Why?

They say I do a lot of volunteer work.  I guess I do.  The vast majority of it is spent promoting the use of native plants.  Why?  There are some volunteer activities I do face to face, one on one, with people in need.  And this always gives me an immediate and rewarding satisfaction.  And yet I find most of my efforts are in an area where progress seems slow, is often frustrating, and on the surface seems disconnected from larger issues.  Sometimes I wonder why I spend so much time this way?  Everyday I realize the need to help people is huge.  Everyday in watching the news or reading the paper, I see the faces of people devastated by war, hunger, homelessness, natural disasters, and on and on.  So why spend my time on native plant education, my own included?  I struggle when faced with these seemingly much larger needs.   Am I spending my time wisely?

As I wrestle with the question of how to spend my time, here's what I've come to believe.  It seems to me much of the world's woes are self inflicted.  We've squandered, unwittingly perhaps, the treasures we've been given.  We've thought we were owners of these natural resources instead of stewards. 

Small wetland in Marshall County, Indiana
photo courtesy of Wiki Commons

Literally millions of people across the globe don't have clean water to drink.  We are constantly polluting our water with farm and residential chemical runoff among other things.  We've been digging up wetlands which are nature's technique of purifying water that eventually becomes our drinking water and the environment in which all aquatic life lives.  The wetland restoration at Grand Lake St. Marys is a good example of returning to nature to protect an essential resource.  Using deep rooted native plants in rain gardens and wetlands helps to filter the pollution, recharge the aquifers, and trap the sediment that runs into our waterways from these sources.  Native plants are important for clean water.

It is absolutely incredible how many people don't have enough food to eat.  The large numbers of children who go to bed hungry every night is shameful.   Manos Community Garden   http://www.toledoblade.com/gallery/Manos-Community-Garden on the edge of downtown Toledo and situated in a extremely poor area of the city, encourages passersby to pick the fresh tomatoes and take home green beans, squash, and other fresh vegetables.  They have also made this into a bird sanctuary and wildlife habitat by introducing some native plants.  This past summer they asked our local Wild Ones chapter to help design and recommend more native plantings.  This will not only help make a serene peaceful setting, but also increase the populations of native pollinators.  These native insects are highly efficient and will improve the productivity of the vegetable gardens.   On a larger scale, research is showing benefits to farm production in utilizing native plants to increase native pollinator populations.  Native plants help produce food to feed the world. 

Health care costs are escalating out of sight, diagnoses of autism and other childhood developmental disorders seem to be on a meteoric rise, and cancer is on an unrelenting march forward.  Arguably, but with growing evidence, the lawn and agricultural chemicals we are so addicted to use are linked to the increase in these maladies.  Native plants are integral to a balanced ecosystem that doesn't require these expensive chemicals that lure us into believing we can redesign nature for a better outcome.  The use and restoration of native plant communities helps to stop the destruction of biodiversity.  Native plants are the cornerstone to healthy ecosystems and diverse biological systems.  Noted Entomologist, Dr. Doug Tallamy says:

"The ecosystems that support us - that determine the carrying capacity of the earth and our local spaces - are run by biodiversity. It is biodiversity that generates oxygen and cleans water, creates topsoil out of rock, buffers extreme weather events like droughts and floods, pollinates our crops, and recycles the mountains of garbage we create every day."

Yellow Trout Lily
Erythronium americanum

Do native plants cure all the major ills of the world.  Certainly not.  But in my time spent on learning about and promoting the use of native plants I've come to believe that our long term survival has to come from living in harmony with nature rather than fighting it.  And that's why I'm now comfortable spending most of my efforts working to save and restore ecological systems with the use of native plants.  Besides, walking in the woods, hearing leaves rustling under my feet, seeing the Trout lilies rise to greet the spring sun, listening to the friendly chirp of the Black-capped Chickadees, hearing the katydids at night, watching the Monarch butterfly lay her eggs on the Milkweed plants, being tickled by the upside down march of the White-breasted Nuthatch, marveling at the hovering nectar-thirsty Ruby-throated Hummingbird, these all energize my own soul and help me realize that what we do as individuals ultimately impacts the health and vitality of us all.    I'm good with spending so much time on this. 

