Learning My Garden Through Weeding

Anybody else out there enjoy weeding?

While I don't like to be outside for any length of time if the weather is abysmal - which is how I define most of the hot, humid summer down here in the panhandle of Florida - once the weather starts cooling off, I actually find that I like to weed.  It's meditative...and I learn A LOT about the nuts and bolts of daily life going on at ground level in my garden.

My latest weeding project is/was a large, new bed that I halfheartedly started last spring, before I got chased inside by heat and humidity.  The photo above shows about half of the area, which continues on to the right another 10 feet or so.  Taken fairly early in the weeding process, this shows the approximate height and thickness of the weeds I was removing. 

I chose to hand weed this new bed for two basic reasons, one of them related to poor planning.  First of all, I knew there were several small seedling plants located in the area that I wanted to save and, probably, relocate.  Secondly, when I started to make the bed last spring, I put in a few plants that I didn't want to lose.  There were 3 clumps of pink rain lilies (Zephyranthes grandiflora) and, more problematically, several wild strawberry plants (Fragaria virginiana) that had spent the summer putting out runners and baby plants.  If I smothered the area with newspaper and mulch, it would be relatively easy, but I'd lose ALL of the plants in the area, including the ones I wanted to keep.

So I sat down on my rear and I weeded.  The weeds were primarily a mix of an 18" tall, rather airy plant with wiry stems that I haven't identified, doveweed (Murdannia nudiflora), chamberbitters (Phyllanthus urinaria, a.k.a. gripeweed, for my Mobile friends), Asiatic hawksbeard (Youngia japonica), mock strawberry (Duchesnea  indica), Florida pusley (Richardia scabra), and Virginia buttonweed (Diodia virginiana).  For seasoning, there was a little bit of dollarweed (Hydrocotyle umbellata), the dainty Carolina ponysfoot (Dichondra carolinensis), and a variety of sedges (Carex spp.) thrown in.

The photo above is a single stem of Virginia buttonweed, surrounded by lots of doveweed.  Lovely, isn't it?  (Yes, that's sarcasm.)  At least it was mostly green.  Anyway, of all the weeds, only about half the species were native:  Virginia buttonweed, Florida pusley, dollarweed, Carolina ponysfoot, and probably most of the sedges.  I don't know about the unidentified, 18" "wiry" weed.  Most of the biomass was doveweed, the wiry unknown, and Virginia buttonweed.

Anyway, as I sat there on the ground, hour after hour, I not only got to know the plants quite well, but I also got to see some of the "denizens of the dirt", those little creatures who live their entire lives in our gardens but that we rarely see or notice.  A few of these little creatures sat still long enough for me to photograph, so I thought I'd share them with you....

First off, I am going to cheat just a little.  I saw one skink in this area as I was working, but I didn't get a photograph of that particular individual.  I did get a photo of another one of the same species a few days earlier, so I'll share the photo that I have.

This is a ground skink (Scincella lateralis) and it was probably about 5" long, which is about as large as ground skinks get.  Apparently they are the commonest skink in Florida gardens, but they are rather hard to see, as they move very rapidly through the undergrowth and leaf litter.  When I am working in an established bed, I often catch a glimpse of a little brown lizard skittering away.  I assume those are other ground skinks, exhibiting their getaway skills.

A toad was the only other vertebrate that I flushed out as I weeded, although certainly birds and other vertebrates must have foraged in the area from time to time.  This little guy...

...seemed to be missing his right rear leg.  An injury?  Some sort of genetic defect?  Hard to tell.  Surprisingly to me, there are only 4 species of toads in Florida.  I think this is a southern toad (Bufo terrestris), the most common species, but I am not completely certain.


Rather unexpectedly, there were two large caterpillars amidst this unprepossessing mass of vegetation.  The first one was an odd looking "woolly bear" type, with coal black hair and bright red segments that showed when it curled up in its defensive position.  I've seen lots of woolly bears before, but never one colored like this.

According to BugGuide, this is the caterpillar for the giant leopard moth (Hypercompe scribonia).  I've never seen an adult, but the BugGuide photos look stunning and I will certainly be looking for one now that I know it obviously occurs in our yard.

