New England Natural Habitat Gardening

Small Habitat Gardens of Worcester MA West

Ellen Sousa — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 11:41:00 GMT

It's tough to drive safely around here when summer gardens are at their peak! I'm sure other gardeners can relate to what I call garden rubbernecking, when you really ought to be watching the road but wow! did you see those dahlias!! and WHAT is that gorgeous tree? oooh! beautiful hanging baskets! Recently I've been carrying a camera on my travels, snapping photos of front-yard gardens and the colorful containers and window boxes that are in their full glory right now in the Worcester area. Here's a selection of some small urban gardens and container plantings that I consider habitat-friendly. In other words, they don't just look pretty, but their flowers, seeds and foliage supply food, shelter, structure and other resources to a variety of birds, beneficial insects and even amphibians that will visit an urban habitat.

First stop on my tour is downtown Spencer, where Appleblossoms has beautified its corner of Main and Mechanic St. for the past several years with these stunning window boxes.The flowering penta, impatiens and bacopa bring hummingbirds, butterflies and other pollinators right into the urban landscape, and the lush and colorful display must cheer many an early morning commuter along route 9:

Next stop is a side street just uphill from downtown, where I noticed this sidewalk retaining wall planted entirely with colorful hummingbird and butterfly-friendly annuals, including spider flower (Cleome) and blue and pink salvia:

I'm sure this garden attracts hordes of hummers all through the day. It certainly brings color and beauty to a once-elegant but now sadly neglected area of Spencer.

On to West Brookfield, where the historic town common features several large flowering containers worth a mention. This one is made up of scarlet runner bean vine (its orangey-red flowers are a hummingbird magnet) and bacopa (with tiny white flowers that bees love), plus other foliage plants that provide shelter and a resting place for tiny forms of wildlife through the summer:

I'm not sure who waters and maintains these containers, but their enormous size enables them to withstand drought much better than your average patio pot or window box, which in hot weather usually needs watering once or even twice per day. When it comes to containers, the larger the better, unless you use self-watering containers or automatic irrigation.

A few miles to the east in Worcester, here's a front-yard garden near Tatnuck Square where, instead of wasting an otherwise unused space on a bit of ailing lawn, the homeowners have filled the front with plants that flower right through the seasons, providing a small oasis of biodiversity smack in the middle of a busy city intersection:

Granted, this might be a little too 'naturalized' for some urban tastes, and the curb is overgrown with weedy, invasive stuff that most people don't want in their yards, but this garden certainly grabs the attention as you pass through, and might even encourage a ponder about the possibilities, and wasted opportunities, of the typical American front yard. There is probably more life per square foot in this garden than anywhere else in the city of Worcester!

Last but not least, I love this charming front-yard garden on a side street of Worcester's West Side. You can see that this little garden is lovingly tended, and with its colorful variety of shrubs and perennials, I'm sure it has something blooming right through the season. The hydrangea, pink garden phlox, purple coneflower, coreopsis are all great nectar plants to attract butterflies and hummingbirds, and the dense shrubbery protects songbird nests from bad weather and predators.The annuals sweet alyssum, blue salvia and orange marigold fill in the gaps for an eye-popping show of refreshing color during the dog days of summer. I'd love to live across from this gardener's house!

So...my message is that you really don't need a lot of space to invite wildlife and nature into your lives. Whether you garden on a 1/4 acre or just a porch railing, you can bring the beauty and life-sustaining qualities of plants into the smallest of garden spaces. In the process, you'll be making your little patch of the earth a little healthier, prettier, and friendlier to all those who pass...

Raising Herbert - Part 3: Free to Fly (or be Eaten)

Ellen Sousa — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 14:40:00 GMT

Good news from Turkey Hill Brook Farm! The monarch butterfly chrysalis shed its skin and finally metamorphosed into its adult butterfly form about a week after Herbert the caterpillar turned himself into a cocoon on August 8th:

I missed a few days of checking his progress on the milkweed plant, but on August 14th, you could clearly see the orange and black markings forming on the butterfly's wings inside the chrysalis:

I never saw the adult butterfly emerge, but on the evening of the 16th, I checked the leaf and Herbert was gone, and all I could see of this amazing metamorphosis was his tattered skin, showing that he had emerged and flown away!

I've seen some fresh-looking monarch butterflies flying around our butterfly gardens this week, so I'm hoping that Herbert is one of them and hasn't already been eaten by a hungry bird or other predator. As for whether he is male or female, I'll never know, but a recent garden visitor pointed out a tiny monarch butterfly caterpillar about 1/2" long and perhaps 3mm wide dining on a leaf of the same milkweed plant where Herbert did his changeover. Could Herbert have used the same plant to lay her eggs? If so, she might need a name change...maybe Hebe?

Since then, I haven't seen the second caterpillar again, so it could have been parasitized by a tiny predatorial wasp that uses the bodies of caterpillars as a host to lay their eggs, which then hatch and begin feeding on the caterpillar from the inside out. Kind of gruesome, I know, but nature isn't always pretty, and the predator/prey relationship is what keeps nature in balance. Without parasitic wasps to keep monarch caterpillar populations in check, the cats would probably eat their own milkweed food plant right out of existence. And no milkweeds? No monarchs!

Raising Herbert - Part 2

Ellen Sousa — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 15:06:00 GMT

My hubby tells me that there are thousands of readers waiting on the edge of their seats for the next update of Herbert the Monarch Butterfly Caterpillar ...is he being sarcastic, I wonder? Anyway, the good news is that Herbert is alive and well and living in chrysalis form near our wildlife pond. I moved him out of the container onto a milkweed plant outdoors because we were going away for a few days and I didn't think Herbert would travel well. Here are a couple of pics of his transformation.

Here he has fixed himself with a tiny silken thread to the bottom of a leaf and formed the shape of a "J", beginning the process of shedding his caterpillar (larval) skin and turning into a chrysalis (this is called pupating):

Two days later, he had morphed into a chrysalis, which is a cocoon from which the adult monarch butterfly will eventually emerge after about 10-14 days (if all goes well).