It was Dead - but Now....



Former dead Pachysandra area

This morning my new friend Sanja and I were working  on our new Wild One's chapter display.  Naturally we talked about why we like native plants.  Her thoughtful questions reminded me that just one year ago I pulled several trash bags of Pachysandra from a lush evergreen garden bed just outside my office window.  You might remember how I struggled with wiping this area clean and digging up the specimen Bleeding Heart.   I recall how astonished I was at the time.  There was absolutely no life in this spot.  No spiders, earthworms, millipedes, caterpillars, nothing.  It was a dead zone. 



Giant Swallowtail on
Swamp Milkweed

As I sit here writing this piece I'm looking out my home office window.  I wonder how I ever get any work done now.  The Cardinal flower have just finished blooming while the Blue Lobelia are still working on producing a few more flowers.  For weeks now as the wave of color cycled from the brilliant red of the Cardinal flower to the purple of the Blue Lobelia, the hummingbirds have come by all day long to work over the nectar rich blossoms of these plants.  They much prefer the flowers over the nearby hummingbird feeder.  (As curious as these little birds are, often buzzing up to my face as I sit on the back porch, they just won't sit still long enough for me to snap a picture.)  This same patch of ground now sports some nice bright yellow from the Brown eyed Susan in the shadier part just as the Smooth Asters are starting to come into bloom. 





Male Monarch about to be
released for the fall
migration to Mexico

Looking back to yesterday when we released a male Monarch butterfly,  I realize the Swamp milkweed that provided nectar for multiple species of butterflies this season were the same plants  several female Monarchs laid their eggs on earlier this summer. 
The transformation is wondrous.  This area was dead last year, and now it's alive!  That's why I like native plants.   

The Journey So Far

A little more than a year ago, our first native plants went in.  Since then as you probably already know, we've decided to totally replace all our landscaping with native plants.  This endeavor still seems overwhelming as I walk through our suburban residential lot and see all the non natives that remain.  Two months ago, as I started to write about all the things I've learned, I got a painful attack of writer's block.  (Don't worry - the doctor said it's not contagious.)   With every new thing I learned, I discovered twelve more related things I wanted to know.  The list of lessons is pretty darn large now.  So I'm just highlighting three major lessons from the year.

Common Blue Eyed
 Grass

PATIENCE
First is patience. Actually I haven't learned patience. I've learned I need patience. (Lord, give me patience, and do it right now!) Some of our first plants were young native prairie plants. They evolved long ago to suit the environment they lived in. These guys become deep rooted, often 15 feet or more to help create the water reservoirs and drainage routes necessary for a healthy environment.. They also take time to get established. I guess that's one of the reasons they are so susceptible to the aggressive nature of non-native invasive plants. The tiny Little Blue-Eyed Grass plugs that worked all last year to get established showed us their stuff this spring with striking, yet delicate blue flowers.  On the other hand, the Prairie Smoke I wrote about last year has grown several times larger than the dime I originally compared it to. However working through this year's drought it continued to push those roots down. It did try to bloom and show the smoke like fruit but the heat and dryness kept it focused on drilling deeper. 


Just one load of Honeysuckle
removed from our backyard
in one day

INVASIVE PLANTS
I've also learned how important it is to stay on top of invasive plant removal. Last year I was more diligent than ever in pulling every Garlic Mustard, Honeysuckle, Buckthorn, and Multi Flora Rose we found. This spring's generous display of woodland wildflowers showed us the effort was worthwhile. The gentle slopes of our woodland ravine were filled with Trout Lily, Spring Beauty, Spring Cress, Cut Leaf Toothwort, Rue Anemone, and Jacob's Ladder. These displays were followed by Wild Geranium, Virginia Waterleaf, Round leaf Ragwort, and May Apple.  