The second large caterpillar fell out of a handful of weeds that I had pulled, but by observing it for a couple minutes as it got back to eating, I believe it was munching determinedly on Virginia buttonwood.

Despite this guy's 3-4 inch long size and distinctive markings, he was a little hard to identify.  Nothing seemed to fit when I scanned the hornworm photos at BugGuide, so I eventually turned to Caterpillars of Eastern North America, by David L. Wagner, where I was able to figure out what I was seeing.  This is the caterpillar of the Tersa Sphinx (Xylophanes tersa), another striking moth species that I've never seen before.  The link is to the node at BugGuide, where you can see photos of both the caterpillars and the adults.

I photographed two other caterpillars, both much smaller.  One was a hairy individual that I haven't tried to identify yet....

while the other was an early instar of yet another sphinx moth, about an inch long, also currently unidentified.

There were lots of little, round snails, maybe 1/4" in diameter...

...and one large, conical snail whose shell was at least an inch in length.

While I saw many green stinkbug nymphs, I only saw this one adult stinkbug.

While I'm not completely sure, I think this is Euschistus crenator, a species that feeds on sedges.  Probably the green nymphs were of a different species.

There were several small, longhorned grasshoppers, ....

but no shorthorned grasshoppers of any size, which is a major change from gardening in Kansas.

There were also a lot of small spiders.  I only took the time to photograph this one, which was slightly larger than most.  I think it is a wolf spider, but I don't know the species yet.

Last, but hardly least, there were a lot of roaches running around.  I didn't try to photograph any of them, assuming they were wood roaches which help to decompose organic matter.  I saw this one, though, that was different and obviously an adult.  It was trying to get away through the grass and "posing", so I did take a couple minutes to get a few photos.  Imagine my dismay just now as I worked to identify it and realized it is probably a non-native, Surinam Cockroach (Pycnoscelus surinamensis) .  If so, according to BugGuide, it has the interesting characteristic of reproducing entirely by parthenogenesis in the U.S. - no males have ever been found.

As I worked and noted all of the small creatures living among the weeds I was pulling out, I found myself feeling guilty for destroying the habitat that was obviously providing food and shelter for such a large variety of little animals.  I'm trying to placate myself by remembering that I will be planting a variety of native perennials and shrubs in the area this fall, all tucked in with a nice layer of leaf and wood chip mulch...but the dismay is still there, simmering in the background.  Forgive me, little ones.  I really AM trying to create a healthy habitat for all in our yard and gardens.

Pollinators and Other Creatures in the Garden

For the first time in quite a while, I was able to slip outside and take a few photos in the yard and gardens yesterday.  I didn't get great shots and I haven't had time to identify the animals, mainly insects, that I found, but I thought you might enjoy seeing them anyway.

I thought I was off to a great start when I found this black-winged damselfly as soon as I stepped off the back patio.  He was resting on a leaf of blue-eyed grass.

While I was taking the damselfly's photo, I noticed movement on the ground, in the verbena, about 2' away.  Doing some minor poking around, I was able to get a quick shot of this good-sized wolf spider lurking in the vegetation.

Next I walked around to the mailbox area, with its gay skirt of blooming gaillardia and butterfly milkweed.  Over the last month, I've seen more pollinators in this little 6 square foot area than in the rest of the yard combined, I think.  This little bee was busily gathering pollen from the gaillardia.

After the bee flew off, at first I didn't see any other action, then I noticed a colorful wasp hanging around.  This photo is rather blurry, but I wanted to show the overall markings of this gal...

...before I shared my favorite shot, which shows how her big, compound eye curves around the base of the antenna on her face.

Isn't that an amazing detail?!



Last of all, I found several insects on the aquatic milkweed (Asclepias perennis), despite its diminutive size and somewhat anemic appearance so far in my garden.  Truthfully, I only really noticed ONE insect at first - this small, dark bee....

...but note the ants that were also on the flowers.  I didn't see them until I downloaded the photo and magnified it. There was also a tiny fly hanging around, but I didn't get a clear enough photo of that one to share.