Hard to believe that this strange alien-looking life form with glowing yellow and black dots will turn into a gorgeous butterfly!

Stay tuned for Herbert updates! In the meantime, I am seeing more fresh-looking (ie newly hatched) adult monarch butterflies flying around our butterfly gardens, so things may be looking up for this year's southward migration from New England to Mexico!

Raising Herbert

Ellen Sousa — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 16:43:00 GMT

Meet Herbert, a Monarch butterfly caterpillar that I noticed last night in a bucket of garden trimmings headed to the compost pile. He looked feeble from being separated from his milkweed foliage, which is the only thing he can eat. I'm pretty sure he was a victim of over-zealous weeding on the outskirts of our veggie gardens, where milkweed pops up here and there, so I decided to try to save him by putting him in a "bug viewer" with some fresh milkweed leaves as a food source. This morning, he'd revived, and was actively feeding on the foliage:

Usually I wouldn't go to this much trouble to save a single caterpillar, but the Monarch butterfly species is under great threat. Devastating mudslides in the monarch's Mexican winter habitat this past year wiped out large numbers of migrants, and it remains to be seen whether their populations can rebound from these losses. In my central Massachusetts garden, which is certified as a Monarch Waystation, I have only seen 2 adult monarch butterflies all summer, and just the one caterpillar (Herbert!) so far. Usually we see them flying here by the dozen. I am anxiously watching this year's statistics from citizen scientists on how populations have fared this summer. Hopefully enough gardeners will have planted milkweed along their migration routes, because clearly these guys need all the help they can get if they have any hope of avoiding extinction.

I often hear from people who raised monarch butterfly caterpillars as children as part of their school curriculum, but this is my first attempt to hand-rear a monarch. What I do know, from observations in my own garden (where we grow 4 types of milkweed ), is that monarch caterpillars are usually found on fresh, new milkweed foliage, so I'll be picking fresh leaves every day or two to ensure that Herbert has what he needs to morph into his next phase of life, the chrysalis from which a butterfly will hopefully emerge...

Since he is over an inch long already, and monarch caterpillars usually start to shed their skin and pupate at about 2" in length, I'll try to update my blog as Herbert's transformation into a butterfly continues...

A Tale of Two Ninebarks

Ellen Sousa — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 17:09:00 GMT

Dark colored foliage is something of a rarity in the roster of plants native to New England, so I'm always interested in trying out any native plant cultivars that I find with with burgundy or dark leaves. I love the contrasting color that dark foliage brings to any style garden, so over the past several years, I've been trying out two cultivars of the native shrub Ninebark (Physocarpus opulifolius) in my central Massachusetts habitat garden.

In three words: I love 'em!

Their white snowball-like flowers are in bloom now, and have been attracting lots of swallowtail and red admiral butterflies. Below is the cultivar 'Diablo' (aka 'Diabolo'), which I picked up as a 2-gallon container plant at Lamoureux Greenhouses in Brookfield, MA (worth a trip for their tremendous selection, huge water garden displays, their quirky but cool fence made of old bicycles, and lots of other interesting stuff...) As you can see, in our rich, moist, pondside location, Diablo is deliriously happy and has grown to 12' with a spread of 20' in five years...

Unfortunately, this sized shrub may be a little too large for most garden situations, although in my experience, drier soils definitely temper Diablo's exuberance and size. Pruning for shape is not recommended for ninebarks, because part of the attraction of this shrub is its long arching stems covered in white flowers.

The good news is that a newer cultivar, 'Midnight Wine', grows to a much more manageable height for garden use: (these are a little past their peak bloom)

I bought these two Midnight Wine ninebarks as small shrubs from Bluestone Perennials 3 or 4 years ago, and they seem to be topping out at a much more controllable 3-4 feet. They enjoy the same garden conditions as their native sedge companions, which is moist soil in a mostly sunny location.

Unfortunately I've had had trouble locating this cultivar recently for my clients, so if anybody knows of a source of Midnight Wine (or a similar short ninebark cultivar), please let me know!

For butterfly gardeners, ninebark is proving to be a decent host plant for several caterpillar species in my garden. Last fall, I noticed caterpillars pupating on ninebark leaves (below), which they were rolling together over themselves to form a wintertime shelter. As the leaves fell, these little cocoons fell to the ground where they hibernated til spring. Research revealed the identity of these cats as the tufted thyatirid (Pseudothyatira cymatophoroides), a type of moth native to New England's woodlands. They look like cutworms, but they are not known to be destructive to garden plants. It's always fun to put a name to the new species of wildlife we discover, and it's always encouraging to watch biodiversity on the increase in our backyard habitat.

Should I Pull This Plant?

Ellen Sousa — Fri, 14 May 2010 15:25:00 GMT

I hear it all the time. "Should I pull this plant? I'm not sure if I like it..." The answer usually is....it depends. I have some clients who are passionate about restoring their landscape with native plants in order to help rebuild lost or damaged local ecosystems. For them, the answer is easy. If it's not native, yes, pull it up and replace with a native plant. But what if your property already has many nice (and expensive) landscape plants and you're not sure whether they're worth keeping? As a habitat gardener, you can decide whether to keep or remove a plant by answering a few key questions:

- is it listed as an invasive plant in Massachusetts? If yes, definitely remove it to make room for native plants, who may be capable of recolonizing the area. Or, replace it with a native plant suitable for your garden conditions. Invasive non-native plants are a major threat to biodiversity and environmental health. Even if you don't see a plant behaving aggressively in your own yard, many invasive plants are spread by birds eating their berries or seeds and pooping them into nearby natural areas, where they quickly form colonies that crowd out the native plants essential to local wildlife. See IPANE (Invasive Plants of New England) for the plants that are invasive in New England.

- is it healthy without needing fertilization or regular watering? If so, it's well suited to the spot it's in and won't need your constant fussing to keep it looking good.