Early Trout Lily nestled at base of decaying log

WEB OF LIFE
Most importantly, I've learned native plants are a critical part of the great web of life to which we all belong.   All life depends on plants.  All animals either eat plants directly or eat creatures that eat them.  By far, the largest group of these animals is insects.  As Doug Tallamy teaches in his book, "Bringing Nature Home", insects can only eat the plants they evolved with - native plants.  Without insects flowers wouldn't turn into fruit, birds would have nothing to feed their young, and if we existed at all, the world would be a pretty uninspiring place.  A great example of this dependence is the Monarch Butterfly.  It has to have Milkweed in order to survive.  The female Monarch only lays her eggs on this group of plants.  When these eggs hatch, milkweed is the only food the caterpillars can eat.  Simple:  No Milkweed, no Monarch Butterflies.  With the wholesale eradication of Milkweed plants, this stunning creature is in real danger of becoming only a memory.  So if you want Monarchs to survive, plant some Milkweed in your yard.  The Milkweed we planted last year has produced multiple generations of Monarchs this season while it also provided nectar for many other pollinators and food for scads of other creatures.  As the natural landscaping organization Wild Ones says, we are "Healing the Earth one Yard at Time."  I think we see this healing going on in our own yard.  In just one year's time, we've realized more wildflowers, birds, and butterflies, lower water bills, and life somehow seems more interesting and serene. 


Newly emerged Monarch

(Here's a five second video of a Giant Swallowtail nectaring on one of our Swamp Milkweeds.  http://youtu.be/KEyxOmU3BIc  Three different generations of Monarch used this one plant on which to lay their eggs.  The eggs hatched into very tiny caterpillars.  These young creatures ate the leaves, molting 4 times while they outgrew their skins.  Eventually the caterpillars matured, formed a chrysalis, and later miraculously emerged as Monarch butterflies.  Today I found another egg on this plant.  In about 28 days a butterfly that started as this egg will  hopefully survive and migrate the 3,000 miles to Mexico for the winter.  If you listen carefully, you can hear birds in the background. )

Making a Difference

Newly planted butterfly
garden.  By mid summer
it will have filled in a lot,
attracting butterflies and
hummingbirds.

The other day I met and helped an incredible lady who has a very personal and moving story about using native plants.  We planted a butterfly garden at the hospice facility of a large local medical center, and put some additional butterfly host plants at their cancer center.

I met Candy and a college student neighbor of hers early Saturday morning at the hospice.  By the time I got there at 7:30 am, they were already busy digging up weeds, and unloading a large assortment of plants from Candy's van.

Candy's husband, who is chief of staff at the hospital, showed up a while later in a dress shirt and slacks, with the standard doctor's beeper attached to his belt.  He jumped right in digging and planting.  Periodically he would leave, walking off to the main hospital building, only to come back a little later to continue working.   This soft spoken gentle physician is obviously a total believer and supporter in Candy's mission.

As we worked, I got to know Candy a little and came to understand why she is this area's go to person on butterflies.   I can't possibly tell Candy's story any better than this article that appeared in a local newspaper a little while ago.  http://sylvaniaadvantage.com/2012/03/30/butterflies-steal-the-show-at-promedica-flower-staff-dinner/

Candy's first son, now almost

a teenager, holds a live Cecropia

Moth.  Candy and her son will wait

 until dark to release it since it is a

 nocturnal creature.  This moth

species has no mouth and will live

 for only about a week.  During that

time it will mate and lay eggs to

start the next generation.
(photo taken by Candy)

Through Candy's relentless search for help with her young child's autism, she discovered that butterflies had a huge positive impact on her son.  Through that connection, she researched, experimented, and found that many of our area's native plants not only attracted butterflies, but allowed them to lay their eggs where the young caterpillar's could eat and in turn transform into the next generation of butterflies.  Exotic or hybridized plants don't let that happen. 

Ever since she experienced that life altering success with her son, she has been a tireless and selfless advocate of bringing life back to our gardens.  She doesn't pass up any opportunity to enter a classroom of children dragging cages of live butterflies and caterpillars.  The wonder and joy she sees in these kids' eyes when they get to hold a live butterfly is part of what keeps her going. 