So that, fellow gardeners, completes the portfolio of "Pollinators & Others" that I found during my 25 minute walkabout yesterday afternoon.  I was a little disappointed not to find more insect life, but it's early days/months/years in my gardens here, so I guess it's not too surprising that the diversity is minimal.  I'm hearing, too, that insect life is on a major decline throughout the country, so maybe my quiet yard is just indicative of a larger problem.

Time will tell.  Meanwhile, I'm doing what I can, where I can - and enjoying the rewards that I am given.  I'll just hope to see more on another day.

Continuing to Learn the Local Natives

When you watch a garden, day by day, it can seem like little changes in it, but if you go away for a week or two, when you come back, it's obvious how big the changes are.

The same phenomenon occurs when you walk a wild area regularly.  Greg and I went for a walk on Eglin AFB this morning, following the same trail that Anna and I took almost 2 weeks ago.  We had both dogs with us and only limited time available, so Greg and I didn't walk as far as Anna and I had, but we still got to see quite a few of the same plants, as well as a couple new bloomers.

Some plants are harder than others to identify, even when they are in full bloom. This little cutie caught my eye 2 weeks ago and it was even prettier today, but I still have no idea what it is.  It's about 6-8" tall, found in a sandhill/mixed pine and oak forest along a roughly maintained road.

The big, smooth stem in the foreground of this photo is probably a VERY healthy Smilax shoot;  it's about 1/2" in diameter, to give you a sense of scale.  Whatever it was, it hadn't leafed out yet. Here are some of the blooms from my mystery plant...

...and a closeup of one of the bloom spikes. 

If anyone can help me with the identification, I would be extremely grateful.  I doubt this plant is in the hort trade, as it is much too small to have any sort of visual impact in the landscape, but its daintiness and bright, cheery color appeal to me.

Not too far down the trail from my mysterious, little, pink charmer, we came across this healthy looking Gopherweed, Baptisia lanceolata.

Gopherweed is a horrible name for an attractive perennial, and I can find nothing about the genesis of or the rationale for the name to justify its use. Surely this pleasant plant, especially with its importance to native bees, deserves a pleasanter name!

Anyway, while the flowers aren't particularly showy, the foliage is pretty and the plant shape is nice. Like all Baptisias, Gopherweed is a nitrogen fixer for the soil, so it can be a good plant to have in the garden, especially here in sandy soil country.

Next on our wildflower discovery tour was a repeat specimen from my last visit, a pinewoods milkweed, Asclepias humistrata.  This individual was one of the only pinewoods milkweeds with fully open blooms 2 weeks ago - now it is developing a couple seed pods, but the blooms appear to be almost done.

It will be interesting to see if this plant reblooms, or if a single bloom is all that occurs, since seed will apparently develop.

Beyond the milkweed was a small, but extremely attractive, bloomer who was almost hidden behind a small, fallen branch and some other foliage.

I knew from the shape of the blooms and from the compound leaves that this plant was in the pea/bean family, but I had to come home and look it up to determine its identity.  Even after looking it up, I'm not sure what to call it.  The scientific name is Tephrosia virginica.  That's pretty straightforward.  However, there are multiple common names.  The USDA Plant Database calls it Virginia Tephrosia, so I assume that's its official common name.  It was, however, most commonly referred to as Goat's Rue.  Other common names are Devil's Shoestrings (apparently referring to its long, tough, stringy roots), Catgut, Rabbit Pea, Hoary Pea, Wild Sweetpea, and North American Turkey Pea.  That's EIGHT different common names.  Thank goodness for scientific nomenclature!

I found several other specimens of Goat's Rue further along the trail, including a couple that seemed to be small colonies, but this little individual, nestled by the reindeer moss, was my favorite.

Goat's Rue has a fairly wide range, including most of the eastern U.S., and it appears to have been a well known medicinal plant to Native Americans.  Multiple sources mentioned that its roots contain rotenone, a chemical that has been used as an organic insecticide and as a fish poison.  Probably not a plant to think about munching on.

Providing a sudden change from the spring-like colors of pink, white and yellow that I'd been seeing so far along the trail, the bright scarlet blooms of Red Basil (Calamintha coccinea) actually surprised me.

