Habitat Gardening

Nature

This Time: The “key” rule for selecting the best native plants; How to “leave the leaves” without angering neighbors.

You want to add native plants to your garden, but which ones are best? Which ones have the most benefits for the native bees, birds, and butterflies in your garden habitat?

The retailers near you are probably not experts in habitat gardening. They might have some natives, and that is a good trend, but you actually need guidance on what plants are most needed in your geographic area.

It turns out that certain plants have been found to be much more supportive of beneficial insects and wildlife than others. In fact, some plants support hundreds of species rather than just a few. These are called Keystone Plants, and include trees, shrubs and flowering perennials. These are the best for you to add to your native garden design.

You can find the keystone plants best for your garden in the National Wildlife Federation's guide “Keystone Plants by Ecoregion.” (See link below). I used this resource to identify four plants that I would work with initially, growing from seed to planting in beds designed for native plants.

In future posts, I will go through examples, describe my experiences, and explain the steps to follow, but for now, I want to introduce the Keystone Plants resource linked below.

I was surprised to see that the best flowering perennial for my area (a type of goldenrod) supported 104 caterpillar species and 42 native bees species – and I was cutting it down in my garden to clear way for native plant beds!

Seasonal Continuous Improvement: Early Autumn

You might have seen headlines recently related to “Leave the Leaves.“   Yes, it is important to use leaves as mulch wherever you can. Butterflies and moths overwinter in leaf mulch. Birds look for food in leaf mulch, especially helpful in winter. Turtles and other wildlife also need a leaf layer.

Bag mulch is not as environmentally sound, and the long-lasting dyed mulch creates a solid crust that no animal can break through.

But the suburban lawn aesthetic rarely allows you to take advantage of fallen leaves as mulch! You might have neighbors who will disapprove of your use of leaves. (“Why are you leaving your leaves? Don’t you have a leaf blower?”) I have an HOA that expects standard mulch and will complain if I have leaves in flower beds near the street.

If this sounds like your situation, I have developed some tricks to avoid controversy and still help butterflies, birds, and native bees.

  1. Move leaves away from easy visibility near the street. If necessary, take them all the way to another side of the house. I have garden beds and shrubs away from the street to where I move leaves from trees near the street.

  2. Pile leaves in a thick layer because they will eventually reduce to a much smaller volume.

  3. When dry, crush leaves with your feet (by walking on them) or by hitting them with the back of a rake to create some smaller pieces in with larger pieces. The whole layer will stay put in strong breezes.

  4. Wait for leaves to turn brown. It only takes a matter of days and then the layer looks like standard brown mulch.

  5. If you still fear controversy, put some standard mulch loosely over leaves to fool neighborhood “inspectors.”

Don't let nosy neighbors keep you from creating your habitat garden. They will thank you later when more birds sing in the Spring and many butterflies start to flutter regularly in the Summer.

References

Keystone Plants by Ecoregion (National Wildlife Federation)

  • Lists of “critical plant genera and local species that host significant numbers of butterflies, moths, and pollen specialist bees.”
  • You simply select your U.S. and Canada ecoregion to display a list of the best trees, shrubs, and flowering perennials to use in your habitat garden. Easy!

Fact Sheet: Nesting & Overwintering Habitat For Pollinators & Other Beneficial Insects

  • In this guide from the Xerces Society, there is a “Leave the Leaves” section starting on page 4 with actions for you to take.

#HabitatGardening #BiodiversityGardening #Gardening #NativePlants #Nature #Environment

I’m Joe Wynne, a gardener since 1965 when I started as a helper for my grandmother. We maintained irises then and I still have those plants today. I’m a former Tennessee State Park Naturalist, who now focuses on making my garden a habitat for native plants and native bees, birds and butterflies. I share what I learn.

Follow me on Mastodon: https://mindly.social/deck/@JoeWynne.

This time:

  • Design tips for starting a habitat garden
  • How to maintain winter housing for beneficial insects in late summer / early fall
  • free detailed fact sheet from the Xerces Society!

I have been helping my mother move out of her house. Her large garden has roses, hydrangeas and peonies. But what has really thrown me is the amount of chemicals that have been stored in several locations. Pesticides and fungicides, in powder and liquid form, concentrates and ready-to-use. Some are very old and the containers are leaking. They will all require special disposal according to the rules in her city because they are poisons.

