Asters – Homegrown Fall Beauty

 

Asters at Battersea Power Station (London, UK)

In America, gardeners flock to stores to plunk down their money for imported plants. This time of year, it is Chrysanthemums that flood the stores, carefully pruned to be full of lush flowers. “They must be so much better!” The native pollinators are not as excited.

Unfortunately most of the mums sold are the cushion mums whose double flowers provide little pollinator support (there are old-fashioned mums with centers of flowers that contain pollen and nectar for the bees, but they are rarely sold). None of the mums are native.

These two were labeled as New York aster

in a private garden in Bath (UK)

Instead we could be cultivating and using our native asters, a group of flowers which seem to get more appreciation in a place where it is the imported plant: Europe! I recently spent some time in England and was surprised to see a number of native asters being used in designed plantings and personal gardens. The mild October climate is similar to ours and these plants were bursting with blooms.

Closer view of Battersea aster (I think it is calico aster - S. lateriflorum)

Sidewalk gardens filled with asters at Battersea

I cannot say enough good things about our native asters, including how important they are to our native insects. My small white asters are buzzing with bees right now. If I’ve piqued your interest, here are some of my previous aster posts:

Asters, Asters, Asters

Aster Love

Those Tiny White Asters

What Happened to the Asters?

Wildscape (The Book)

 

This written-from-the-heart book about the wonders of backyard nature was written during the pandemic and published this year. The author’s experiences speak so much to those of us living in our gardens, places that became mini oases during those uncertain times and that continue today to amaze and uplift us as we watch nature work her magic. This is Nancy Lawson’s second book; her first is The Humane Gardener.

The book is divided into five sections, each one corresponding to the 5 senses. Her detailed accounts of areas that affect our senses bring new depth to our understandings of those with whom we share our spaces. Her personal stories and associated research show how the 5 senses of wild creatures help them to live, love, and thrive all around us.

The chapter on the Scentscape offers a number of fascinating accounts of how insects rely on scent for their food, mates, and even a new place to live. The most fascinating was about monarch leaf scratching, a behavior noticed by the author on dried boneset leaves one evening in her garden. The behavior was determined to be a deliberate extraction of pyrrolizidine alkaloids that they use to fortify their own defenses. Read more here about how she collaborated on a paper and a community science project known as Monarch Rx.  

The Soundscape chapter takes the reader through how sound is essential to wildlife, how it also affects plants, and the impact of the reduction in noise pollution during the early months of the pandemic. Most of us are aware of how noisy our neighborhoods have become with an increase in leafblowers and yard crews (my neighbor, for example, has a lawn service twice as often as I mow my lawn). This noise pollution doesn’t just affect us; birds and critters are impacted too, and sometimes they make behavioral changes that impact where they visit and drop seed, indirectly affecting where plants might thrive.

The Tastescape section reminds us how just how much our beloved plants depend on the services of wildlife to taste, enjoy, and spread the seeds of plants so that they continue to thrive and spread, including the efforts of the much-maligned ants and flies.

Solanum carolinense - prickly but beloved

Spines of all kinds affect the Touchscape – from spines that protect caterpillars to those that protect plants. I especially loved learning more about Carolina horse nettle (Solanum carolinense), a prickly native that humans love to hate. “More than thirty insect species feed on horse nettle, including specialists who rely completely on the plant or closely related species.” The author also points out that prickly plants like this help shield nearby seedlings of other – more desirable? – plants during their early growth.

For those of us who didn’t know, the author’s sister was part of the catalyst for a new law in Maryland; it was inspired by her legal battle with an HOA that tried to force her to conform to traditional landscaping. The Sightscape section covers that in some detail. Much of the section does cover how humans see the value in landscaping and how we’ve become “anesthetized to the losses” that affect the insects and birds. We need to “look again, from the eyes of a wren” to discover what is missing. The section also includes sightscape from wildlife’s point of view: how insects use sight to find nectar, how plants might favor red to encourage hummers and discourage nectar-robbing bees (who don’t see red very well), and how critters hide in plain sight to protect themselves. Nuggets of knowledge like these – sure to come up in a future talk of mine – are woven throughout this and every section.

A gray tree frog turns greenish among plants to better hide

Wildscape is a collection of everyday treasures to help us learn how to savor the special lives that live among us. It is also a collection of environmental issues large and small that help us better understand how we can help our non-human neighbors. Our journey starts in our very yards, both back and front. Let this inspiring book be one of the steps on your journey.

