August 2024 Moment in Nature

I am accustomed to seeing very little "real" nature in parking lots. If there are plants at all in the tiny islands between cars, they are usually non-native plants that have been pruned and sprayed into things that offer so little life to native critters that they might as well be plastic.

Partridge pea is a native annual

On a trip to the grocery store this week I was totally surprised and delighted to spy this small partridge pea (Chamaecrista fasciculata), a native annual plant that is very useful to native bumble bees and is also a host plant to Cloudless sulphur butterflies. It was a joyful #momentinnature in an otherwise mundane outing.

As I leaned over to take this photo, cars coming and going, I said a silent wish for some hungry bee to stumble upon it, its buzz pollination helping this single plant to make a few seeds to carry on in 2025. 

Reconnect with Local Nature

We don’t have to go far to reconnect with nature: no expensive trip to a national park or road trip to another part of the state; no corralling the kids with juice boxes and snacks to get in the car; and no pricey admission fee. Just get out and walk around your neighborhood.

Tortoise Beetle in my yard in 2014

I have found so many cool things in my yard and within walking distance and it gives me a quick uplift to refresh my sense of natural things. More and more data is coming out that time in nature is good for your health - both your physical and mental health. An article came out recently (and this is a gift link to it) that specifically talks about the impact on developing youngsters: “Time outdoors — even a walk around the neighborhood — helps children’s cognition, stress levels and general growth.”

“The average American today spends nearly 90 percent of their time indoors, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Yet research indicates that children benefit greatly from time spent in nature; that not only does it improve their cognition, mood, self-esteem and social skills, but it can also make them physically healthier and less anxious.”

This is not a new concept; Richard Louv has written about it before in his book “Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder.” I have reviewed his other book in the past, “Vitamin N: The Essential Guide to a Nature-Rich Life.” Between screen time and outsourcing the yard work to a lawn service, at-home outdoor time consists of going to the mailbox and filling the birdfeeder. We need to do more!

A new frog to explore

Pileated woodpecker near my driveway

So apply a little sunscreen, add a spritz of bug spray and get out there to see what’s happening. Snap photos of unknown critters and then research them together to see what you found. Tools like iNaturalist and helpful online resources/identification groups can help you figure it out.

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail are common visitors

Clean Up and Get Ready to Count

I enjoy participating in the citizen science project known as The Great Southeast Pollinator Census. Originally started in Georgia in 2019, it now includes South Carolina, North Carolina, and Florida. Timed so that school kids can also participate, the census aims to increase awareness of our pollinators by asking people to spend at least 15 minutes counting them. By increasing awareness, we increase the chance that people will take steps to protect them. In addition to providing resources for the count itself (including a printable form), the census website includes resources about creating a pollinator garden and even recommends using native plants.

Silver-spotted skipper

Early instar Jorō in front of same flowers

In preparation for the count, I now have a new step: remove Jorō spider webs from around my pollinator garden areas. I first wrote about these in 2020 to bring awareness to their spread. I wrote about them again in 2021 (link here) where I encouraged people to remove them to protect our pollinators. The folks at UGA originally suggested that residents didn’t have to do anything about them. In recognition of their impact on pollinators, however, they finally updated their guidance in 2023 to recommend that webs be removed in two areas: “The two places where no one should allow the webs to remain are around pollinator or flower gardens and bee hives.”

Later instar Jorō has larger web with gold threads

Start getting ready now by looking for webs (the UGA article has really good photos of the different growth instars to help you recognize them) and using long sticks and brooms to clear the webs and destroy the spiders so that our pollinators have the best chance of doing what they need to do.  

So, sharpen your pencils, read up on the guidelines, and get counting! The count period will be August 23 and 24, 2024. If you need a place to count, many local community gardens are offering guided counts and beautiful flowers on which to count. If you see something unusual, snap a quick photo and get help figuring it out after the count. You can read my earlier blogs about my participation in the counts all the way back to the beginning.

What Do July Rains Bring?

 

It has been dreadfully hot already this year and we’ve had some significant dry spells. It’s been hard on blooming plants and some of my established fern colonies were shedding fronds. I was out of town for about 9 days at the end of July and it sounds like we got a lot of rain (and indeed, one of my empty buckets had at least 8 inches of water in it!). This report by WSB confirms that some areas of Atlanta have gotten almost 13 inches of rain in one month. I’m sure some areas got more.

Woodland spiderlily

Before I went out of town, I had given up hope that my spiderlilies (Hymenocallis occidentalis var. occidentalis) would be blooming this year. This species doesn’t need to live in water like Shoals spiderlily (H. coronaria) but they do need good moisture. I was thrilled to see my plants blooming happily when I got home.

Ferns that had struggled with the heat have perked up. Mushrooms are sprouting and I found a large cauliflower one (Sparassis sp.) near the mailbox. I hadn’t seen one of these in years in my yard, but I figured the spores were still around.

