The Sneaky Invasives: Porcelainberry

You’d think that invasive plants would be super noticeable, much like how kudzu smothers everything it encounters. It doesn’t always work that way, and the time between the plant arriving in your landscape and your realizing that it is not a good one can really give the plant a good head start.

Fruit and unlobed leaves of Ampelopsis brevipedunculata

Porcelainberry (Ampelopsis brevipedunculata) is one such plant and I am seeing it more and more in the metro Atlanta area. The vine is often mistaken for a type of grape vine – it is related to grapes. As very well-described in this post by the Virginia Native Plant Society, this plant has several different leaf shapes, making quick identification a bit challenging.

Lobed leaves, flowers forming

Lobed leaves and flowers blooming

The photos in this post are from an Atlanta location, a public garden that didn’t even realize what had moved in. It was actively choking out desirable native plants at this point. I have also seen large infestations in Cobb County. Of course the birds spread the seeds.

If you don’t want invasive plants to take over your landscape, pay close attention to what moves in so that you can eradicate it early. If you’ve got this one now, remove and bag the fruits before it spreads further. Native plants all around you will breathe a sigh of relief.

Year 3: Counting Pollinators

 

The Great Georgia Pollinator Census count is in the books for its third year. At my counting locations we managed to miss the predicted rain and therefore enjoyed good counting weather; I love clouds on a hot day! On Friday I counted at my house, using a single thistle flower, cutleaf coneflower, and – my favorite – Joe pye weed.

The thistle (Cirsium altissimum) had just opened its first flower and while its counts were low, just 3 skippers in 15 minutes, it was a flower much loved by these skippers. They stayed on that flower for hours, only briefly leaving when another insect jostled them.

The cutleaf coneflower (Rudbeckia laciniata) and Joe pye weed (Eutrochium fistulosum) are summer favorites and their counts absolutely reflected their popularity with insects (plus they also had more flowers per plant than the thistle). I like to count the Joe pye weed in the afternoon when the Eastern Tiger swallowtails are at their most abundant. The big inflorescences can hold 3-4 butterflies at once!

On Saturday I took my grandson to a friend’s house; her garden had tons of things in bloom, including a thistle with many more flowers that attracted several large American bumblebees as well as tiny sweat bees and Tiger swallowtails. The ironweed (Vernonia gigantea) was buzzing with smaller bees, including several nice metallic green sweat bees. The mountain mint (Pycnanthemum pycnanthemoides) was blooming nicely and just covered in bees and wasps.

American bumblebee

Metallic green sweat bee

I always enjoy this activity and the interest in pollinators that it generates in Georgia. In particular, many K-12 students participate in schools around the state. According to news published about the 2020 count: “In the end, 3,755 people representing 124 counties participated in the 2020 census, collecting close to 82,600 insect visit observations. Additionally, 525 new pollinator gardens have been created as part of the project.” Here is my previous post about the 2020 count. If you're in Georgia, do join us next year!

This guy graduated to a mini clipboard this year for the count

A Moment in Nature for August

Moments in nature are rarely planned and my #momentinnature for August was a chance encounter with a small bright green-blue bug that I mistook for a type of sweat bee. I must have seen this insect before because I always hoped to find such a bright small bee again. I rushed inside for my camera when I spotted this one on the back deck.

Cuckoo wasp checking extra-floral nectary on Chamaecrista

It turns out that this is not a bee but rather a type of cuckoo wasp - one that does not provision a nest but instead lays its eggs in the larval chamber of other wasps. Where did I find it? Around the bee box that was being used by other small wasps to create their larval chambers!

There are several genera of green-blue cuckoo wasps in the family Chrysididae, but this one appears to be in either the genus Chrysis or Caenochrysis. As I was reading about them in my Wasps book, I realized that species of these two genera have specific hosts in the genus Trypoxylon which is a type of wasp that specializes on spiders. It is always amazing to learn about these so-very-specific relationships! Last year I happened to watch wasps build their nests in this box and bring small spiders for them. 

Cuckoo wasp, photo enlarged

How very serendipitous to find this wasp exactly where it is supposed to be - truly a wonderful moment in nature. Keep looking, nature is out there!

Easing Into Using More Native Plants

 

Several weeks ago I talked about how non native plants in our gardens don’t do enough things for our insects (and, by extension, also not enough for birds and things that eat insects). Since they don’t contribute sufficiently to the insect life cycle, excessive use of them actually contributes to the decline of insect and bird populations. Extensive use of lawn (which is not native), large mulched areas (they have zero plant life), and non native trees, shrubs, and perennials offer much less food for insects and their young.