This is not uncommon with traditional gardeners who have been at it for decades. These chemicals have been an integral part of the process. They have been necessary to meet the goals of the traditional garden, which unfortunately has little connection to helping the environment. Rather the goal is to design to a particular aesthetic.

As beautiful as the outcomes of this style of gardening are, they inevitably create killing fields for birds, butterflies, native bees and other beneficial insects. These traditional gardens are part of the reason why populations of birds and butterflies have been decreasing drastically.

But now it is time to put away these poisons in favor of a gardening style that creates a home for the nature that improves our mental and physical health. It's time to design gardens with more native plants that thrive naturally and do not need additional chemicals to survive.

Design for Mass Plantings. For many of these natives, it works better for design and habitat if they appear in mass plantings. A couple of examples:

  • A prairie-like display, where there are many species together that bloom all through the growing season. Habitat gardeners sometimes use special beds or replace a portion of their lawn with such a display.
  • A garden bed filled with the same native plant, that attracts populations and serve as a food source for the larva of certain pollinators. For example, varieties of Milkweed or Butterfly Weed (Asclepias) is known as the only food source for Monarch babies.

Butterfly weed is allowed to grow freely in one of my garden beds and attracts all kinds of pollinators. Monarchs appear also to be laying eggs and successfully reproducing here. When designing, add space for native plants which are the foundation of habitat for birds, native bees, and butterflies.

Think about how you can make adjustments in your garden design to add native plants to improve habitat for birds, native bees and butterflies.

  • Do you have a garden bed that can be converted to contain native plants? It might be a bed where there is a spot where you usually place annuals. Your annuals can then be native plants. Native plants can be grown from seed or purchased as small plants just as non-natives that are usually available.
  • Do you have a space in an appropriate area in your yard that can be converted to a mini prairie-like zone? It could be an abandoned garden bed or a corner of the yard that is not used. Consider what basic preparation the area needs to contain native plants. If the garden bed was abandoned because it was too much work to maintain in the hot summer, the good news is that native plants take less maintenance because they are better suited for your area. (I notice this by having to water natives far less than other plants.)
  • Native plants include shrubs and small trees, so in your design plans feel free to think about an area that has multiple heights, perhaps small trees and shrubs in the back with shorter flowering plants in the front. Designing with native plants can be very similar to traditional design.

Start with a simple design change to see how you like the benefits, such as more birds singing and more butterflies fluttering around you. When you plant natives as a supportive habitat, you will also be able to avoid using the traditional garden poisons.

In a garden bed that contains perennials, there was a spot for annuals where I started growing native Coneflowers. These attracted many pollinators, caterpillars and, once seeds emerged, Goldfinches. When designing, select plants that support more species.

Continuous Improvement Seasonal Tips: Late Summer Early Fall

Traditional yard cleaning up is deadly for pollinators, and for bugs that birds feed on! Many invertebrates overwinter inside plant stems. When you discard the stems as part of “Fall cleanup,” you allow populations to die off in the winter. Birds need that material for spring nest building as well.

“The availability of nesting and overwintering habitat is one of the most important factors influencing populations of native bees and other beneficial insects.”

- The Xerces Society

To help populations increase in number with a supportive habitat, you will need to have a plan for dead plant stems. Of course, you do not want your yard to look like an abandoned farm. Your plan will help you find places where the dead plant material can be placed out of site, or in an appropriate spot.

I leave dead plants standing for as long as I can. Many are clipped to a different height for easy access by native bees. The ones hidden from public view in the back yard I leave for a long time. When any need to be moved, I cut low near the base and hide them under shrubs, behind trees and so on. For dead material that I remove in the summer for some reason, I can feel safe to break those up into sections for more winter hideaways.

Recommended Resource

For more on creating winter hideaways for pollinators and potential bird food, you can't do much better than this free fact sheet from the Xerces Society, the group that studies just this kind of thing.

Fact Sheet: Nesting & Overwintering Habitat For Pollinators & Other Beneficial Insects This covers how to manage your plants each season to maximize beneficial insect populations. Also includes details on providing water, using mulch safely, and creating a brush pile. Other information here will be covered in future posts.

#HabitatGardening #Gardening #BiodiversityGardening #NativePlants #Nature #Environment

This Time: How to support the butterflies that are in your garden now; Planning to support beneficial insects and birds in the Fall

What if your garden was an important part of a conservation effort? Would you feel like a hero?

