Leaf It Alone

One of the reasons I’m so interested in using native plants in our landscaping is to restore life to our property.  The insects that can only live on the native plants are a major part of the food web, bringing in birds which eat these protein morsels and feed them to their young.  Like many I've learned that the fall generation of Monarch butterflies migrates to Mexico.  I never thought about what other butterflies and insects do during our cold winter months. 

Children Playing in the Leaves
(photo by Susan Bibler)

When I was a youngster and the fall bounty of multicolored leaves started to fall, I had such great fun jumping in and out of the leaves raked into large piles by my parents.  As I grew a little, it became part of my chores to perform this fall cleanup.  Somehow it just wasn’t as much fun playing in the leaves when I had to rake them up over and over again.  For years in the fall I used to rake all the leaves to the street where the city picked them up and took them away.  Later I learned the soil could really use this organic matter that I was sending away.  Early in the fall when the leaf drop wasn’t too much, I’d run the mower over them, shredding them into small pieces and letting this organic material work its way into the ground and decompose.  When the fallen leaf cover got too thick for that, I’d shred them with a leaf blower attachment and use them for mulch or put them into the compost pile.  But things changed for me this past year. 

Polyphemus Moth

Two years ago I had fun raising some Polyphemus moths from eggs Candy Sarikonda had given me.  When they hatched, I pulled some leaves from each of their native larval host plants and let the little guys and gals decide what they liked best.  This sample included oak, black cherry, elm, locust, and maple.  Overwhelmingly they chose oak as their food of choice.  Over the course of the summer and early fall, they grew.  Wow did they grow!   They became total eating machines for a good part of the summer.  These caterpillars ate and ate.  Five times they outgrew their skins, and shedding them to allow for more growth.  Eventually they decided they were ready for the next phase of their lives and they spun cocoons (moths made cocoons, butterflies make chrysalis).  As part of this process, they wrapped leaves around themselves, providing an excellent hiding place.  Most of them emerged within a month.  After letting their wings expand and dry for 24 hours we released them.  Although they were able to fly within several hours after emergence, allowing this extra time to let their wings become strong gave them a better chance of evading predators.  Since these moths have no mouth parts, they only live three to five days.  Their sole purpose at this point is to mate and propagate.

Several of the cocoon-wrapped pupas showed signs of emerging but the weather got cold and they didn’t emerge.  Candy told me they would overwinter in their cocoons and I should expect them to merge in the spring around Easter time.  And on one bright warming spring day, there was a flutter of wings in the cage.  They had successful survived that brutally cold winter. 

Like many of the Giant silkmoths (the group to which the Polyphemus, Cecropia, and Luna moths
belong) and many other insects, they wrap themselves up in leaves for a good winter’s nap.  Take a look at this group of leaves.  Only by turning them over and carefully looking would you be able to see the well hidden Polyphemus cocoon.  (See a larger photo essay about these stunning moths at https://www.dropbox.com/s/w6bilvu8mx9wi2e/Polyphemus%20Moth%20-%20leaves.pdf?dl=0)

Polyphemus Cocoons hidden in Leaves

Without careful inspection you’d never even notice these overwintering creatures hidden in your leaves.  You can imagine what shredding the leaves would do to these creatures.  If you rake your leaves into your garden, or loosely arrange them around your trees and shrubs you’ll be saving these fascinating moths from certain death.

This year as leaves start to coat my yard, I’m raking them into the garden beds and forgoing shredding.   And now that I think about it, it’s a whole lot less work for me.  Good for the moths, good for me.  

Not even an Ant

Existing Native Garden Bed installed last year

Recently someone wrote and asked how our native plant gardens fared over this record breaking winter in Northwest Ohio.   Oh my gosh, double gosh even.  I knew I was tardy in posting here but didn’t realize how negligent I’ve been.  My extreme apologies and to answer your question Matt, the gardens came through the deep snow and cold temperatures without a second thought.  This is yet another reminder that these native plants are perfectly adapted to conditions here.   They evolved here over thousands and thousands and thousands of years with their roots in these soils, coping with fluctuating temperatures, and seasonal water variations that make me uncertain what to wear from day to day.  In fact, our gardens performed so well that several weeks ago we expanded the native plant garden in the front of our house close to the street.  I was delighted to remove some more lawn from the yard.  I want to say in Perrysburg we like to use dynamite to get weeds extracted from the rock hard clay soil but that’s probably somewhat of an exaggeration.  In this case an hour with a pick mattock enabled me to strip the turf grass from the designated 3 foot x 10 foot area.  I was going to use the removed turf as mulch so I set about shaking the soil from the short roots of the extracted grass.  As I knelt there playing with the dirt, I watched some ants working to repair the disturbance I had made to the adjacent garden bed. 

Preparing the additional space

And then it hit me.  I’ve had this experience before  but this “in my face” reminder was still a thought provoking incident.  This grass harbored NO life, at least none that I could see with my naked eye.  There were no earthworms, spiders, millipedes, or pill bugs.  There wasn’t even an ant.  Nothing moved.  And this was a lawn without chemicals.  We had switched to organic lawn care a few years back and never looked back. 

Native Bumblebee on Wild Bergamot

Yet just a few inches away, inside the border of the existing native garden, those ants seemed focused on clearing out the entrance to their home on which I had unceremoniously scattered some dirt.  At least three species of native bumblebees were feverishly working over the nearby fading blossoms of the Wild Bergamot.  A small Katydid was perched on the underside of a Sneezeweed leaf, and numerous other winged insects were going about making a living amongst the foliage of the Swamp Milkweed, New England Aster, and Smooth Aster.  A hummingbird scooted in for a quick sip of nectar at the newly blooming Cardinal Flower.  A Silver-spotted Skipper elbowed its way into all the activity.  A foot to the right tiny bees seemed excited the Partridge Pea was now blooming, and some other insects watched from the relative safety of the Virginia Mountain Mint. 