-Does it attract birds, butterflies or any other forms of wildlife? Do its flowers provide nectar and pollen for butterflies, bees, hummingbirds and other pollinators to use as a food source? Does it form nutritious berries, seeds, nuts or cones that are an important food source for many birds? Does the plant's foliage feed caterpillars and other insects that most birds rely upon to feed their young? Does its structure and foliage provide shelter, protection and nesting sites for many birds and other wildlife?

If the plant supplies at least 2 or 3 of these last few attributes, it is wildlife-friendly and you should probably keep it. Its presence supports declining populations of birds and pollinators who help keep our environment in balance.

On our property, we have several areas planted with Cotoneaster, (right) which is a low shrub often used as a groundcover planting in New England lanscapes. It's not native here, and it's not what I would call a spectacular plant, but I have never considered removing it because it has its benefits...it thrives along a brick walkway in dry, hot blazing sun without any care or attention from us except for a bit of occasional weeding. Its dense twiggy branching structure, especially when it's pruned, is a safe place for overwintering songbirds to dive into when they visit our winter bird feeders. Its tiny pink flowers are a magnet to spring pollinators, who are in turn an abundant food source for migrating birds newly arrived from the south. In the fall, pollinated cotoneaster flowers form large red berries, which although I have never seen birds eating them, the berries persist right through winter and disappear in about March, so some hungry creature is eating them when food is scarce!

For a foundation or walkway planting, you can prune cotoneaster into an attractive low hedge that satisfies even the most formal-style gardeners. My own hubby, who loves a crisp, clean Zen-garden style of landscaping, that often - um - clashes with my own more natural style of gardening, loves our cotoneaster hedge because it gives him that controlled look he craves while satisfying my requirement that a plant in such a visible location should not just look good, but also support the wildlife we invite into our backyard habitat.

Hunger Moon

Ellen Sousa — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 14:35:00 GMT

Good news for gardeners! Yesterday's full moon, on the last day of February, means that spring is in sight! New England's native Americans, who had a name for each full moon as a way of tracking the calendar, called February's full moon the Snow, or Hunger Moon. This time of year, food must have been tough to come by when you depend upon your natural surroundings to survive.

It's also the toughest time of year for the birds that spend winters in New England. Many seed plants are buried under snow, and the tastiest berries were eaten months ago from the winterberry hollies, dogwoods and wild cherries. Insect populations are at their lowest, making it tough for woodpeckers and other insectivores to keep themselves going til the bugs of spring start to arrive.

Remember this time of year when you plan your gardens. Some shrubs have berries that taste awful until they have been through a few freeze and thaw cycles, meaning that birds won't eat them unless they are starving. My Virginia Rose still has most of its berries (hips), but in the past few snowy weeks, I have finally seen birds picking at them. In some years, birds don't touch our flowering crabapples until late winter, when the cardinals or early arriving cedar waxwings pick them clean. Strangely, in some years these berries disappear well before Christmas...

And try to keep as many of your seed plants standing into winter as you can, instead of hacking your perennial beds to the ground in the fall. Especially if you live in an urban area with few natural food sources, your garden's seed heads poking out of the snow might mean the difference between life or death for some of our hungry feathered friends!

Above is a northern junco picking at the seed heads of Agastache foeniculum during a snowstorm. Juncos breed in northern New England and Canada during the summer, but they migrate south to New England to spend the winter! They are cute but tough little birds that rely on the seeds of goldenrod, asters and other native flowering plants to keep them fed all winter.

So look around your yard and ask yourself. Do your local birds have natural food sources to keep them going during the Hunger Moon? Feeders are great for supplementing natural food sources, but they often attract the "wrong kind of birds" and squirrels, and keeping them stocked can get expensive. Invest in some bird-friendly plants and shrubs, and you'll feed birds, for free, for years to come.

Microclimates...or Garden Hotspots

Ellen Sousa — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 19:36:00 GMT

Despite a few days above freezing this week, most of our central MA farm is still under a thick blanket of snow. As I look out my front window, I can see the farm across the valley from us, completely free of snow. Why is that? It's all about topography and the angle of the sun as it moves across the sky. Our farm is perched low on the north-facing slope of a river valley. The low angle of the winter sun passing across the southern sky means that this time of year, many areas are in the shade for most of the day. Cooler air also settles at the bottom of the valley, keeping temperatures a few degrees lower than the rest of town. The farm across the valley is on a south-facing slope, and their fields are perfectly positioned to capture the sun's heat all day, melting their snow more quickly. It's no surprise that apples were once grown on that side of the valley, but not on this side. It's too cold!

Melting snow can tell us a lot about our garden conditions. Watch where the snow melts first in your yard in the spring, and you'll learn where the warmer microclimates are. Use them to your advantage to grow heat and sun-loving plants such as tomatoes and flowering plants that will sulk in a colder spot.

The back wall of our garage faces south, trapping the sun's heat on sunny days and releasing it slowly overnight. The wall also protects plants from cold north winds, keeping the area quite warm and sheltered. This is the only area of my garden where I can grow Mediterranean herbs that need hot, blazing sun to thrive. A mulch of pea-stone gravel also absorbs the heat, warming the ground faster in spring and helping the crowns of plants from rotting in my high-moisture soil.

So watch the snow as it melts in your gardens, and figure out your garden hot spots!

Goat's Beard (Aruncus dioicus)

Ellen Sousa — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 20:19:00 GMT

If you're a New England gardener looking for a large-impact shade perennial that blooms in early summer, you can't go wrong with Goat's Beard (Aruncus dioicus). Perfect for a partly-shaded woodland edge, its creamy white flowers are especially striking contrasted with a darker background:

Native to the rich woods of Pennsylvania southward, Goat's Beard grows quickly in spring from a woody crown, with flowering stems that can reach 6' in moist soil. Flowering in late June in my zone 5b central Massachusetts garden, Goat's Beard seems to do best with about half a day of morning sunshine. It usually takes a few years to get established, but once mature, it fills a good size area, so give it plenty of room.