I thought this plant was primarily a fall bloomer...but apparently it will bloom at least sporadically throughout the growing season.  It's another plant I'm hoping to find a source for and then add to our yardscape - low-growing, gorgeous flowers, evergreen foliage.  The foliage is very fine textured and rather sparse, but I still think the plant is quite attractive, and in full bloom it is quite stunning.

With our truncated walk, we didn't see much wildlife:  tracks of deer, boar, and raccoon, a male towhee, and the lacy spider web....

...of a funnel spider.  The spider, as is normal for funnel spiders, kept herself hidden deep in her funnel, but the web was beautiful - a true, lacy, fairy's handkerchief. 

Maintenance in the Native Plant Garden

As I've given talks about utilizing native plants in our landscapes, I've become aware that many people are scared of "losing control" in their gardens by using native plants and by following organic gardening methods.  So I thought folks might be interested in a blow by blow account of how I maintain my native plant landscape.  I actually think that my garden chores are significantly less onerous than those of more traditional gardeners.

To start with (or, perhaps, to end with), I don't cut back my perennials in the fall or winter.  Many insects overwinter in or on dead plant stems, including some of our native bees;  other insect species overwinter in the leaf litter.  Predators are particularly likely to be among the insects overwintering this way.  The leaf litter also provides great foraging habitat for winter birds, as do the standing seedheads.  Watching the birds forage and seeing the patterns of the plant stems adds winter interest to the landscape.  When you add in the fact that standing vegetation holds snow (moisture) in place better than "clean" beds, you definitely have a winning winter combination for the garden.

Winter, then, is pretty basic.  Enjoy the scenery!

As the plants begin to green up in the early spring, it's time to do the first chore of the year:  cut back last summer's dead plant material.  I consider this the main "work" in the organic, native plant garden.  Otherwise, the garden takes very good care of itself.  The timing of the spring cutback is always a balancing act for me.  I prefer to wait long enough that there aren't many late freezes left, although that's not always possible on the prairie.  Since I have planted a variety of crocus, daffodil, tulip, hyacinth, and grape hyacinth bulbs, I've started using their early blooming as my signal.  Darn it - I planted them, so I want to see them!

This year my spring clean up has been particularly protracted, but that's okay.  This is gardening, not a precision dance routine or an accounting balance sheet.

So that I could see the petite daffodils which had begun to bloom in the front beds, I started the spring clean up on March 18th this year.  This photo was taken on the 20th, the day after we burned the front tallgrass (which you can see in the distance).  All I had done so far was cut back the asters at the very front left of the photo...and, if I remember correctly, a few perennials along the sides of the path itself.

Here is a slightly different view, taken at the same time.  Overall, this is what the front garden looked like for most of the winter.  When I looked out the front windows, it was a rare time that I didn't see birds poking around. When we had some snow, the patterns could be stunning.

By the 26th of March, about a week later, I had cut back about half of the stems in this bed, starting at the driveway.  Of course, a few more things were blooming, too, including the Callery (Bradford) pear.  It always amazes me to see how quickly plants green up in the spring!  Several more types of daffodils had opened, and the blue heirloom hyacinths by the driveway were putting on their annual show.  (You can always click on the photos to enlarge them and see more detail.)

Just 5 days later, on the 31st, you can even see how much the daylilies right by the foundation had sprouted up.  I hadn't done any more cleanup in the garden yet, though, because our kids were visiting for the last bit of March and the first week of April.

In fact, I didn't get more cleanup done until 2 days ago, when I noticed the Peach Blossom tulips in full bloom amidst the cacophony of last year's ironweed and Echinacea stems.  So I did a bit more work that day....

...quitting when I'd cleared everything to the south of the little brick access path...except for the aster stems under the redbud clump.  (See?  I told you this wasn't a remotely frantic process!) 

You can see the newly exposed Peach Blossom tulips a few feet in front of the wheelbarrow. The wheel barrow has the last load of stems for that day, which I take to the brush pile out back, while the yellow bucket holds deadheaded daffodil stems and other non-seedfilled detritus that can be put in the compost pile.   Right now there is a lot more for the brush pile than for the compost pile - but that ratio changes throughout the growing season.