The camouflaged looper caterpillar says your yard is feeding the ecosystem

It might sound intimidating to change your landscape so this blog is going to offer some simple suggestions to transition into using more native plants. Select some of these ideas as you have time, effort, and money so that within a year or two you’ll have made good progress.

The front of my house in 2008, sod was laid in 2004

1.      Reduce your lawn: take a good look at how you use your lawn and identify areas to remove or shrink it. Yes, I said look at how you “use your lawn.” If you’re not using it to walk on (to reach other areas of the yard) or to play on then it really is just dead space, often in some of the sunniest places of your landscape (sunny places are perfect for flowers, why let the lawn have it?).

Shrinking the lawn can be as easy as widening the beds adjacent to the lawn, allowing you to plant “real plants” that pollinators can use. That’s been my approach.

2.      Replace a non native tree or a group of shrubs with native choices. Perhaps you have some older landscaping that you’ve wanted to update; swapping them out for native choices is a win for the ecosystem. Swap out something invasive like an ornamental pear (like ‘Bradford’) or privet (Ligustrum) shrubs and your impact is even greater. Swap out Nandina, which has toxic berries for cedar waxwings, and again your change is significant when you replace with native shrub like our viburnums. Plan now to do the work in Oct/Nov when it is the best time to plant trees and shrubs in Georgia.

3.      Add a pollinator garden and fill it with milkweed (Asclepias), Golden Alexander (Zizia) and other host plants, as well as flowers that bloom in spring, summer, and fall. Add some colorful yard art, rocks, and a birdbath to welcome the critters. This is a good replacement for lawn if you needed some inspiration for removing lawn.

4.      Remove an invasive groundcover like Vinca or English ivy and add a more diverse mix of perennials as replacement (a monoculture is the opposite of diversity) and you’ll get the benefit of fewer mosquitoes since they breed in thick, waxy vegetation like those groundcovers. If you have a lot, plan to do 10 feet a week or month until you’ve reached your goal.

Hopefully some of these ideas will help you move forward towards your goal of using more native plants in your landscape. Pick one or more and start your journey to helping make a difference in your area.

Front in 2016, sod corner replaced with a 3-season mix of perennials

A Moth for the Mulch Pile

I have really been enjoying my mulch pile and this blog is at least the third one to be inspired by the activity on/around it. In July I had written about the eyed click beetle on my new one and in June it was the Dekay’s brown snake that was using the old one. This week a flutter of evening moth activity had me searching my moth book to identify the species for dozens of tiny moths that appear around the pile in the afternoon.

Idia moth

Since I first noticed the moths several days ago, they consistently show up in the late afternoon, around 4 pm, fluttering away (but landing again on the pile) whenever I get too close. Each one is about the size of my thumbnail and quite triangular in shape. I identified them as a type of “litter moth” which feed on dead leaves and lichens. I think mine is the pale form of the American Idia moth (Idia americaulis).

Two of the moths, waiting for nightfall

Idia moth, different perspective

We just finished up National Moth Week so it’s great to discover a new moth (after all, there are over 11,000 species in North America) and to realize that there are so many things out there that we don’t find until the conditions are right. 

I might never have noticed a single one of these but having the mulch pile attract a dozen or more certainly caught my attention. I love finding new insects in the yard.

What’s Wrong with Non Native Plants?

 

I get this question a lot. Mostly people are asking the question in regards to using non native plants in their garden (non native plants naturalizing into wild spaces is a different question not covered here). When shopping for plants, the availability of non native plants vastly outpaces the selection of native plants so choosing native landscape plants requires more time and effort.

People like to point out that the plants they are buying/using have flowers that the bees and butterflies can use, birds can make nests in the plants just as well, and of course the plants tick off all the usual reasons for landscaping: they are green, they look good, they can be shaped/controlled for size, and they illustrate that someone lives there and cares for their yard.  So when I make recommendations for specifically seeking out and using native plants INSTEAD, the questions come back: “What’s wrong with using non native plants? What do they do wrong? They are not spreading anywhere.”

The answer centers not as much on the point of what is wrong with what they do; they obviously “do” a lot for the conventional landscape (again, they’re green, they’re pretty, and they are available in all the stores). The answer centers on what they don’t do.

Luna moth - born and raised on native trees

Plants that have evolved with the insects in their ecoregion – that is native plants – have become part of the ecosystem that needs its components to thrive. Two points in particular should be considered:

1.      Host plants: Certain insects such as butterflies and moths (Lepidoptera) are herbivores, requiring certain plants on which to feed. The Monarch butterfly and its relationship with milkweed (Asclepias sp. plants) provides a well-known example. If a female Monarch cannot find a milkweed relative, she cannot lay any eggs for the next generation. If we want butterflies (and moths), we must plan for them and choose the right plants. Plants from other parts of the world did not evolve with our insects (although, in a few small cases like parsley/dill/fennel they might be close enough relatives of our native plants for butterflies like the Eastern Black Swallowtail but that is the exception).