Don't confuse the native Goat's Beard to the commonly planted Astilbe, which is also sometimes called Goatsbeard. Astilbe is much shorter than the native Aruncus, growing only about 2'.

Goat's Beard is a good plant for New England habitat gardens...its flowers are an absolute magnet to hordes of beneficial pollinating insects, and its long seed tassels persist well into winter. Don't these winter seed stems look like a nice meal for birds?

Aruncus dioicus is dioecious, which means that there are male and female plants. Only the female plants produce the seed heads, and their flowers are slightly showier than the males, so plant several Goat's Beard at a time to ensure that you have at least one female plant. Even if you are lucky enough to find this plant for sale in a nursery, you'll probably get some blank stares if you ask what sex they are! In central MA, this plant is available at Bigelow Nurseries in Northborough as well as Garden in the Woods in Framingham.

Great Backyard Bird Count

Ellen Sousa — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:46:00 GMT

What are you doing this weekend? Can you spare a few minutes of bird watching to help scientists understand our wild birds better? Be a citizen scientist and contribute data about the winter bird populations in your region of the United States. Scientists use the information to learn how birds are adapting to environmental changes, and to answer puzzling questions about why bird populations fluctuate in areas from year to year.

Here's all you need to do. Simply make a note (and number) of the birds you see this weekend between February 12th and 15th. Enter your results online on the form at the Great Backyard Bird Count website. You have until March 1st to enter your results.

For a list of birds you are most likely to see in your region, click here for a checklist. If you need help identifying the birds you see in your yard, use visit the Online Bird Guide.

Here's a shot of one of our winter bird gardens from last January. Look carefully and you can spot at least 3 birds in this photo:

So, look out your windows this weekend at the trees, and write down which birds you see. Even better, take a hike in the woods with a digital camera and a field guide to birds. Log your tallies online, andsubmit your best photos to the Photo Gallery. And, don't forget to check the GBBC results page later to see which birds your neighbors also saw!

Seed catalog time

Ellen Sousa — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 15:57:00 GMT

It's February! With apologies to Andy Williams, I have to say that February starts the Most Wonderful Time of the Year for New England gardeners... we are but a hop, skip and a jump from spring now, and within the next month or two, it'll be time to set up the cold frame and sow cold-season seeds outside, as well a start a few flats of flowering annuals indoors. I like to plant hundreds of annuals each year in various areas of my garden, and the only way I can afford such indulgence is to grow them myself from seed.

But first, I need to decide what I'm growing this year. That's the fun part! Our coffee tables are strewn with thick magazine-style seed catalogs which have been arriving fast and furious in the past few weeks....nothing is better than sitting in front of a roaring fire on a cold February day, leafing through beautifully illustrated catalogs, planning our 2010 vegetable and flower gardens and putting together the annual seed order!

The Renee's Garden catalog is particularly scrumptious this year, with wonderful photos and some great specialty seed collections designed for new gardeners, including "A Hummingbird Garden", "Seeds for a Butterfly Garden", and "A Native American Three Sisters Garden" to introduce you to the age-old concept of working with nature to grow healthy plants and crops.

I am definitely going to try growing the newly available yellow Zinnia 'Profusion' (shown above on the cover of Park's Seed catalog). You cannot beat Profusion as a short (12") zinnia that blooms its head off all summer for so little effort. I've used it in containers to bring butterflies up close to our patio, and it's also excellent in garden beds to fill bare spots with pizzazz. Pictured below is Zinnia 'Profusion' Apricot:

This year, I've decided to extend my "locavorous" shopping strategy and buy all my seeds from New England-based seed suppliers. As a locavore, I try to buy as much of our food from local farmers in order to support New England's agricultural industries as well as help protect our region's remaining open spaces for local, sustainable food production and habitat for declining wildlife species. Buying from suppliers who grow their plants in the tough climate of New England also means that their seeds should do well in my cold central Massachusetts valley garden.

So.....Turkey Hill Brook Farm's 2010 seed orders will go to......(drum roll please)

Johnny's Selected Seeds, which is an employee-owned company based in Maine, offering good quality vegetable, cover crop, herb, and flower seeds. They are a member of the Safe Seed Initiative, meaning that they do not buy or sell genetically engineered or modified seeds or plants.

Select Seeds in Union, CT, specializing in old-fashioned fragrant flowers, flowering vines, and hard-to-find heirloom annuals and perennials. Their seed collections include butterfly habitat gardens, hummingbird gardens and an old-fashioned fragrance garden that looks and sounds very enticing!

John Scheepers in Bantam, CT - nicely illustrated catalog for home vegetable gardeners, containing recipes, lots of interesting and useful garden tips, plus seeds for fragrant flowers and collections for habitat flower gardens.

So let the 2010 Garden Season begin! If you're looking for me this weekend, I'll be on the couch with a couple of sleeping dogs and a glass of wine, flipping through catalogs, making my list and checking it twice! I'll blog later on about what seeds I ordered and why.

Special Note: I have no business relationship with any of these companies other than as a happy customer. If you know of any other New England-based seed companies that you think belong on my supplier list, let me know!

Guest Posting at ConservationGardening.com

Ellen Sousa — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:42:00 GMT

As some of you know, the past few months have been a challenge for me, slowly recovering from a badly broken leg, but the silver lining of my recovery is that I've had lots of time to read, write and spend time in cyberspace. Along the way, I've 'met' some great people who share my passion for earth-friendly gardening. Carole Brown, who has a website and blog called Ecosystem Gardening, invited me to showcase our habitat garden in a guest posting this week.

Click here to read my guest posting about our habitat landscaping on ConservationGardening.com!

Thank you Carole - I am honored!

Where are the Monarchs?

