Just Passing Through

Spring birds are migrating north this time of year. My red buckeyes (Aesculus pavia) are loaded with fat, red buds. They will be just what the hummingbirds are looking for as they travel through the area. The native coral honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens) is already blooming; the bright red blooms are another hummingbird favorite.

Kentucky warbler passing through

We don’t always see migratory birds, however. Many of them are not seed eaters and so do not stop by feeders. These birds feast on insects. Last year I saw a whole flock of cedar waxwings swoop through the old leaves clinging to a sugar maple. They were looking for insect larvae on the leaves and made quick work of the search. They were gone in 5 minutes and I was glad to have been there at just the right time to witness the event.

This year a Kentucky warbler stopped by my house (actually he probably ran into my large window). I was able to snap a few pictures while he recovered (which he did). What a beautiful bird. He is a timely reminder that we can support these birds as they fly up from their wintering areas (his winter home is in Mexico according to the literature).

Red buckeye; a hummingbird came by as I was taking
this picture yesterday.

Native plants support insects in ways that non-native plants do not. Butterflies and moths lay their eggs on host plants and their host plants are largely very specific plants. Very few can adapt to use non-native plants for their young (parsley is one such exception for insects that use plants in the Apiaceae family). 

Most of us have heard the story about how the Monarch butterfly only lays its eggs on milkweed plants (Asclepias sp.). It's a story that is repeated over and over for the many other butterflies have "specialist" appetites for native plants. North American insects have very little ability to adapt to non-native plants - certainly not in our lifetime.

Why does it matter? Fewer plants equals fewer insects which equals fewer birds. So take stock of your garden and see what native plants you have and think about adding more. More for birds that eat berries, come for nectar, or just stop by for the insects on the leaves.

 

Coral honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens) - yeah, it
really is native!

If you would like to get plants like red buckeye and coral honeysuckle, be sure to stop by the giant native plant sale hosted by the Georgia Native Plant Society this coming Saturday, April 20, 2013. We’ll have both of those plants and many more good ones that support the insects which warblers are seeking.

Try Something New

Using native plants in the home garden is a wonderful way to add a “sense of place” to your landscape, especially when you are using regional natives. People that want to use more native plants can be frustrated with locating them, but I think that local native plants sales are on the rise in many areas. Nature centers, plant societies and botanical gardens are sponsoring more plant sales than they were just a few years ago.

Even big box stores and some of the better nurseries are carrying more native plants, although they are not always well labeled as a US native plant (so do your own research). Perennials like coneflower (Echinacea), black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia), beard tongue (Penstemon), coreopsis (Coreopsis), phlox (Phlox), alumroot (Heuchera) and foamflower (Tiarella) are tried and true nursery staples when it comes to native perennials.

So many wonderful plants have yet to be explored for the nursery trade; luckily a few of them do find their way into small native plant sales. Native ferns, shrubs that produce fruit for birds, unusual trees and tiny spring ephemerals like Trillium and bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) can be found there.

Still many other native plants wait to be appreciated. Here are a few of my favorites that I hope will get more attention in the future.

Perennials:

Stenanthium gramineum

Featherbells (Stenanthium gramineum) is a member of the lily family that has the look of a grass or a Carex. The foliage is just coming up now at my house. In late summer, when you are wishing something would bloom, a tall spike of white flowers shoots up.

I grow it in full sun with no extra watering and it's been very happy.

Amianthium muscitoxicum

Fly poison (Amianthium muscitoxicum) is also in the lily family but it appreciates more shade, a bit moister conditions and blooms in late spring. The foliage is thick and wide and looks similar to daylily leaves. One of the best advantages of this plant (in addition to looking good) is that deer don’t eat it.

I've been surprised at how well it does in dry shade despite it's natural preference for moist conditions. The more deer leave it alone, the more I plant it!

 



Groundcovers:

Antennaria plantaginifolia

Pussytoes (Antennaria plantaginifolia) is a soft grey-green colored groundcover that stays evergreen in north Georgia (although often dead tree leaves cover it up). The bloom appears in late spring and has a resemblance to a cat’s paw. It thrives in poor soil – I see it growing on a scruffy dirt embankment on my regular walk – and grows lushly in better soil. It is a host plant for the American painted lady butterfly and one year I had caterpillars on it.

Chrysogonum virginianum

 Green and Gold (Chrysogonum virginianum) is actually somewhat available, but it is so under-appreciated for what it can do for you! This plant grows in sun and part shade, increases to a thick patch when happy and blooms like crazy in late spring. It’s also evergreen and sometimes the leaves are tinged a bit red around the edges in winter (I’m calling that a bonus).

Shrubs and Trees:

Mapleleaf viburnum (Viburnum acerifolium) doesn't get nearly as much attention as some of the other native viburnums and I never see it for sale except at the native plant society's annual sale. This viburnum is happy to bloom and fruit in partial shade, even dry shade. The spectacular fall color is not to be ignored.