Landscape Spotlight: Garden Worthy Goldenrod

Who’s in the mood for goldenrod? How about almost every bee and migrating Monarch butterfly that you know! I love seeing it all over the side of the road (indeed it is almost the only native thing left) but the one on the side of the road (usually it is tall goldenrod, Solidago altissima) is probably not the right one for your garden because it spreads by roots.

I have posted before about garden worthy goldenrods, but I want to spotlight one that I have seen used to beautiful effect a number of times (including at my own mailbox). I'm including several photos from over the years.

This was a traffic circle in Big Canoe, GA.

This goldenrod is called wrinkleleaf goldenrod (Solidago rugosa) and it does have textured foliage. It naturally has a splayed inflorescence when it blooms at the top of the plant. It is harder to find the species than the very popular cultivar known as Solidago rugosa ‘Fireworks’ which is shorter, more compact, and more floriferous than the species. All these photos are of 'Fireworks.'

According to this link, the cultivar ‘Fireworks’ was a selection of the natural species that “was introduced in 1993 from the North Carolina Botanical Garden, originally having been selected from a coastal plain population of the species. It was the top-rated cultivar in the 5-year goldenrod trials at the Chicago Botanic Garden (completed in 2001) that included 22 species and cultivars. Hardy to zone 4, it doesn’t get mildew or rust, and the slowly expanding clump grows 3-4 feet tall.”

You can read about that Chicago trial here.

A note about cultivars: I don't recommend them for use in restoration areas. For large garden areas, it is ecologically beneficial to incorporate some straight species plants along with the cultivars to provide good genetic diversity.

October 2023 Moment in Nature

Box turtles probably prefer not to be seen and they've been achieving that goal in my yard this year. Last week, however, I walked out the front door to see a female traversing my small area of lawn. Hooray! I took some photos and sat on the front steps watching her for a while, enjoying the beautiful fall day and the pleasure of the moment. Later I walked down the path to the backyard to finish my original errand and found lots of rucked up dirt and mulch - evidence, I think, of her journey to the lawn.

Female box turtle

Box turtles can be long-lived (20-100 years) and generally stay in a fairly small range (one site says 250 yards!). So clearly this turtle shares this yard with us and may even have been here first (we've been here 20 years). In 2018, I found a mating pair in my neighbor's yard. You can distinguish the male by his red eyes.

After a little while, she headed off into the woods, gently crunching over the occasional fallen leaf. I put some cut up pieces of apple ahead of her in the woods; she found them and ate some of the pieces, and then buried herself halfway in the leaf litter. It was a wonderful and much appreciated #momentinnature. Be sure to find your moment!

It’s the Insects That Make It Interesting

 

People often tell me that my garden must be amazing and beautiful because I am so passionate about growing native plants. I do have flowers throughout the 3 growing seasons, but deer pressure can make them short-lived or stunted. And some of the plants that I love often grow exuberantly in their season, especially the white asters and annuals, and that makes the garden a bit wild in the fall season especially.

Newly emerged oakworm moth adult

So I guess pretty is in the eye of the beholder … and in the eyes of the many insects that visit my garden. While I love the flowers, it’s the insects that make it interesting. I love to go outside, my phone in my pocket, to see what insects or critters I can find, almost like a treasure hunt.

Gulf fritillary fueling up before laying eggs on passionvine

For the last month or more, I have enjoyed watching the annual jewelweed (Impatiens capensis) grow tall, swaying gently as a hummingbird makes her rounds to each of the flowers. No matter how early I go outside, the bumble bees are already visiting another annual: the partridge pea (Chamaecrista fasiculata). Their soft buzzing is the perfect morning song before humans start their engines.

Bee on partridge pea (Chamaecrista fasiculata)

Late summer is a great time to spot caterpillars, the larval form of butterflies and moths. Several weeks ago, I noticed that my false indigo bush (Amorpha fruticosa) had been stripped of leaves thanks to the larvae of the silver-spotted skipper (you can see photos of both in this earlier blog post). The last two caterpillars were resting on a nearby plant, perhaps hoping that leaves would grow back (and they have now).

The caterpillars ate the leaves but left the seeds; new growth starting

Other interesting finds are the many beetles, flies, wasps, and bees that come and go over the seasons, often demonstrating how specialized they are in what they want (and need). Insects like the elephant mosquito, the handsome trig bush cricket, and the many and varied caterpillars demonstrate that my garden is contributing to the ecosystem and that makes it beautiful to me.

Plants come and go, but the insects are living their best life.