Cauliflower mushroom

Here’s hoping the late summer blooms will benefit from the rain. It’s almost time for the Great Southeast Pollinator Census!

Let Leaf Arrangement Lead the Way

 

Viburnum showing opposite arrangement

 

There are people who find plant identification intimidating. It might be you. Don’t let it be that way; use just a little bit of logic to quickly get you on the right path. Recently a photo was submitted to a plant identification group and the person said that a plant app had indicated it might be black cherry (Prunus serotina). Plant id apps are only as good as the photo submitted; they can’t always see the leaf arrangement and other important details from photos, so you’ll always want to double check their guesses.

With a closer look at this person's photo (not included here), one could discern that the leaves were oppositely arranged on the stem. Since black cherry has alternate leaves, it could not be that. When I talk to people about plant identification, leaf arrangement is my number one tip. I’ve written about this before, but the message can always be repeated (my previous blog is linked here and still worth reading with examples of woody plants).

While this concept is most persistent in woody plants (you can see the arrangement of tree and shrub branches in the winter), it also applies to herbaceous perennials. Herbaceous plants with well-known opposite leaf arrangement include plants in the mint family (Lamiaceae), but there are others like beardtongues (Penstemon), sunflowers (Helianthus), boneset (Eupatorium), Phlox, milkweed (Asclepias), and St. John’s wort (Hypericum). 

Opposite leaf arrangement

Alternate leaf arrangement

Leaf arrangement is visible in the first true leaves produced by dicot seedlings; dicots produce a pair of cotyledon leaves that often don't resemble the plants "true" leaves. For example, when they pop up in the spring, a maple (opposite) clearly has two true leaves compared to alternately arranged plants which produce only one. These cotyledon leaves are often very plain (although American basswood has fancy cotyledon leaves). Here are two examples:

Maple seedling with two plain cotyledon and two true 
leaves (example of opposite from Strand Herbarium)

Basswood seedling with two fancy cotyledon and
one true leaf (example of alternate)

While identifying the leaf arrangement can get you further on your plant identification path, it is not the only clue and you should consider other aspects of the plant. In particular, there are two cautions to consider:

• A leaf or branch may be missing due to damage, causing an oppositely-arranged plant to look like it has alternate arrangement. Check more than one place on the plant.
• Some herbaceous plants (that is, not woody) with opposite arrangement may transition to alternate arrangement toward the top of the flowering stem.

As in my earlier post, I encourage you to practice this skill on plants that you already know to see if you get the right identification. Put this concept at the top of your toolbox and see where it takes you!

Keystone Plants Maximize Small Spaces

Yards are getting smaller and the conversion of natural habitat to residential communities is shrinking the availability of native plants to support native insects. While we should protect native habitat as our first choice for supporting native insects, we have learned that we can make a difference in our designed landscapes by choosing the most productive plants. 

“Keystone” is the term for the most productive plants in terms of how much they support insect herbivores such as caterpillars, the larval form of butterflies, moths, and sawflies. The more insects a plant can support, the more productive it can be for the local ecosystem that depends on those insects (like birds).

Native Clematis

It’s too hot and dry to plant now, but you might be thinking of what you’ll buy and plant in the fall so now is a good time to make a list. Including some keystone plants would help you take your efforts further than without them. 

I had a hard time finding a good list so I created one using Doug Tallamy’s early resources. You can download and print my list from here. Of course you’ll want to first take stock of what you might already have – for example you might already have an oak tree or a maple (or if your neighbor has those, you can usually consider them close enough to count). If so, plant for maximum diversity by choosing something new like a river birch, a willow, or a hawthorn.

If you have very little space, you might consider choosing keystone herbaceous plants (these are your perennials, see the back side of my handout for them). Homegrown National Park has some nice resources for using keystone plants in containers; here is a link to the Southeastern one. You’ll notice them using the keystone plants goldenrod, asters, and sunflowers – those are the top 3 keystone perennials. I've included links to earlier blogs about those 3 plants so you can see some of the choices available.

So walk around and see what you've got and make plans for adding new ones in the fall to amp up the biodiversity in your garden and in the ecosystem.

July 2024 Moment in Nature

It has been so very dry here the last month or so and quite hot as well. I have been watering my pots and some of the actively blooming in-ground perennials to help the insects that need those flowers.

One night it finally rained a lot and I walked outside to see how the plants were recovering. As I walked through the front, I spied this small frog (identified by a friend as a Spring Peeper) enjoying a moist leaf on the wingstem (Verbesina alternifolia). It seemed like a good sign and a much needed refresh for this month's #momentinnature.

Spring peeper

I found another couple of them later in the week in the backyard, so here's another photo showing the distinctive marking on the back (kind of an X).

Spring peeper