Ellen Sousa — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 20:25:00 GMT

Where oh where have the Monarch butterflies gone? I heard this question many times this past summer. Mostly, it seems the weather was to blame, at least in New England. Butterflies need sun and warmth in order to fly, and they need to fly to locate Milkweed plants to lay their eggs. Their wings are like little solar chargers, soaking up the sun to fuel their flight. This year's cold and rainy weather in New England provided few opportunities for female Monarchs to fly to areas containing Milkweed plants (Asclepias species), which is the only plant that Monarch butterfly caterpillars can use as a food source.

The good news is that this could be just a regional blip. According to Journey North, a project that documents Monarch numbers during their fall and spring migration, in the past week, Monarchs have been seen crossing into northern Mexico in numbers that have not been seen in years. Hopefully this means that although Monarchs were scarce in New England this year, the weather simply kept them away.

But the weather isn't the only problem affecting Monarch populations. Illegal logging in the forested regions of central Mexico, where Monarchs make their winter home, has reduced the winter habitat available to those butterflies who survive the long flight south. And according to research at the University of Georgia, since 1976 the female-to-male ratio of Monarch butterflies shows a major decline east of the Rockies. Because females can lay up to 400 eggs over the course of their lifetime, any reduction in their numbers is troubling for population stability.

Researchers are not sure why female populations are declining, but as gardeners we can all help Monarch populations by planting Milkweeds in our yards and gardens to provide food for Monarch caterpillars. If you think they're weedy looking, think again. There are several types of Milkweed that will grow in New England, and whatever your conditions, there's a beautiful variety suitable for your garden.

Well-drained, sunny spot? Just perfect for the neon-orange Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa), shown below with our Farm Tour Director Speck):

If your soil contains some moisture, Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) is a good choice. It's tolerant of drier soils, too. Besides being the sole food source for Monarch caterpillars, Milkweed flowers contain huge amounts of sweet nectar that all butterflies (not just Monarchs) love. Below, a Great Spangled Fritillary butterfly sips nectar from Swamp Milkweed flowers:

If you have a larger property with areas that you can let "go wild", Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) has gorgeous ball-shaped pink flowers with an intoxicating honey scent. Common Milkweed grows naturally in waste places and old fields in New England, so who knows, if you have an area that you can leave unmowed, it may just pop up on its own...

Although not native to New England, Scarlet Milkweed or Bloodflower (A. curassavica)is a worthwhile annual to include in flower beds and patio pots. Its flowers bloom in a striking red, orange and yellow:

The first year we planted Scarlet Milkweed in a container on our patio, almost immediately a Monarch butterfly found it and laid her eggs. To our delight, two of them hatched, and one climbed onto a nearby trellis to start its transformation into a butterfly:

Below is the chrysalis that eventually morphed into a brand new adult Monarch butterfly:

How do they do it?
Scientists and naturalists have always been fascinated by the complex life cycle of the Monarch butterfly, but new research published in Science magazine is showing just how these tiny creatures are able to navigate their way 2000 miles to the same small region of Mexican forest each fall to spend the winter. It turns out that Monarchs have a type of GPS navigation system and circadian clock built right into their antennae, which allows them to use the sun to guide their travel as well as to correctly adjust their direction based on the time of day. Amazing!

Remember, no Milkweed, no Monarchs. Let's help these unique winged wonders survive for future generations to enjoy by growing Milkweeds!

Nature's Highlights (Frost in the Garden)

Ellen Sousa — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 14:21:00 GMT

Anybody who has taken one of my classes knows that I always harp on about NOT doing the traditional fall cleanup of the garden...instead of scalping your perennial beds to the ground in fall and removing most of the dead plant material, I persuade my students to leave plant stems standing right into the winter, and delay the cleanup til the following spring. Seed heads provide valuable forage for those birds who spend the winter here, and the leaf litter, hollow plant stems and decaying plant materials all provide plenty of opportunities for beneficial insects to hibernate through the winter in some form. Remember, many of those bugs are are the superheroes of the insect world, who will wake up and start patrolling for pests starting in early spring! And hungry birds picking around your gardens in the dead of winter will appreciate those insect eggs, caterpillars and other protein-rich insect morsels hiding in your garden beds.

But sometimes, it's not about the wildlife at all. In summer, it might be the colors of a palm-sized zinnia flower or the scent of a rosebush in full bloom that stops you in your tracks to marvel with all your senses. Late fall might not have such flamboyance, but it has its own highlights. Early in the morning, seed heads, touched by an early morning frost or dusted with little snow caps, might give you pause to stop for a moment and take in an unexected but quite lovely view of the familiar. And in this crazy world we live in, dictated by schedules and commitments, any pause to consider nature has got to be a good thing...

Above: Wild Bergamot (Monarda fistulosa) flowers tipped by frost on a cold October morning

Backyard Habitat in Autumn...part two

Ellen Sousa — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:18:00 GMT

Nature continues to take center stage in central Massachusetts this week, with American Beech foliage stealing the show:

Our habitat pond is a relaxing place to drink in the view and look for frogs, before they dig themselves into the pond's muddy bottom for the winter:

Ornamental shrubs against a backdrop of mature trees creates a layered look on a steep north-facing slope:

I've blogged about summer's "profusion vases" before, but the fall has its own flower bounty...my husband's creation of New England Aster, Goldenrod and grass stems lights up the breezeway:

Asters, Goldenrod and 'Chocolate' Eupatorium are still blooming, despite being hit by several frosts now. Their flowers continue to provide late-season nectar for whatever pollinators are still active...

Backyard Habitat in Autumn

Ellen Sousa — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 16:42:00 GMT

As any New England 'leaf peeper' will tell you, there's a unique beauty to the annual decay of our natural surroundings. Our Massachusetts backyard, landscaped as a natural habitat, takes on a whole new life in the autumn, when berries ripen, plant stems are loaded down with seeds and the songbirds that eat them, and foliage changes to its fall plumage of earth tones. I always love the contrast of the earliest changing plants (usually ferns) which are a harbinger of the symphony of color still to come:

Below: Possum-haw Viburnum (Viburnum nudum) berries are starting their transformation from green to pink to purple. They will continue to ripen into the winter, providing valuable food for our winter birds. Viburnum is a shrub with multi-season interest - in the months to come, their leaves will also take on a gorgeous burnished tone...