Aralia spinosa

Devil’s walking stick (Aralia spinosa) is such a wonderful specimen shrub/tree. It has a bad rap for sending out suckers but I think that can be managed by putting it where it can be allowed to do so or digging up extras for friends. I’ve had mine for 4 years and no suckers so far. But what a wonderful late summer feast for insects (flowers) and birds (fruit) alike - it truly is a wildlife plant. Plus you can tell your visitors that it has the largest leaf of any native plant. It is a bipinnately compound leaf. Many people mistake the leaflets for leaves; the whole leaf can be 3-5 feet long! In the winter, it stands straight and bare as a stick, a walking stick … with dozens of sharp prickles.

This picture was taken this week - the single terminal bud is opening up to reveal the new growth. It's a fast grower: every year it has exactly doubled its height.

Sassafras albidum

Sassafras (Sassafras albidum) is a gorgeous tree come fall, with oranges and reds you won’t find on many plants. During the year, however, the usually slender tree barely gets a notice in the forest understory in which it lives. The modest flowers usually come and go without much attention and then only the female trees bear fruit. The fruit doesn't last long as it is a favorite with birds. Its foliage is one of the host plants for the spicebush swallowtail butterfly, the tiger swallowtail butterfly, and the spicebush silk moth. Sassafras is the 2013 Plant of the Year as voted by the members of the Georgia Native Plant Society.

Want to know more about the unique native plants of your area? Be sure to visit your local State Parks or local National Parks and explore some of the natural trails. Take pictures of what you find and then come home to identify them. Those plants might be a good fit for your garden - something "new" for you and yet something right at home. And if you need a place to find any of these, be sure to come by the annual native plant sale on Saturday, April 20, 2013.

Clean, Clear and Destroy

“I need to clean up my woods.”

“I need to clear out some brush.”

“I need to destroy some nature.”

These three sentences mean the same to me. Unfortunately, the people that say the first two usually don’t realize they mean the third one. I watched this week as some folks in my neighborhood paid a guy to clean up and clear out the edges (I hope it was just the edges) of their woods. He whacked a number of young native trees, including a female persimmon (Diospyros virginiana) tree that had borne fruit the last two years. Yet he left standing a non-native mahonia shrub (Mahonia bealei), probably because, with its green leaves, it “looked” more like a desirable plant than that bare deciduous persimmon.

Tiny white persimmon flowers (Diospyros virginiana)

People that set out to “clean up and clear out” usually don’t know much about the plants that they are about to tackle. And certainly the day laborer or two that they hire to do it doesn’t know much about the plants that stand in the way of a tidy woodland. Unfortunately sometimes special plants get axed in the process. Down the road from my neighborhood, a developer marked with orange tape some saplings along the roadside. The next day, a crew came in and removed them all. A casualty of the effort was a tree-sized Viburnum prunifolium that was probably 20+ years old. It was the only one in the group; I had seen it bloom last year and gathered seeds from it in the fall. A more knowledgeable person could have advised him to leave that one; other bigger trees remained in the area. Just the small things were cut down.

The Viburnum prunifolium last spring, now cut down

I don’t mean to imply that areas should never be opened up or that there isn’t good reason to thin out plants that exist in abundance in order to bring order, light or diversity to an area. Red maple (Acer rubrum) lives in my yard with great exuberance.  If I didn’t control most of the seedlings, I would soon have very little else.

Here is what I would like to suggest to people that want to manage “wild” plants in their yards:

Learn – identify your plants. Learn what plants are native, what plants aren’t native, what their names are and what their growth habits are. The internet today provides wonderful resources for identifying plants. You can upload pictures on “name that plant” forums, search for information on plants you’ve identified, and get opinions from complete strangers on whether the plant is good or bad!

Evaluate – once you identify what you have you can determine what’s bad, what plants are over populated (like my red maples), which plants are scarce (like that viburnum), and what’s going to be trouble for your rambling youngster (is that poison ivy?).

Act – once you’ve decided you want to remove some things, tag things so that the wrong plants aren’t removed (you can buy a roll of flagging tape at home improvement stores), use spray paint (or hoses or even ordinary flour) to outline areas to be worked. Make labels for your plants so that you remember what they are (you can use that same flagging tape as temporary labels by writing on it with a sharpie, but make sure you don’t tag and flag at the same time lest your “good” plants get removed!).

If you still need help – ask! Find your native plant society or local garden club. Often more experienced members are kind enough to help out. But don’t take action without research. I wince every time I walk by the house whose woods were thoroughly “cleared” of the uncommon native groundcover known as ground cedar (Lycopodium digitatum). It’s been 3 years – I don’t think it’s coming back.