Through Candy's enthusiastic work, I now more fully realize that native plants are not only good and necessary for our planet's health.  They are important for our own health and well being.  We always talk about native plants bringing wildlife back to the yard.  We talk about birds, bees, and the butterflies.  However, really getting to watch butterflies at work in a garden, ahhhhh, that's uplifting.  To see a butterfly lay an egg on a plant; to see the egg hatch into a caterpillar; to see the caterpillar eat the leaves that became food through the sun's energy; to see the caterpillar molt several times before forming a chrysalis; to see the butterfly emerge from that cocoon and bask in the sun, stretching and drying it's wings; to see that butterfly fly off to drink the nectar of a nearby flower, coincidentally pollinating that flower so it too can fulfill it's mission- now that's food for our souls.

Candy introduces her youngest
child to a live Luna Moth
caterpillar. 

If the time comes when I need help conducting the basic daily requirements of living, I pray I'll get to look out over a butterfly garden that Candy inspired someone to plant.   











--------------------------------------------------
Related material:

Candy's pictures of various caterpillars, butterflies, and cocoons
Luna moth emerging from cocoon
Candy's northwest Ohio butterfly shows up in New Orleans
LiveMonarch.com
Monarch Watch
Journey North - a great educational site for children and adults alike

I'm Just Saying

Bloodroot seeking life in grass

I’ve recently learned a new phrase:  “I’m just saying.”  For the longest time I didn’t know what that meant.  My good wife was kind enough the other day to “splain” it to me.  I guess it’s a way of gently disagreeing with someone while bringing up a contrary point of view.  I think that’s what my yard has been saying to me for a good long time.  And now it has decided I’m not getting it and need to be slapped up the side of the head.  More like “Listen up bub, I’m telling you you haven’t been listening, haven’t been paying attention.”  We live in a “lawn infested” neighborhood and for the past year since I’ve converted to native plants, I’ve longed for a prairie /meadow.  I’ve come to understand that the nice green lawn isn’t helping the environment, the native wildlife, my health, or my pocketbook.  Last summer I thought as long as I have to have a lawn, I’ll at least make it organic.  And I embarked on making it so.    But nonetheless, I really wanted a prairie, a meadow to largely replace the lawn and nurture the birds, butterflies, and pollinators that are so essential to a healthy and productive ecosystem. 

Trout Lily leaves trying to survive in
lawn

Solomon Seal seedlings

As mother nature has removed the blinders from my eyes, she tells me to look at what’s growing here already.  In spite of all the organic matter I’ve put into this clay soil, in spite of all the chemicals I used to heap on this lawn, in spite of all the core aeration I’ve done over the years, in spite of all this abuse, she puts  billboards up for me to catch my attention.  As I cut the grass with my carbon emitting, gas guzzling, noisy lawnmower, I keep muttering “if this was a prairie, I wouldn’t be wasting my money and time doing this.”  I look just ahead of the mower as I’m cutting at the front edge of the native beds and BANG.  "Hey there’s a small Bloodroot growing right out in the lawn."  Veering the mower around this delightful find, I say I’ll let this little guy grow here.  And then just ahead a little more, there are dozens of Trout Lily leaves poking up into the grass.  And a little bit further, there were three small Solomon’s Seal.  What’s going on here?  This is a carefully tended lawn.  These wayward native plants can’t be growing here.  Wait a minute.  Do they just belong here?  I wonder what was this land like before the developers scraped away the topsoil and cut down trees to make room for a house and put a high maintenance lawn in?  Was it a prairie or something else?

1964 aerial photo of neighborhood
pre-development

At a research conference I went to early this year one conservation manager showed historical aerial photos of the preserve she is restoring.  Playing off that inspiration I hightailed it down to the Soil and Water office.  They were kind enough to make copies of the 1964 photos of our area.   Low and behold, our property was fully wooded before the developers came along.  It was near a farm field, but densely wooded.  Duh!  No wonder, these little woodland plants were trying to come back.  In spite of all the abuse I’ve heaped on them, they still want to be all they were designed to be, woodland plants. 