Gardens are now a medley of reds, browns, yellows and everything in between:

Below: Poison Ivy (Toxicodendron radicans) climbing up a pine tree. Did you know that poison ivy is one of the best native vines for birds? Yes, there IS something good about poison ivy!! Its white berries are a food source for more than 50 species of birds. But poison ivy is one plant I would NEVER recommend planting in gardens. Its foliage and stems cause a severe allergic reaction in most people that touch it...even if you seem to be immune now, you can lose immunity at any point in your life. This is not a plant to encourage in your yard, but if it pops up in an out of the way area where people or pets do not travel, why not let it climb up a tree and provide food and perhaps even nesting for your local birds? It will reward you with its flaming red, orange and yellow foliage:

The View from the Porch: Great Blue Heron

Ellen Sousa — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 15:29:00 GMT

This time of year, we spend a lot of time on the back porch. Skies are clear, temperatures are comfy once again and the mosquitoes are gone! We sit with friends, laugh at the dogs, feed raisins to our chickens and watch birds crashing around the gardens as they forage on seed stems of old plants.

But when the dogs are indoors and all is quiet, that's when we see the Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) flying towards our pond. He's kind of hard to miss, looking like a giant pterodactyl flapping its enormous wings as it lands:

Standing 4' tall with a 6' wingspan, the Great Blue Heron is the largest heron in North America, and we are always thrilled to see one visiting our small farm pond to hunt for frogs and fish. I can't say the same for my horses though...when the heron flies directly over them as he lands or takes off, those nervous horses dive for the safety of their stalls!

The heron always uses the same landing strip (the road to our barn) where he first checks out the scene to make sure everything's safe:

From there, he makes a quick flyover to the other side of the pond where he stands silently in the shallows, like a living sculpture, waiting to spear an unsuspecting frog or catfish for dinner.

Great Blue Herons will visit small backyard ponds and water features, which does not make them popular with pond owners who raise expensive Koi and Goldfish! A small, shallow water feature full of brightly colored exotic fish is like laying out an all-you-can-eat buffet for herons, raccoons and neighborhood cats. But, in a natural ecosystem backyard pond containing deep pools, aquatic plants and other places for fish and frogs to hide, the Heron is simply part of the food chain in action. In our pond, they mostly eat the abundant Catfish, minnows and frogs, but they also eat mice, snakes and some insects, so they can be useful in keeping other undesireable populations under control.

We've noticed that our heron usually visits early in the morning, when the farm is quiet. Our 3 dogs have a zero tolerance for large forms of wildlife on the property, so they usually run the Heron out of town when they see him! But on a still evening, we might get lucky and see the Great Blue Heron at work in our pond...and witness nature in action. All that from the back porch!

Floppy Plants

Ellen Sousa — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:32:00 GMT

My last blog entry lamented about the cold, wet summer of 2009, in which many plants grew so tall from all the moisture that they fell right over, creating a huge mess in many of our gardens...

Large plantings of Bee Balm and Obedient Plant on the pond banks collapsed in a tangle, their flowers smothered. So much for my lush summer pondside color display and all that nectar for the Ruby-throated Hummingbirds! And there is nothing more sad than beautiful peonies flattened by heavy rain. Looking on the bright side, my husband (who has a hidden talent in flower arranging!) tells me that the longer stems were great for big flower vases. But what can a gardener do about floppy plants?

It's OK to pinch plants!
Staking plants is definitely an option, but somehow that seems like too much work to me. Not to mention, the plants still might flop over. Gardener's Supply sells plastic stem supports (kind of like horticultural girdles) which seem to work, but they are expensive for those on a budget. Next year, I plan to pre-emptively prune some of the worst offenders on this summer's flop list. In late spring, after the plants have emerged and are between 4-8" tall, shear or pinch their stems closer to the the ground, leaving some foliage intact to help the plant rebound quickly. Each stem then sprouts multiple stems from from where it was cut, resulting in slightly smaller (but more numerous) flowers and sturdier stems less likely to fall over later in the year.

Below: the flowering stems of Sedum (Autumn Stonecrop) toppled over:

Below: Sedum when grown in half-decentsoil with some moisture, benefits from an early season stem pinching tokeep the plant stems from toppling from the sheer weight of its blooms.Autumn Stonecrop is a late-season pollinator magnet, and as long as itgets some sun, will grow in most New England garden soils. It usuallyneeds no pruning at all in poor,dry soils, making it a goodlow-maintenance choice for a dry roadside planting or an area with hotblazing sun.

You might be asking yourself, why pinch plants back if the aim is to have a natural garden? Plants growing in the wild seem to stay upright without any help from us. But take a look an old field blooming with wild flowers and notice how dense the vegetation is. There's no room for flopping, because the crowd of plants hold each other up. And chances are, the soil in that old field is not as rich as your typical garden bed, so plants do not grow as tall. So if you are trying to achieve a meadow effect of your own, plant the area as thickly as you can to allow plants to support themselves on their own. And don't over-fertilize. A little compost on occasion is all a natural-style garden should ever need to keep itself thriving.

Plants suitable for pinching to control height:

The following plants will grow sturdier, more heavily branched stems (and more flowers!) if you cut their stems back early in the season:

New England Aster
New York Aster
Taller Sedum varieties (Autumn Joy, Blackjack, etc)
Bee Balm
Ironweed
Coneflower
Eupatorium
Helianthus
Goldenrod
Heliopsis
Boltonia
Helenium
Leucanthemum
Chrysanthemum
Dendranthema
Lobelia
Hibiscus
Obedient Plant (Physostegia virginiana)

Some plants, such as peonies, are just not suitable for cutting back to prevent collapse. Your only option for the larger flowering peonies is to either situate them where their heavy flowers can cascade freely over the edge of a wall during bloom time, or stake the stems and keep the plants rigid using peony rings. Horticulturalist and plant author Tracy DiSibato-Aust also suggests removing the first terminal flower bud on peonies to prevent the weight of the large first flower from pulling the remaining plant down.