The good news is that you can get involved in such an effort without much difficulty. Butterfly conservation needs as many habitat locations as possible and gardens could be a huge source of habitats.

How do we know what the problem is? The Xerces Society, which does research in this area, recently published their report State of the Butterflies in the United States. Here are a couple of highlights:

🦋 More than one-fifth of our butterflies disappeared between 2000 and 2020.

🦋 Over 40% of assessed species fell in numbers by 50% or more—and two dozen species suffered more than 90% losses.

OK, there is a serious need for action, but what can be done? According to the report:

🦋 “Butterfly habitat should be woven into all parts of our landscapes—farmland, utility corridors, solar arrays, bike paths, roadsides, natural areas, and backyard and community gardens—to provide homes for common and wide-ranging butterflies as well as rare and at-risk species.”

🦋 “To recover butterflies, we must combine efforts across towns and cities, working lands, and natural areas as well as in the linkages and stepping stones which provide connecting pathways.”

Notice the listing of “backyard and community gardens”? That could be you!

Here's a way for you to start as part of the conservation effort right away. Use a version of the organizer below. You may also need a reference (app or printed) to help you identify any butterfly you don't know. It should also include basics about their life cycle.

The goal is to support the butterflies that are already in your area. It helps you list the butterflies you see and then build the support they need in your garden. I use an example of the Tiger Swallowtails I see in my garden. I used this to make sure they had what they needed to increase their population. Below the organizer are more details of what I did to support the swallowtail populations.

Butterfly seen: Tiger Swallowtail

Caterpillars feed on (from references): Tuliptree, cherries, plum, others

Adults prefer to feed on (from references):

  • Phlox (Phlox spp.)
  • Ironweed (Vernonia spp.)
  • Joe-Pye Weed (Eutrochium purpureum)
  • Milkweed (Asclepias spp.)

In my garden they also liked these existing flowers * Zinnias * Mexican Sunflower

Water needs: Water “puddle”. More on providing water

Other needs and preferences: Resting places

I saw a Tiger Swallowtail on a flower in my garden. That triggered my research. Once I learned what the caterpillars feed on, I looked to see if those trees were around. I did find a Tuliptree in the woods near my house. The caterpillars were taken care of on that tree, so to make sure there was a continuous population, I needed to make sure the adult butterflies had what they needed. There were precious few gardens with flowers in this area. A few minutes of research revealed a list of flowers they liked.

My next steps were to plant the flowers from that list, starting gradually. Also made sure that there was shallow water available for them to get a drink and minerals. Now, every summer, more adults will survive to mate and lay eggs in the Tuliptree. The population will be sustained and possibly grow. All because I adjusted what I planted in my garden.

You can do the same! It allows you to build on what butterflies you already have to increase the population. Oh, and you get to enjoy all the butterflies.

See below for more tips and resources.

Continuous Improvement Seasonal Tips: Late Summer Early Fall

Many birds need seeds and berries in the fall. Bees and Butterflies need late-blooming flowers, too. Check your garden for these resources. Do you need more? If yes, make a note to remedy this next season by growing plants, shrubs, and/or trees to supply this need.

  • Providing berries might seem like it would be difficult. But maybe not. In my area in the Southeastern U.S., I upgraded a native plant bed with a free young Beautyberry shrub that was growing wild nearby. I used seedlings from that one to expand to more.
  • Pollinators need flowers through late summer and fall. Typically garden flowers are fizzling out by late summer. Do you have flowers that arrive in late summer and fall? In my area, these would include asters, and Goldenrod, even Passionvines (Maypops).

Recommended Resource

Pollinator-Friendly Native Plant Lists | Xerces Society Go here to find the plants you need to support butterflies, native bees, and more (in the U.S.). This page will help you find the best plants for where you live.

#HabitatGardening #BiodiversityGardening #Gardening #NativePlants #Nature #Environment

I’m Joe Wynne, a gardener since 1965 when I started as a helper for my grandmother. We maintained irises then and I still have those plants today. I’m a former Tennessee State Park Naturalist, who now focuses on making my garden a habitat for native plants and native bees, birds and butterflies. I share what I learn.

Follow me on Mastodon: https://mindly.social/deck/@JoeWynne.