But I wanted a prairie.  Finally accepting the fact a prairie would not be well received in this suburban neighborhood, I listened to the yard and the plants that were trying to grow here.   Driving around the older wooded section of the development with my wife we saw that some other properties were wooded in their front as well as their back yards.  Our front yard should really be a woodland. We could abandon my prairie yearnings and embrace what was once here.   Let's plant native trees and make it a wooded front yard.  (I wonder how many little tiny Oak seedlings I've run the mower over in these past twelve years?)   Slowly but surely we'll expand the trees and native beds in the front.  (Can I train the squirrels to plant those acorns where I want the new trees?)  Eventually the lawn will be tiny and the front yard a productive part of a healthy ecosystem.  No more will my mower attempt to eradicate the Bloodroot, Trout Lily, and Solomon's Seal.  Sometime in the near future, the Trout Lilies that were so stunning in producing their spring blossoms in other parts of the yard this year, will once again claim their rightful place in the front.  

Trout Lily

The Pony has Arrived

Cover Newcomb's
Wildflower Guide
(see note below)

Did I say the other day that the anticipation of this spring made me feel like a kid expecting a pony for his birthday?  Good news!  The pony came.  Well … actually it wasn’t a pony.  It was even better, the discovery of five woodland wildflowers I didn’t know we had.   And they don’t require me to feed and water them. 

So here’s how these discoveries all took place.  The other day I noticed a patch of flowers in the woodlands across our small backyard ravine.  Knowing I had to learn how to identify these plants on my own, I grabbed my Newcomb’s Wildflower Guide, slipped on my boots, and leapt across the ravine’s narrow band of running water in a single bound.  I think it was a single bound.  Eagerly running up the hill, I knelt on the ground, alongside the small patch of flowering plants.  OK, using Newcomb’s Guide and working through the identifying questions: 

• Does it have regular flowers (symmetrical flowers)?  Answer:  Yes
• If regular flowers how many distinct parts (petals)?  Answer:  4;   This makes it a group 4 flower type
• Is the plant type a wildflower, vine, or shrub?  Answer:  Wildflower
• If a wildflower, is it without leaves, or if it has leaves, are they all at the base of the plant, or arranged singly on the stem (alternate), or are they opposite one another or whorls?  Man, this is getting tough; Answer: it definitely has leaves, and they are definitely alternate, and that makes this a plant type group 3 
•  And finally, are the leaves even (unbroken and even edges) or are they toothed  or lobed or divided?   Answer:  they are certainly not even, leaving answer:  toothed, lobed, or divided.  I don't which, but certainly one of the three.  So this makes put it in a leaf type 3.
• Combining the groups into 433 and referring to Newcomb's key, he makes me pick among a number of choices.  This really gets confusing now.  Among the choices, I chose "White,pink or purple flowers, and  leaves with an arrow-shaped base, which clasp the stem".  Therefore the plant is page 136. 

Dang, page 136 doesn’t have anything like it.  I look at page 134, and 138.  Nope.  Nothing.   Well double dang.   OK, so now I pull out my secret weapon.  Take out the cell phone, shoot a picture, and text it to my native plant mentor, Jan.  “Hey Jan, need an emergency plant id.  What is this?”  Reply:  “I’ll be there in 15 minutes.”  Whoa!  With the price of gasoline, I thought I better let her know it wasn’t really an emergency, just trying to be funny.  “I know.  I’ll be near you anyway.”

Fifteen minutes later, the smiling face says “where’s your mystery plants”. 

“Follow me.” 

“Got your book?” 

“Yep.” 

“Ok, let’s go.” 

We start down the hill on the backside of the house and I stop dead in my boots.  A flash of white blooms nearby has caught my attention. 

“Hey Jan, look, the Waterleaf are blooming.” 

“No they aren’t.” 

“What?  Sure they are.” 

“Got your book?  Let’s look.” 

Cutleaf Toothwort

Carefully treading over the muddy ground we arrive at the blooms.  She says, “What do you see?”  “Hmmmm, ahhhh, guess those aren’t Waterleaf are they?”  “No they aren’t, let’s look at your book.”  Making a long humiliating story short, I’ll tell you they are Cutleaf Toothwort.  This is a new species to list on our property.  Pretty cool.

