Attract Butterflies and Moths to Your Garden

Attract Butterflies and Moths to Your Garden

by | May 16, 2017 | Ecological Gardens, Plants, Sustainable Gardening, Wildlife Habitat

The idea of supporting more wildlife in your yard can be expressed in many ways. It might be that you want to provide food for birds, attract butterflies, create safe small mammal pathways, or improve pollinator resources. Animals and insects need a variety of plants, both bare and planted areas, plant litter, and deadwood for safety, food, and different stages of growth. When it comes to ecological health and diversity, a spotless yard is not a healthy yard.

Some of the strategies you can use to meet these goals are rather broad and simple:

  1. Stop using pesticides: insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides, etc.
  2. Choose a variety of flowering plants and stagger bloom times throughout the year.
  3. Chose plants of different heights to create layers in the garden.
  4. Designate areas in your yard that you don’t mow.
  5. Make your lawn smaller or eliminate it completely.
  6. Don’t remove all your fallen leaves and yard waste – mulch with them or allow a few piles to remain in out of the way spots, such as under shrubs or corners of the garden. Butterflies and moths often overwinter in curled up fallen leaves. Insects often pupate or overwinter in hollow plant stalks.
  7. Leave some patches of earth bare of leaves and mulch for ground-nesting bees.
  8. Ensure that there is clean water nearby (without pesticide and fertilizer runoff).

If you are interested in choosing plants that will support more wildlife in your yard, please look over this list of Plants to Attract Butterflies and Moths by Doug Tallamy, entomologist, professor, and author. When you make habitat for butterflies and moths, you are also creating habitat for other beneficial insects and wildlife.

Great Plants: Trillium grandiflorum

Great Plants: Trillium grandiflorum

by | Apr 29, 2017 | Plants

I like a lot of Trillium species and there are a lot of Trilliums to like, but the big, bright white flowers of Trillium grandfilorum is one of my favorite plants. The leaves and blossoms unfurl in a spiral from sheaths as they emerge. The white blossoms brighten the shady areas where they like to grow and the flowers remain for a long time, slowly turning to pink as they age. Trillium provide pollinators, like bumblebees, an early source of nectar and the bees return the favor by pollinating the plant. The seeds have a sticky substance that attracts ants, and the ants carry the seeds back to their colonies, thereby establishing new nearby colonies of Trillium. Browsing deer can disperse the seeds over greater distances.

Trillium generally grow in moist, shady woodland soils, but many species’ tolerance will allow then to grow well in urban conditions. It is important to establish them in loose soil and amend it with a top dressing of leaf mold/mulch that will insulate the soil from too much heat and retain moisture. In the heat of summer, they will usually go dormant, which helps ensure their survival for future years. Trillium species that I have seen adapt well in the city are Trillium grandiflorum and Trillium cuneatum. There are probably others that will tolerate urban conditions, they just haven’t been tested or reported yet.

Native Plants Currently Blooming at Garden in the Woods – Framingham, MA

Native Plants Currently Blooming at Garden in the Woods – Framingham, MA

by | Apr 29, 2017 | Ecological Gardens

Sangunaria canadensis (bloodroot)

Cornus florida (flowering dogwood)

Epigaea repens (trailing arbutus)

Allium tricoccum (wild leeks or ramps)

Symplocarpus foetidus (skunk cabbage)

Trillium erectum forma alba (red wake robin, color form)

Polystichum aristichoides (Christmas fern)

Mertensia virginica (Virginia bluebells)

Trillium simile (jeweled wakerobin)

Uvularia grandiflora (large-flower bellwort)

Snanguinaria canadensis Multiplex (double bloodroot) in Dicentra cucll

Veratrum viride (false hellebore)

Thalictrum thalictroides forma rosea (double pink rue anemone/wood anemone/windflower)

Fagus grandifolia (American beech) bud

Matteuccia struthiopteris (ostrich fern)

Sambucus canadensis (black elderberry)

Cymophyllus fraserianus (Fraser’s sedge)

Hepatica acutiloba (sharp-lobed hepatica)

Trillium cuneatum (wood lily or sweet Betsy)

