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.  

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.