Spring Cress

Picking up my pride, I guide her to the site of my great discovery.  “Ok, open your book and let’s start with his identifying questions.”  I show her how none of the book’s drawings matched what we saw.   Looking at my assessment of Newcomb’s characteristics, she questions me as to whether this is really an arrow shaped leaf, and is it really clasping the stem.  Ahhhh, she's right.   The leaves aren’t really arrow shaped, and on closer look aren't really clasping the stem.  So that now probably puts it on page 138.  Nope not there either.   She grins and says “turn one more page”.  And bingo!  There it is.  This is Spring Cress.  Another new one for the property plant list.  We revisit Newcomb’s key and I learn some of the identifying characteristics can overlap a little.   So perhaps the key to identification is, when you don’t find what you’re looking for, turn one more page.  (I don’t feel so bad remembering a talk with a local Park District Naturalist.  She told me when she was a new Naturalist using Newcomb’s identification guide, no matter what the plant, she always came up with the same answer – poison ivy.  She said it took her a year to get really good at plant identification.) 

Rue Anemone

Once I get a few pictures, we turn around and start walking along the ravine on the gently sloping hillside, drawn by an expanse of small flowers.  She quizzes me on a few and fortunately, I pass.  There are loads of Trout Lily, untold numbers of Spring Beauty, dotted spots of Bloodroot, and of course now I recognize the Cutleaf Toothwort.  Then she tosses me the stumper – “What’s this little one?”   I don’t recognize it but it sure is attractive.  “It’s pretty easy to key through the book, but I’ll save you the time.  You can study it later.  It’s Rue Anemone.”  Nice!  Add another one to the list. 



Invasive free Woodland

But there is something unusual about this very serene, peaceful setting.  What is it?  We look at each other and suddenly realize there are only a very few Honeysuckle, an occasional Garlic Mustard, and no Multiflora Rose.  Where are the exotic invasives seen in the rest of this woodlands.   Turning around a few times, I realiz we had walked onto a neighbor’s property.  Seeing Ray, the gardener who tends our next door neighbor’s property, I ask him if he had been keeping this area native.  He tells me no.  (Later, he and I walked both properties talking about the native wildflowers, and the invasive plants.)  None of us can come up with any logical explanation for this anomaly.  Nonetheless, it is fascinating to see a landscape that is as it should be. 

And the fun isn’t over yet as my teacher spies a group of plants growing nearby.  There is a large, long dead tree laying on the ground and thoroughly decayed.  At the base where the rotten wood has spread out the most, a population of a dozen plants sport leaves that are vaguely familiar.  They aren’t blooming yet and I don’t know it is.  Ahhaa.  Wild Geranium!  Add another one to the property list. 

Time is up and Jan says she has to go.  On the way back to the driveway, she hands me a smashed, rolled up leaf.  The smell has a gentle onion aroma.  Ramps!  These are also known as Wild Leek or Wild Garlic, a vegetable prized by chefs on the culinary food shows.   Book another native plant to our list.

As she opens the door to her truck, a little butterfly flits by.  As the little creature tilts in the dappled sunlight, it turns a striking iridescent blue.  “It’s a Spring Azure.”   We watch for a few minutes as it flits about the yard.   It suddenly strikes me that this conversion to native plants is really working.  It’s no longer just a philosophy on gardening. 

I’m loving my new pony.  Thanks Jan.


(Note:  Newcomb's Wildflower Guide is probably the first book naturalist's go to for Wildflower identification.  If you want to own a copy, consider buying it from Amazon through the Wild Ones bookstore.  By clicking through the Wild Ones bookstore to Amazon, it doesnt' cost you a cent more than otherwise and it gives a very small commission to the national not for profit native plant organization.  In fact anything you buy that way (books, electronics, appliances, etc. will help to support Wild Ones.)

The First Signs

Jacob's Ladder trying to bloom early

As in many parts of the country, we haven’t had much of a winter.  I kept waiting for it to hit, but temperatures had moved into the 50’s during the day, even hit 75 one day.  Signs of spring (or maybe summer) are everywhere.  Do I take down the driveway markers that show where we can drive without running over the first native beds put in last year?  When I found a Jacob’s Ladder in the side yard trying to bloom last month, I was certain the weather would return to normal and frost and a foot of snow would kill the blooms for this year.  But that hasn’t happened and the little fellow looks raring to go.