New Addition Area to Native Garden

Sure.  The eye appeal of many of our native plants is alone worth our efforts and the aspect of lower maintenance certainly appeals to many of us.  But for me, my feelings have evolved and I’ve come to believe it’s all about life.  And we certainly get that with our native gardens.  Not only are the gardens full of life.  They make our lives better too.  

Ever Learning

The snow was up to my nose and the temperatures hovered around a balmy 10 degrees Fahrenheit.  In our area the winter sun rises and arcs low enough through the sky to shine directly into my home office window.  Without leaves from the backyard woods to intercept the bright rays, the light is just too strong to keep the blinds open.  The direct sunlight along with the reflection from the snow makes it impossible to see my 

computer screen.  So on most days now, I’m reluctantly closing the blinds and burying my nose in my work. 

On one particular day a few weeks ago while clicking away at my keyboard and squinting at a bunch of tiny little numbers moving across my screen, I heard a fluttering on the windowsill, on the other side of my light barrier.  The sound went away quickly, and I returned to my work.  Moments later the sound returned.  OK, that’s it.  I had to know what it was.  Slowly rotating the louvers, I was able to glimpse a bird I’d never seen before at our home, yet alone elsewhere.  On noticing a small patch of yellow on this smallish bird, I thought “oh, it’s a goldfinch”.  But huh, it’s winter and the male goldfinches couldn’t even be close to start putting on their brilliant yellow summer plumage.  Well, it’s certainly not a warbler.  But no one will ever confuse me with a knowledgeable birder. 

We live within a half hour drive of the famed Magee Marsh, home to Black Swamp Bird Observatory (BSBO).  Magee Marsh, and the adjacent Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge sit on the southern shore of Lake Erie, the shallowest but most bio-diverse of the Great Lakes.  Legions of fantastic avian creatures stop here in large numbers on their long and arduous northward migration from their winter homes in the tropics.  The protected ecosystems here provide just the right mixture of shelter and food to enable the feathered songsters to rest and refuel on the abundant insect life.  Once they’ve renewed their energy and winds are right, they take off on the journey northward across the vast lake.  Thousands of birders from all over the country, and even some from other countries flock here to experience the annual gathering of dozens and dozens of different songbirds.  For many years only a weekend event, the bird watching community has expanded the official festivities into “The Biggest Week in American Birding.”  Throngs of serious and merely curious birders have had a most welcome impact on the local tourism industry.  There is so much publicity surrounding this annual natural event a person can’t help but learn or think they’ve learned about the celebrated birds. 

And that’s where I now realize I fall into that category of “thought I learned”.  As I looked again at our small bird with yellow patches, I kept thinking it’s a warbler but always came back to “it cannot be a warbler.”  I had listened, admittedly distracted by all the surrounding activity, to several area ornithologists while they identified, banded, and counted scads of different species during the celebrated week of birding.  I was under the impression the warblers all go way south to the tropics for a nice winter of sitting on the beach, sipping margaritas and enjoying other good time activities.  Oops -I guess that’s what I’d do if I was in the tropics for the winter.   Well whatever the birds do down south, in spring they head north in three waves to hit the Lake Erie shore between late April  and late May.  Given my confidence of having “learned” from the experts. I was sure this backyard bird was no warbler.   Or hey –maybe this was one of those rare cases that gets birders all atwitter with excitement and they would flock by the carloads to observe the unusual sighting in my backyard. 

OK –I pulled out my Peterson’s Field Guide to Eastern Birds.   Yikes, this creature sure had all the field Yellow-rumped Warbler.  I surmised it had to be incredibly rare at this time of the year.  Posting a few pictures and asking for verification, my friends confirmed it was indeed the winged vertebrate shown in the field guide. 

markings of a

During the week, the bird continued pecking into the crevices on the windowsill and the corners of the outdoor deck rafters jutting out above my lower level office.  There must have been some tasty insects camped out there trying to hide out from predators.  As the week progressed, this cheerful bird continued to distract me from my work.  Fortunately before I posted the sighting to some rare bird network, I learned not all warblers go to the sunny south.  This particular species does winter in our area.  Whew – embarrassment averted.  It turns out this is perhaps the northernmost part of its overwintering area, but by no means was the bird’s presence rare, or even uncommon.  So don’t look for my name in the rare sightings journals. 

For approximately two weeks I didn’t get much work done while I enjoyed the chirps, fluttering, and antics of this little Yellow-rumped Warbler.  Fortunately my boss wasn’t terribly upset (I’m self-employed).  Without a green sprout in sight, this distracting visitor reinforced my understanding that our conversion to landscaping with native plants has enriched my life.  In the past several years as we’ve continued the journey, gradually replacing our landscaping with native plants, we’ve stopped feeding the birds with store-bought birdseed.   Yet, we have more birds with a greater variety of species than we had before.  The native plants, unlike the old non-native ones, are providing the

habitat and food sources for this greater biodiversity.  While enjoying this little wild bundle of feathers, I’m sure my blood pressure was down and on retrospection I realized I slept better at night.  I’ve been reading lately about how important nature is in our lives.  Like the native plants that bring wildlife such as this bird into our yards, we’ve evolved over thousands and thousands and thousands of years intricately woven into the rest of nature around us.  It’s only in recent history where the number of people living in cities has surpassed those living in the country.  Studies are disclosing that stress, disease, and poor mental health, among other human problems are exacerbated when we live and work in areas devoid of nature.  Welcome little warbler and safe travels until we meet again.