant was definitely spreading out widely and it was beginning to impinge on several small wildflowers I'd planted during the summer.  I dug out it all out again just before frost...and kept my fingers crossed over the winter.

I guess that finger-crossing isn't a particularly effective eradication technique. Wishing and hoping evidently don't work either.

I spent today doing my spring-time clean-up on that bed.  The crown vetch has now spread to an area about 6-8' in diameter.  Greg and I have decided it's time to pull out the Roundup, much as I dislike resorting to that option.  I trust that, by carefully using it, we'll be able to eradicate this infestation, but I sure wish I'd gotten rid of the crown vetch when I first realized it was developing as a "groundcover".  Live and learn.

My "live and let live" attitude towards unknown plants has served me well many times, but sometimes it reaches up and bites me.   This was one of those times.  I'd suggest getting rid of crown vetch immediately, if you ever find even a sprig of it in your garden.  A classic example of "Do as I say, not as I did!"

Monarch Waystations: Planning for Monarchs

Last night, at Dyck Arboretum in Hesston, KS,  I had the privilege of attending a talk given by Chip Taylor, of KU's Monarch Watch program.  Dr. Taylor is an insect ecologist and Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.  He began the Monarch Watch program in 1992.  Monarch Watch is an outreach educational and research program designed to use citizen scientists to learn about and aid monarch butterflies.

It turns out that almost all of the monarchs in the central and eastern portions of North America migrate each fall to one small area in central Mexico's mountains to overwinter.  (The actual site was only discovered by scientists in the mid 1970's.)  There the monarchs cluster on trees at higher elevations, where the temperatures are traditionally cool enough to let them almost hibernate, reducing their need to feed.  In essence, they doze away the winter, then return north in the spring to lay eggs and repopulate our summer meadows and gardens.   

At that important overwintering site, scientists are able to estimate the monarch population simply by measuring the acreage that their dense clusters cover.  Since Monarch Watch began, the highest wintering population was in 1996/1997.  That winter, the butterflies covered almost 21 hectares (over 51.5 acres).  This winter (2012/3) the area covered by wintering monarchs was the lowest yet seen:  1.19 hectares (a little less than 3 acres).

There are lots of reasons for this decline, but a major cause has been the decrease in milkweeds available as larval food for monarchs.  This decrease in milkweeds has occurred primarily because of increased use of herbicides - in crop fields, pastures and along roadsides. 

As gardeners, this is where we can make a difference.  Monarch Watch is encouraging all interested parties to develop Monarch Waystations - gardens specifically geared to provide habitat to help monarchs produce more caterpillars as well as to provide them with good nectar sources to fuel their southward migration in the fall.

What would a Monarch Waystation entail?  Area-appropriate milkweeds (there are over 70 species in the U.S.), fall blooms for nectar sources, and NO INSECTICIDES.  (Insecticide will kill the monarch caterpillars, as well as the adult butterfly.)  Spots for puddling and other niceties can be added, of course, but the primary focus is on larval food (milkweeds), fall nectar sources, and freedom from pesticides.

This seems like such a simple thing to do - so I'm going to do it, and encourage others to do the same.  As I learn more, I'll share my journey here on Gaia Garden...and I hope that others who are interested in helping monarchs maintain a stable population will do the same.

A Bit Beyond Official Bt Doctrine

If I had used Bt when I saw caterpillars, particularly on my asters, I wouldn't be having these beautiful little pearl crescent butterflies flocking to my butterfly milkweed recently.


In a recent post, I mentioned that Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) has a wider range of potential targets than usually expected.  I was gently "taken to task" over that statement and given the official party line.  Here is a link to one of the official lists of Bt targets, written by Whitney Cranshaw of Colorado State University Extension Service.  I think this paper is well written and represents the party line accurately.  (I'm sure Dr. Cranshaw will be overjoyed to hear that I approve!)  As far as it goes.

However.

I've researched and reviewed and thought further about what I want to say beyond this official doctrine.  Some of it is hard to explain without going into the opaque depths of biochemistry and entomological physiology that don't seem appropriate for this blog, but I'll attempt to summarize without coming off as too gaga.