2.      Specialized pollinators: Much like some insect herbivores rely on certain plants to raise their young, some pollinators have evolved to be specialists. My favorite example is the Southeastern blueberry bee (and there are many other specialist bees).

Zebra swallowtail - depends on paw paw (Asimina)

Southeastern blueberry bee on blueberry (Vaccinium)

While not all insects are specialists, having adapting to use more than one type of plant for eggs or able to use several types of flowers, what is true is that native insects get the most out of native plants. The large and beautiful Luna moth lays her eggs on native trees like sweet gum, hickory, and walnut. Popular non native landscape trees like crape myrtle, ornamental cherries/pears, Japanese maples and shrubs like butterfly bush, loropetalum, privet/ligustrum and gardenia don’t support insect herbivores in any sustainable way (if at all).

Oakworm caterpillars - one of the few to eat in a group

Most caterpillars are solitary and hardly noticed

You might think that not having insects nibble on your plants is a good thing, but balance that with fewer butterflies and moths to enjoy or to support birds. The vast majority of caterpillars do not defoliate plants; if you have oak trees in your yard, chances are they are supporting caterpillars and you didn’t even notice because they prefer the top leaves.

Birds want your caterpillars! Photo: Romin Dawson

So to go back to the original question, the ecological answer to ‘what’s wrong with non native plants’ is that there isn’t enough right with them to support our insects. If you’d like to contribute to the place you live in a way that supports the ecosystem, include more native plants in your design. It’s not hard to do thanks to an increase in demand for native plants and an increase in the amount of education out there. In Georgia, here is a list of nurseries that carry large and small amounts of native plants

Small Nursery Feature – Stolen Flowers Nursery

I like to occasionally profile small nurseries that sell native plants. This week is a relatively new one, having been open just a few years in Armuchee in NW Georgia (near Rome). I recently had a chance to visit this nursery and was very impressed with the quality and diversity of plants.

I first met Terri Todd last spring when she approached the Georgia Native Plant Society about donating some extra plants, particularly purple coneflowers (Echinacea purpurea), to our sale. Unfortunately we canceled our sale for 2020 but she renewed the offer in 2021, so several of us drove there to pick up her donations. All of her plants are seed-grown and raised under the canopy of large open hoop houses on site. When I saw how beautiful and healthy the plants are, I knew I wanted to let other people know about this nursery.

The coneflowers she donated to GNPS

Terri has grown flowers for some time but initially focused on growing and selling cut flowers. She became interested in native plants after reading an article about the decline in Monarch butterfly populations. She said that she “was thrilled to find flowers with a purpose and function.” She now grows at least two species of milkweed (Asclepias sp.) to help those butterflies as well as a wide assortment of native wildflowers.

The name of the nursery was very interesting to me. She said the name was taken from an experience when she was a child. She would pass through a yard with a lot of flowers as she walked to visit her grandmother. She would pick some of the flowers to take to her grandmother. The owners of the yard, Miss Love and her sister, were not happy. “I don’t recall if I knew then that it was wrong to steal the flowers, but I found out for sure that it was very wrong when Miss Love called my mother to complain about me picking her flowers.”

Terri really enjoys growing flowers from seed, watching the plants grow and develop is part of the enjoyment. That tells me that she is in this for the love of plants, and we could see how much she cared about growing a diverse and healthy selection of mostly native perennials. She is planning to add some native small trees, shrubs, and vines in 2022. Perennials are available in 4.5 inch and 1G-sized pots.

I appreciate good signage!

Her nursery is open during the growing season: April-June and September through mid-November. The hours are Thursday-Sunday, 10 am to 4 pm. The best source of information is the nursery’s Facebook page. You can find the address and phone number there. I will give a tip on traveling there: when coming from Rome via US 27, if your navigation has you turn onto South Little Sand Mountain Road; make sure you stay on the road for about 4-5 miles until you get to the 4 way stop with North Little Sand Mountain and Little Sand Mountain Roads. The nursery is 1777 Little Sand Mountain Rd, Armuchee, GA in Chattooga County. Cell reception can be spotty in the area.

For other nursery profiles or to find specific topics on this blog, use the small search box in the upper left corner of the desktop version of the blog page.

Happy, hardy native flowers growing here