This is my first spring with awareness of native plants.   As I walk around the yard I feel like a young kid who was promised a pony for his birthday.  Will I really get it?  I’m starting to see signs that the promise Mother Nature made is really going to come true.  The 4” sprout from the “dead” Eastern Wahooo last year’s fame, is budding up.  The floor of the back yard woodlands, well lit without any leaves yet on the trees, is starting to green up with small plants. 

The tiny little Blue Eyed Grass seedlings are starting to send up small green shoots.  The Prairie Smoke, last year looking so insignificant in its first year while it focused on drilling roots deep into the soil, is definitely showing some vigor.  Will it have built its foundation enough last year that it’ll bloom this season? 

Small Virginia Mountain Mint seedlings are making themselves known where last year’s first native bed went in.  In the same area, the Smooth Asters start to spread out leaves from the prior year’s base.  The mulch is all gone from this planting area now, and many, many weeds are starting to sprout.  I won’t use chemicals this year, so I spend some time trying to get as much of this chickweed, and small green onion like plants pulled up by their roots.  I have to be careful I don’t mistake the seedlings from last year’s native plants as weeds.  So I’ll error on the side of caution until I develop a discerning eye to tell the difference.

The Eastern Red Columbine seeds sowed and sprouted last year have turned into healthy looking, albeit small sirens of future flowers. 

Bloodroot emerging

Every day I’ve looked for the Bloodroot to start emerging.  And there it is.  Just last week, a small thumb sized protuberance poked above the ground.   Then the next day there were many.  And then they continued to reach up, now 2 inches tall.  The cloak protecting their flowers remained tightly wrapped around the prize inside.  On one morning, I carefully photographed the camouflaged stalk.  In the afternoon I carried some water to the tree removal crew.  They were diligently removing four more dead Ash trees, and the Norway Maple #2, the dreaded Norway Maple.  Hey, what’s that!  My gosh, one of the Bloodroot is blooming.  Can that be right?  Several hours earlier, it looked days away from show time, and now - Shazam.  Later in the afternoon, there were many blooms.  And now only two more days have gone by, and WOW! 

 In the backyard I find another surprise.  There are several clumps of Bloodroot blooming where I knew I didn’t plant any.  A little research on this stunning plant disclosed an interesting fact.  The Bloodroot seeds have a small fat-rich appendage.  Ants cherish this “eliasome” and eagerly transport this and the attached seed into their tunnels.  They don’t’ eat the seed, but feast on the fleshy attachment.   Here in the ants’ tunnel the seed is protected and eventually sprouts.   This is a terrific way for the plant to spread beyond its immediate parent.    That’s how we end up with free Bloodroot plants around the yard.   Nice job ants.

group of Bloodroot in full bloom

Later in the day I had a visit from my mentor who wanted to show her friend what a natural population of Bloodroot looked like.  She quickly noted that there were many native bees actively pollinating the Bloodroot flowers.  After they left, I went about trying to get a good photo of these bees.  Kneeling for a half hour trying to capture this activity on film, I noticed that there were some brilliantly colored daffodils immediately to my left.  (Yes, I know.  They aren’t native.  My better half says they are staying.  Hmmm.   I haven’t figured out how to get around this constraint yet.)  Anyway, these daffodils had absolutely no visitors.  Not one, Nada.  In fact, there was a small group of Bloodroot nestled into a small clearing in the daffodils.  The bees were eager to get the Bloodroot nectar but had no interest in even stopping to look at the daffodils.  What an excellent example of what we’ve been learning.  Native plants support wildlife and non-native plants don’t.

Bloodroot Flowers

So here we have stinger less native bees pollinating the flowers and ants farming the Bloodroot, making sure they spread.    I certainly am glad we stopped the bug service from spraying outside the house. 

These flowers will only last about a week before the leaves unfurl.  The leaves will then spread out to carpet the area.  (The banner on this entire blog is a picture of Bloodroot in the summer taken here last year.) 

My greatest joy now is understanding this is all entirely natural, adding to the biodiversity of our ecosystems, rather than constraining and diminishing them. 