This morning, I finished cutting off the last of the aster stems under the redbuds and took this photo of the bed between the house and the walkway....

...and this photo of the bed between the walkway and the buffalo grass, both looking south.  Although cutting back the stems took me bits and pieces of 3 weeks to accomplish, that was due to MY lack of stick-to-it-iveness, not due to this process taking any huge amount of time overall.  Now that my native flower beds are established, this is the primary job that I need to do in any of  these beds all year.  Period.  It's really pretty simple.

That said, the beds do look better if I follow up this tidying chore with some editing, which is best done at this time of year.  I'll discuss that in the next post.

Oh, by the way, I found 4 Carolina (praying) mantis egg cases and 2 black and yellow garden spider egg sacs among the plant stems as I cut them back.  If you look closely, you can see one of the mantid egg clusters at the base of this grass clump.

I saved the plant stalks with the egg cases on them and placed them strategically in the trimmed areas of the garden, so the young could hatch out and do their thing without further interference.  Last year was obviously a good year for predators in my garden!

Diversity!

Greg gave me a gift for Christmas last year - Access (the software program, which unfortunately doesn't automatically come with the home version of Office) so that I could begin to keep a coherent database of all the plants and animals that I've found on our 10 acres.

I have been slowly working on this project in the intervening months, and I'm far from done.  For the most part, I've been utilizing the photos I've taken over the years to remind me of what I've found and where I've found it.

For example, I saw this flower beetle (Batyle suturalis) on Black-Eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta) in the Back Five early in July this year; both species are now in my database.



The wonderful folks at BugGuide.net are probably quite sick of me, as I've been submitting quite a few photos for their help with identification - which has been wonderful and greatly appreciated.  I can usually get an unknown insect down to order and often to family, using my experience and (if necessary) Borror and DeLong's Introduction to the Study of Insects for its excellent keys .  Then I try, utilizing BugGuide's online guides, to get the insect down to genus and species, but without actual keys specifying what I'm looking for, it can be hard.  It's at this point that I will submit an image for help.


Other species are often easier.  For example, I've been birding for years, so I have a reasonable familiarity with bird species and I can trust my identifications and the species lists I've been keeping since we moved in.  (Besides, it is much easier to figure out which of 450+ possible species a bird is compared to figuring out which of thousands of possible species an insect is.)  Below, for example, is a red-winged blackbird watching a little blue heron, who hung out in our lagoon for several days in 2009.

There are a variety of books and online resources I go to for plant identifications:  Michael Haddock's book and website on Wildflowers and Grassses of Kansas.  Janet Bare's book, Wildflowers and Weeds of Kansas.  Stephen's book, Trees, Shrubs and Woody Vines in Kansas.  And many, many more.

I've recently purchased Bradley's book, Common Spiders of North America, to improve my ability to identify the spiders that I'm seeing.  BugGuide is also useful with spiders, and I have a few other guidebooks (although most are much less comprehensive than Bradley's).  Below is a male jumping spider (Phidippus clarus) which I photographed last summer hanging out on giant ragweed (Ambrosia trifida).

There are, obviously, many more references that I use to compile my species lists, but that isn't the point of this post.  Right now, according to my Access database, I have 201 plant species that I've found (or planted) on our 10 acres, 157 species of insects, 3 species of amphibians, 8 species of mammals, 1 species of snake, and 5 species of turtles.  (I have found quite a few more species of amphibians, mammals, snakes and turtles than that, but I haven't put them into my Access database yet.)  My yard list has 121 bird species so far.  That includes birds seen ON our property, as well as FROM our property (i.e. flying overhead during migration or seen from our property but physically on our neighbors' land).  I haven't started a list of spider species yet, but in looking in my photo organizer, I easily have at least a dozen different species.  Then there are the assorted invertebrates not covered by "insect" and "spider" catergories, species like prairie crayfish, roly-polies, and daddy longlegs.

Here is a boreal chorus frog (Pseudacris maculata) in the buffalo grass (Bouteloua dactyloides) of our front lawn last August.