In a large scale landscape design, pinching back your plants is probably too labor-intensive, but for most of us with smaller garden areas or vignettes of natural habitat, pinching plants can keep a habitat garden tidier and more manicured, something your neighbors will appreciate if you live in the 'burbs.

Lessons from a Wet Summer

Ellen Sousa — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 14:15:00 GMT

Anybody who gardens in New England will agree that this year has been a tough year for growing things. A rainy spring that continued right through July, then something like one week of heat and humidity, and now we're straight into fall. What happened to summer? And where are my tomatoes?

While New England weather has always been changeable, what we're seeing now is the effects of climate change, and as gardeners, we need to get used to it. More severe weather patterns, wetter summers, and crazy swings of temperatures during all seasons now seem to be the norm rather than the occasional blip on the weather map.

How can gardeners adapt? To be honest, adapting is the essence of being a successful gardener. Observing what works, what doesn't work. Picking your battles and learning from your mistakes. If a plant doesn't thrive, either move it somewhere else or move on to something more appropriate for your conditions. Accept that nature usually has the final word.

So what worked and what didn't here in our cold (z4/5a) north-facing valley farm in central MA? In our raised veggie beds, our leafy crops did fairly well as long as they got a little sun at the start of the season. Onions, garlic, carrots, arugula, radishes, leeks, spinach and lettuce were all bumper crops, most likely because for these crops you want to encourage green leafy growth rather than flowers. My basil plants took a while to get going, but a rare warm sunny spell in early July gave them a kick start and I have had 4 great harvests. My freezer is now full of small portions of homemade pesto, which will bring a welcome whiff of summer into our cold winter evenings.

Cherry tomatoes (below) seemed unbothered by rain clouds, and we had a decent harvest of those. But our late (large) tomatoes were a bust. Those huge green tomatoes simply rotted on the vine for lack of heat and sunshine. Peppers were small and their "heat" only lukewarm. Next year I might just give up on growing the big toms and peppers and buy them from our local farmstand. My beans never even germinated (too much rain), but our squash and cucumbers provided a small harvest, thanks to an occasional reprieve from the rain when pollinators were able to do their job. Potato plants grew tall and provided a decent harvest, although many tubers were small and could have used an extra month of summer heat to grow to full size.

As for flowers, I watched sadly as beautiful white peonies were flattened by heavy rains and my Gateway Joe Pye Weed flopped over into the pond, its flowers drowned. The Bee Balm collapsed under the weight of the rainfall and took down most other plants around it. Very disappointing to the Ruby-throated Hummingbirds who rely on all that sugary nectar to fuel their high-octane lifestyles. Next year, I'll pinch back the growing stems of some of these plants early in the season to control their height and prevent these kinds of garden disasters.

Plants that stood tall...

In spite of the weather, a few of the flowering plants in our gardens stood out from the crowd. Our 4 year old patch of Virginia Rose (Rosa virginiana) stood unperturbed from the rain and produced its finest floral show since we planted it 4 years ago. Garden Phlox (Phlox paniculata) also stayed upright despite the wind and torrential rain battering its snowball flowers. The flowers were a little smaller than usual, but their fragrance was still strong and I saw butterflies and hummingbirds visit them frequently. This season was very tough on butterflies (who need sunny warm weather to complete their life cycles), so the nectar-rich Phlox (both white and hot pink varieties) was welcomed by many winged creatures right into September this year.

One plant that grew to monster proportions yet still remained upright was Wild Bergamot (Monarda fistulosa). Shown below (back left) is a single plant that I put in last year. Obviously it likes these conditions...in the wild it usually grows to about 2-3' but this plant grew to at least 7' without a single stem flopping over!

A close relative of the more common Bee Balm (M. didyma), Wild Bergamot has pink flowers that attract every pollinator in the neighborhood, including hummingbirds. Like Bee Balm, Bergamot plants tend to mildew as the summer goes on, but with the Wild Bergamot, I am finding that the ghostly grey-tinted foliage actually looks nice contrasted with nearby plants later in the season. I don't need to resist the urge to cut down the mildewed stems the way I always do with Bee Balm...

Black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia) laughed at the rain and clouds and bloomed their cheerful heads off right into September this year, without flopping once. This plant is one of the most reliable of flowering plants for New England gardens, requiring little irrigation and fuss, and its flowers provide a huge bounty of nectar for pollinators and seeds for hungry birds trying to bulk up for winter.

Low-growing plants with small flowers such as groundcover Sedum, Coralbells (Heuchera), Running Foamflower (Tiarella cordifolia) and Lamb's Ear also enjoyed the summer's extra moisture, producing lush new growth and spreading by leaps and bounds. Although not native to our region, Lamb's Ear (Stachys byzantina) is a great nectar plant for bees and its soft feltlike foliage makes an excellent groundcover that contrasts well with just about everything else in the garden. I usually cut flowering stems down after blooming, to allow the remaining foliage to fill in and and keep plants tidier (as a non-native plant, they are not a significant food source for local birds so I do not let them go to seed).

Plants with less weighty flowers such as native grasses, sedges and rushes also fared well and stayed upright through torrential rains. Grasses and grass-like plants are great "filler" plants for your flower beds, instantly adding a natural effect to your garden. They are also an essential food source for the caterpillars of many butterfly and moth species, and their seed heads feed many birds.

As for the plants that flopped over, next year, I plan to pre-emptively prune some of the worst offenders on this summer's flop list. My next blog entry will discuss pinching back plants to control height prevent them from falling over later in the year.

Above: Lambs' Ear and Black-eyed Susans thrived during this year's wet summer, growing lush without flopping over. Tall varieties of Sedum ('Black Jack' with the pink flowers at left) when grown in rich soil, benefits from having its stems pinched back early in the season to create a sturdier plant that doesn't fall over from the weight of its blooms.