Xray Vision

Ohio Buckeye

The late fall and winter usually send me indoors to hibernate for the winter.  But this year, the seasonal change and a post read on the daily Native Plant and Wildlife Garden blog, gave me a great gift.  XRAY vision!  Yes, I now get to see things I never noticed before through the green foliage of summer.  Look at this Ohio Buckeye tree without its cover coat of leaves.  I now laugh every time I see it.  The drooping, craggy branches remind me of the iconic Halloween cartoons.  Can't you just imagine the decrepit mansion high on a hill in the background.  The moon is just peaking through the wispy clouds and there is eerie music playing in our subconscious mind. 

Without the wonderful distraction of foliage, I can now see the woodland architecture.  I see the dead skeletons of the Ash trees exterminated by the Emerald Ash Borer.  If not removed, they will definitely fall and probably take out some of understory growth.  It would be a shame to lose this new growth to falling Ash trees.  Many tree saplings and other growth have started to take hold now that we've removed the invasive honeysuckle.  I can see one of these Ash trees has fallen into the high branches of a nearby oak.  Others are just getting ready to fall all the way to the ground.  Should I pay to have them removed, or just let nature bring them down?  I don't know.  It's expensive to remove them.  If left on their own, they will fall and decay, eventually returning their energy to the fertility of the woodland.  I'll have to ponder this question, but I see I can't wait too long. 

Gently sloping ravine

Another aspect of this Xray vision is getting to clearly see the topography of our small wooded lot.  It is now easy to see the gentle slope of some areas, while  other sections fall much more sharply into the winding ravine.  (I chuckle, realizing this difference in elevation is a massive 15 feet or so.  Of course, here in Northwest Ohio, this is the closest thing we have to mountains, except for the mounds of dirt supporting the highway overpasses.)  I now realize one of these gently sloping areas is where the drift of Mayapples shows up every spring.  In the summer, the more steeply pitched sections host Virginia Waterleaf, and Black Raspberry plants among others.  The steepest sections are nearly cliffs.  They were probably started when the neighborhood was developed.  Two large concrete pipes jut into the ravine sides, emitting storm water runoff from the streets.  As time has gone by these steepest sections have eroded.  This spring I'll work on establishing native plantings to stop the erosion.  In the meantime, I'll enjoy this superpower of Xray vision to marvel at this natural architecture I've never seen before.

Goodbye Norway Maple

Red Trillium
 (photo courtesy of Wildflower.org)

When we first moved to this property thirteen years ago we had a local nursery do the landscaping.  Being a traditional gardener, I always used the pretty ornamental plants sold in the nurseries.  I certainly wasn't aware there were such things as native plants; yet alone their benefits.  Walking through the yard with the landscape designer, we ended up in the shady, south side of the property.  There were lots of leaves and tons of small maple seedlings growing everywhere.  The designer suggested we pull up the maple seedlings and see what came up naturally.  So my wife and I spent several hours over a couple of weekends clearing the area of the ubiquitous seedlings.  Looking back, I realize her livelihood was selling hybridized, nursery plants and yet she was encouraging us to see what was natural in our side yard.  So the summer goes by, followed by fall and winter as is usually does.  One late spring day, I was walking through the "south side" and noticed a different plant I had only seen in magazines.  "Hey, I think this is a Trillium."  I only knew that they were fairly expensive.  I had no idea it was a native plant.  Over the years since then I've kept a small wire guard around this plant to prevent my mower from destroying it.  This spring I'll get a good picture and see what I can do to get it to spread.

Now thirteen years later after I'd tried to mold this area to my will with exotic plants and grass, I became aware of native plants.  Of course, now I don't even want grass at all.  But I've come to realize the reason nothing grew there was that Norway Maples release platanoides, chemicals that prevent undergrowth.  They won't let other plants grow near them.  This is a Norway Maple and I don't want it.  First, it's not a native tree,  Secondly, it's invasive.  Fortunately its invasive nature is becoming more widely acknowledged.   Both New Hampshire and Massachusetts have banned its sale.   Meijer Garden Centers no longer sells it due to this characteristic.  I now know why to this day I'm constantly pulling maple seedlings from all over the yard.  For years, this tree species was one of the most popular shade trees sold in America.    And with my new found respect for ecology, this tree had to go.  This one is down and two more I discovered have to go.   So....anyone want firewood?