A Tree We Can All Celebrate

 

Georgia celebrates Arbor Day on the third Friday in February, but if you missed it, you can still celebrate our native trees and plant new ones into March. Our spring rains and generally cooler weather help trees get established before it’s too hot. I’d like to celebrate a tree that is widespread in Georgia, adaptable to soil conditions, beneficial to wildlife, and beautiful to humans: the red maple (Acer rubrum).

I drove down to Florida recently and was delighted to see the abundance of red maple along the highways and county roads. Many were flowering but some were already making seeds. Both the flowers and the seeds are very beneficial to early pollinators, birds, and small mammals. As a host plant for moths and butterflies, it is 8^th on this list (click here to see them all) and supports at least 285 species.

Red maple's natural range in Georgia

In my own yard, it is flowering now and I spied a small azure butterfly flitting from flower to flower (but too fast to capture a photo!). I’ve written about this tree before from several aspects. Check out these posts and learn more:

Red Maple Takes a Chance – a post about early flowering

Parking Lot Maples – a post about the use of red maple in parking lots (they can take those harsh conditions)

A Fall Profile: Maples – this post talks about the gorgeous fall color of our native maples

February 2024 Moment in Nature

I always appreciate birds in the winter and feel good about putting seed out for them (note: I'm not as generous in the summer). While there are plenty of the same species of birds, it's exciting to spot new ones. Therefore, I was thrilled to see what appears to be a pair of purple finches visiting the feeder, and the discovery was special enough to be my #momentinnature for this month.

This weekend is the Great Backyard Bird Count, which is a fun community science project to do. If you haven't been counting, you have today and tomorrow to do so. If you've got kids or grandkids with you then get them involved; you might just spark a lifelong interest in birds and nature.

Landscape Spotlight: American Holly

Evergreen plants have great appeal in landscaping. They are heavily favored for screening, especially around the front of homes where they used to serve a useful purpose to cover the bare foundations of houses. This article from 1980 downplayed the need for foundation plants over 40 years ago yet still the practice continues. The article provides some useful context for the practice.

In the late 1800’s: large homes were built: custom-built houses with high foundations were in fashion about the same time houses were placed further back from the street and set in an open lawn. In those years, a foundation planting was deemed necessary to hide the foundation and otherwise soften the break between the house and lawn.  

Early front porches, popular for watching passersby and socializing, also reinforced the need for foundation plantings to hide the supporting posts for the porch: “The plants which once were used to hide the open porch railings and lattice work between the supporting posts of houses of that architectural style still exist. This type of ‘left-over’ foundation planting across the front of most residential houses today serves no real purpose.”

Today we find that buildings have beautiful fronts and there is no need to hide support structures. Yet the concept of evergreen trees and shrubs to beautify the area in front of a building persists and so in this post I want to highlight a pleasing arrangement of American holly (Ilex opaca) that I found in a relatively recent group of landscaping.

American holly with Virginia sweetspire (Itea virginica)

This group of 5 American hollies is in front of Milton City Hall, and in the dead of winter they provide a pleasing display of green foliage with red fruit highlights. On the side of the building, there is a grouping of what appear to be Foster hollies (Ilex x attenuata ‘Fosteri’) – a hybrid between two native species: Ilex opaca and Ilex cassine.

The suite of native evergreen trees in the Piedmont area is not as robust as most would like and exotic plants are often used instead. If we can increase the demand for good native choices, perhaps growers will produce more. Ask for native plants when you shop, ask for them to be ordered if necessary, and be willing to wait for the next shipment to come in. They’re worth it.

American holly in front of Milton City Hall

Fickle February

 

Snow in 2016

I find that February is the least predictable month in metro Atlanta. We could have snow as we did in 2020, 2016, and 2014; it might be rainy; or it could be quite nice – as I write this on Feb 2, the groundhog in Georgia has predicted an early spring and the temperature is a pleasant 66 degrees. I walked around outside, looking for signs of spring but there were few in my yard (only one trout lily leaf). Mostly I just saw what the deer have wrought over the last month or so: Christmas ferns munched to nubs, several saplings with broken branches and deer rub, and telltale piles of scat.

My friends (even in metro Atlanta) are reporting early trillium foliage so I’m sure mine will be up soon. If you’re looking for ideas to add early native spring perennials to your landscape, I have some suggestions here.

If you’d like to venture out to see early native perennials, consider a trip to The Pocket in NW Georgia (where plants can be surprisingly early) or to the spectacular Wolf Creek in SW Georgia (according to their page on Facebook, they will open on Feb 8^th this year).

Bring your raincoat, your snowshoes, and some sunscreen. The weather could be anything!