Clean Water Is Healthy Water

Clean Water Is Healthy Water

by | Mar 27, 2017 | Ecological Gardens, Landscape Design Ideas, Sustainable Gardening

Stormwater management is an important element that separates sustainable and ecological landscape design from conventional, unmanaged landscaping. Stormwater runoff is often contaminated with various substances like fertilizers, pesticides, road salt, oil from cars, trash, sediment, grass clippings, pet waste, and farm waste. These pollutants make their way from yards, driveways, and parking lots into water as rain falls and runs through the landscape, but then it keeps going and eventually makes its way into rivers, lakes, ponds, vernal pools, and oceans.

This pollution affects our quality of life. Many rivers and lakes aren’t clean enough to swim in and fish caught from them can’t be safely eaten. Even many of the the ponds and lakes that offer swimming need to be closed frequently due to dangerous algae blooms that result from the water having too many nutrients, an process called eutrophification. Fertilizers from lawns and gardens get washed into the water and create the perfect  growing conditions for bacteria and algae overgrowth. Pollutants also find ways into wells and public water supplies, increasing the cost of maintaining safe drinking water. Research published in the American Journal of Public Health found that “the estimated annual cost of waterborne illness is comparable to the long-term capital investment needed for improved drinking water treatment and stormwater management.” Properly managing stormwater pollution can directly impact public health and decrease costs associated with treating waterborne illnesses.

Below is one of the first simple, usable criteria I have seen for determining a site’s level of risk for adequate stormwater management (from Penn State; adapted from the Univ. of Nebraska). Tools like this should be adopted to improve awareness about the quality and quantity of stormwater runoff in our communities. By identifying high risk conditions and implementing some simple strategies (think downspout redirection into gardens, choosing deep-rooted plants, decreasing lawn area, and building raingardens), we can decrease the amount of contaminated water running off a site. Whatever water does leave the site could be much cleaner, and clean water is healthy water for us all.

Water Management/Runoff Scorecard:

Espaliered Native Plants: The Formal Garden

by | Mar 7, 2017 | Landscape Design Ideas, Miscellaneous, Plants, Seasonal Interest

Native plants have traditionally been overlooked in formal design. People often equate native plants with being messy or at the very least, wild, yet there are many native plants that are perfectly suitable for formal landscape design. As an example, is this Aronia arbutifolia (red chokeberry) which I’ve espaliered on this client’s fence. The technique of espalier is used to train a tree or shrub flat against a wall or fence. It is generally used for fruit production and the intense pruning required of espaliered fruit trees allows for bountiful production in a very small space. Espalier is also often used to train vines, like ivies, into intricate or geometric shapes, purely for the visual effect.

Two-year old red chokeberry being trained as espalier.

The photo to the left shows a young Aronia arbutifloia after it was attached to guide wires. This client needed a small plant species that could easily be maintained at 6-8 feet tall and could tolerate extreme shade and dry conditions under mature oak trees. Both Aronia arbutifolia and A. melanocarpa have supple stems that make the process of espalier even easier, since there will be less pruning required to maintain the desired vase shape in this installation. These native varieties also offer great three-season interest with early white blossoms, glossy green leaves, red berries, and rich red-orange autumn colors.

Suggestions for other native trees and shrubs that could be espaliered include:  Aesculus parviflora (bottlebrush buckeye), Amelanchier (serviceberry) species, Cephalnathus occidentalis (buttonbush), Cercis canadensis (redbud), Chionanthus virginicus (fringe tree), Clethra alnifolia (sweet pepperbush), Hamamelis virginiana (witch hazel), Ilex glabra (inkberry), Ilex verticillata (winterberry), Myrica pensylvanica (bayberry), Prunus maritime (beach plum), and Viburnum lentago (nannyberry). Native vines such as Clematis virginiana (woodbine), Parthenocissus quinquefolia (Virginia creeper), and Wisteria frutescens (American wisteria) are also possible candidates for espalier training.

Below are examples of traditional espalier:

Espalier Shapes

Espaliered Apple Tree, Portland, OR

UBC Botanincal Garden Vancouver, BC

Chicago Botanic Garden