First and foremost, compared to many (most?) broad spectrum insecticides, I want to say that Bt seems relatively benign.  If you HAVE to use something to control caterpillars, Bt seems like the least problematic choice. 

With that disclaimer in place, I'd like to share my concerns.

Basic summary:  There are different strains of Bt.  Different strains of Bt produce different mixes of toxins.  Toxins affect different insect species differently.  Different toxins affect different insect species.

Upshot:  In general, Bt toxins only affect insects that go through complete metamorphosis...and not all of those.  The concentration of each toxin matters, so the amount of Bt that an insect eats matters, as does the life stage it's in when it eats the toxin.  An insect eating the plant surface that has been sprayed with Bt will get much more toxin than the insect that simply burrows through the plant surface and eats the plant material below the surface.

Bacillus thuringiensis , kurstaki strain, is the strain used for caterpillar control.  Any caterpillar that eats enough of it will be damaged or killed by it (setting aside developing resistance in a few populations).  Therefore, sprayed non-judiciously on garden plants, Bt (kurstaki strain) will not only kill cabbage worms (cabbage white butterfly), tomato and tobacco hornworms (hawk moths), and all the other "pest" caterpillars listed in the publication above, it will also kill monarch caterpillars, fritillary caterpillars, checkerspot caterpillars, swallowtail caterpillars, and so forth when sprayed on the plants that they are eating.

If you want butterflies, you have to be very careful when and where you use Bt in your garden.  If you kill off all caterpillars, you are effectively killing off all butterflies and moths.

Next, Bacillus thuringiensis, Israelensis strain, is used to control mosquitoes, fungus gnats, and black flies.  All of these are in the insect suborder Nematocera or long-horned flies.  I have not done enough research to know if this strain (or a different Bt strain) affects other flies, but this suborder also contains midges, an important food source for many fish and other aquatic animals and they have been mentioned as being a casualty when this strain is used.  Care in using this strain would also seem to be indicated to avoid accidental wider, food chain consequences.

The next strains mentioned in the above publication, Bacillus thuringiensis, San Diego and tenebrionis strains, are used to control Colorado potato beetle, elm leaf beetle, and cottonwood leaf beetle.  Again, I have not done enough research to find studies looking at other beetles "controlled" by these Bt strains, but I think it would be safe to say that probably any beetle that ingested enough of the Bt toxin on its food, for example a leaf-eating beetle of another plant species such as aster or skullcap, would be affected.  Again, care needs to be taken to avoid accidental action against non-target animals.

The pretty little beetle below, shining flea beetle (Asphaera lustrans), feeds solely on skullcaps.  Bt used, purposely or otherwise, on skullcaps would kill it.  (I saw this small but colorful beetle only one summer, when I had 2 resinous skullcaps growing in my garden.  The leaf damage pictured in this photo is pretty much the extent of the damage I noted - the blooming didn't seem affected at all, and I had to be very close to notice the leaf damage.  Truthfully, I didn't notice the leaf damage until after I had noticed the beetle and taken its photo.)

The upshot is that CARE NEEDS TO BE TAKEN TO AVOID ACCIDENTAL INJURY TO NON-TARGET ANIMALS, even with Bt.

My last point is that some of the research I found discussed the fact that some of the Bt toxins can affect Hymenoptera (bees, wasps and ants) and nematodes.  It also discussed how some of the toxins that are lethal to one group of insects may be nonlethal, but still detrimental, to other "non-target" groups.  (That dose-dependent issue mentioned above.)  The articles I found with these concerns were published outside of the U.S. and I have no real way to judge their validity, but with Bt toxins affecting 3 of the 4 major insect orders that have complete metamorphosis, I have strong suspicions about their ability to affect other insects beyond just the "target" species.  I'd love to see strong research verifying that Bt doesn't affect these other insect orders, suborders and/or families, rather than just blithely assuming that no harm is being done because we're not testing for it.

Once again, in my opinion "innocent until presumed guilty" has absolutely no place in the world of toxic substances.