So, in the 7 1/2 years we've lived here, I have documented (so far) 310 animal species and 201 plant species sharing our 10 acres with us.


Why am I posting about this right now?  Because in yesterday's Wichita Eagle, there was an article about Chisholm Creek Park in northeast Wichita.  The article was actually about algae in the lake there, but there was a brief aside saying that "[t]he park is home to 163 species of plants and 214 species of animals...."  Chisholm Creek Park is large - 282 acres, according to the website of the Great Plains Nature Center, which is located there.

I have documented about 25% more species of plant species and almost 50% more species of animals on our 10 acres than have been documented in the 282 acres of Chisholm Creek Park in the same county.

Does this mean that there really ARE that many more species on our little 10 acres than in Chisholm Creek Park?  No.  Absolutely not.  The species summary list on the Great Plains Nature Center site above does not give any number of species at all for invertebrates or grasses, for example, and their numbers for birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians are all greater than the number I've observed on our property.  Chisholm Creek Park also has fish species, while we have no year-round water habitat except our lagoon.

I've just been more meticulous about recording (and identifying) the variety of species I've found here, particularly the species of insects and other invertebrates, than the folks in charge of that park have had the time or the inclination to do.  Still, it was definitely a psychological boost to realize just how diverse a piece of property we actually have!

Do you keep any sort of species list of what you've identified on your property?   If so, what sorts of insights or discoveries has that process given you?

Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/news/local/article2095022.html#storylink=cpy

Serendipity...Or Lives That Want To Be Shared?

Okay, this is a warning.  I am going to sound a little "Woo-woo" in this post.  I can't help that because sometimes that's just how I am.

So, with the appropriate warning out of the way, I have to confess that sometimes it seems as if certain animals consent to show themselves to me so that I can photograph them.  How else to explain the chance to photograph the fly attacking the hornworm last week? 

Or the funnel spider that sat at the entrance to its hole and just looked at me one morning last summer?   That's very unusual behavior for a funnel spider.

How about last week, when the scissor grinder cicada (Tibicen pruinosus) flew to the stem of a sunflower, about 5 feet from where I was weeding in the vegetable garden, and started to loudly sing away, making sure I had the chance to put his song and his appearance together. 

He even sat there singing while I stood up and photographed him!

Then there was the hanging thief robber fly (Diogmites sp.) that landed right in front of me to munch away on her wasp victim, while she dangled nonchalently from a single foot hanging onto the dry tip of an aster leaf.

Look how gently she seems to be cradling her prey.

I shouldn't forget the beautiful (and BIG) garter snake that posed prettily on the back path earlier this summer, obviously replete from a satisfying meal of (probably) cotton rat or baby rabbit. 

I walk the paths with 2 large German shepherds and I make little or no attempt to be quiet or to keep the dogs on heel.  That snake HAD to know we were coming!

Don't get me wrong - I am definitely not complaining.  I absolutely love getting glimpses into the lives of the animals that share our "little bit of Earth" with us.  It's a privilege and an honor to share their stories with a wider audience, too.

I'll leave you with one last animal story I was privileged to witness recently and with the related thought that it sparked in me.

I saw this David and Goliath story in my front garden just last week.  How in the world did that little crab spider manage to catch - and especially hold onto - that huge swallowtail butterfly?  The butterfly was obviously old - it's tattered wings hint of multiple adventures survived.  Was the butterfly just too old to have the energy to get away this time?  Or did it, somehow, know that its time was done and "consent" to become a meal for the little spider, passing along its energy to help the wheel of life spin just a little bit further around?

Do animals "consent" to be eaten and to become part of the food chain?  I've read that the Native Americans always used to say thanks to the animals they hunted for giving their lives to them for sustenance.  Was that a willing choice on the part of the animals?  Or was that simply an acknowledgement, on the part of the Native Americans, that they were taking the lives of other animals to support their own?

Of course I have no answers to my questions and I know that I'm being fanciful, especially in imagining the animals' desire to have their stories shared on the internet, but thanks for reading this and letting me indulge in whimsy from time to time.  I hope you'll always share the chance encounters you have with wildlife in your gardens - and the stories behind those encounters, too!