The good news is that the rain and cool weather made it a great year for newly installed plants, shrubs and trees. I was able to divide perennials and plant new gardens for clients right into August, when normally I wouldn't consider either of these past late June. Most new shrubs and trees responded to the extra rainfall by putting out healthy new growth and establishing good root systems. And for habitat gardeners who allow their plants to set seed to feed the birds, it was an excellent year for increasing your plant populations through self-sowing plants.

Reseeders running rampant

Although weeds were a real problem for gardeners this year, the wet conditions did provide excellent conditions for existing plants to reseed themselves. New England Aster, Swamp Milkweed, Butterfly Milkweed, Boneset, Liatris, Helianthus, Globe Thistle, Yarrow, Goldenrod, Joe Pye Weed, Solomon's Seal, Evening Primrose, Purple Coneflower, Agastache, Sweet Alyssum and Foxglove, to name a few, all responded to this summer's consistent moisture by germinating here and there across our zone 5a garden of mixed woods, lawn and fields. Many of them I will be able to share with friends, family and my garden coaching clients. I'll move others to a suitable spot elsewhere on the farm.

Reseeding lets you strike a great deal with your local birds and plants. You just leave the flowers alone after they bloom, allowing them to turn brown and set seed, the birds will feast on the seeds, and excrete them elsewhere in your yard. New plants for almost no effort!

Above: This self-seeded Boneset (Eupatorium perfoliatum) grew to almost shrublike proportions from this year's constant rain. In areas with full sun, their stems did not flop over at all, but some stems collapsed on plants in shadier areas. Boneset flowers feed hordes of tiny pollinators during their long blooming cycle.

2009...the summer that nearly wasn't

Because they need the heat from the sun to live and fly, summer butterfly populations were noticeably low in our yard (which is a message I am hearing from other butterfly gardeners up and down the east coast). Even though we grow many different Milkweed species here, we saw very few Monarch butterflies or their caterpillars, compared to previous years. Time will tell how this year's weather will impact their populations, but hopefully our little Monarch way-station will have nourished a few of them on their long journeys south. Eastern US Monarch populations are at risk due to habitat loss in their southern home (a forested mountain range in central Mexico), so they need all the help they can get from us gardeners along their migration path.

Butterflies are back!

But now that September has brought some sunny weather and warm days, our butterfly populations seem to be on the rebound. Last week I found a single Black Swallowtail caterpillar on my self-sown Dill plants (picture below) and today I noticed a Monarch butterfly. Yellow Bear caterpillars (the juvenile form of the white day-flying Virginian Tiger Moth) have been spotted on our front porch, as well as autumn's familiar Wooly Bear (the caterpillar of the Isabella Tiger Moth).

Dragonflies are again cruising open areas on the farm, gobbling up the season's last mosquito populations to fuel their migration. And thanks to the ever-abundant Goldenrod, Boltonia and New England Asters, late season pollinators bulking up for winter still have plenty of nectar and pollen, which means good seed supplies for birds this winter.

Still to bloom on the farm this gardening season are Eupatorium 'Chocolate' (Eupatorium rugosum) and the single pink daisy-like Korean Mums (Dendranthema rubella), which will give me a late blast of color in my autumn-fading gardens, as well as a rare nectar source for whatever pollinators are still alive next month. My own gardening season is over, due to a bad accident early this month that will keep me from gardening or riding for some time. For now, I can only sit back and watch life unfold in our backyard habitat. Not a bad way to recuperate!

White Wood Aster...the New England "Grow-anywhere" Plant

Ellen Sousa — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 16:57:00 GMT

As a garden coach, I am often asked the question "What can I plant in dry shady garden conditions?" Most of New England's landscape is dominated by trees (and if you don't believe me, look down when you fly across most of Massachusetts...mostly what you see are trees and water!), and gardening in the shade of a dense tree canopy can be a major challenge to gardeners here. Limited light in summer means less flamboyant blooms, and evergreen trees (which soak up water from the surrounding soil) leave little moisture for understory plants to grow. Peek inside a dense Hemlock or Pine forest and you'll see very little undergrowth.

So what plants do thrive in dense evergreen shade in New England? More than you might think. Once again, let nature be your guide, and take a look around nearby natural areas and see what's growing already. Use a good field guide so you can rule out any of the invasive non-native plants (eg Garlic Mustard!) that are muscling their way into our forest ecosystems. In cold areas such as north-facing hills with evergreen Hemlock trees, you'll probably notice different types of Ferns, as well as low berry-producing groundcovers such as Wintergreen (Gaultheria species) and Partridgeberry (Michella repens). You might be lucky enough to see the Massachusetts state flower Trailing Arbutus aka Mayflower (Epigaea repens), and soak up the jasmine-like fragrance of its blooms. In drier upland woods, you may see Canada Columbine (Aquilegia canadensis), Lowbush Blueberry (Vaccinium angustifolium), or Canada Mayflower (Maianthemum canadense) with their diminutive but not unattractive blooms. All of these plants are garden-worthy for a naturalized "edge" garden, but a little hard to find at nurseries.

One native plant that I see growing in just about every growing condition in Massachusetts is White Wood Aster (Eurybia divaricatus). On our property, it even grows (and blooms!) at the base of an old Hemlock tree in bone-dry conditions and heavily-compacted soil from our 3 dogs chasing each other round and around the tree! (see below):

Granted, its blooms are somewhat sparse under these inhospitable conditions, but the fact that it returns each year to bloom again is certainly a testament to this plant's iron constitution! White Wood Aster does grow more luxuriously in areas with some moisture and sun, and has recently started popping up on the partly-shaded edges of our stream, where Jewelweed, Boneset, Goldenrod and Swamp Aster are also thriving. I always welcome these garden "volunteers", because they are nature's way of telling me what plants are suitable for the unique conditions in my yard. If they seed themselves in an inconvenient spot, just dig them up and move them somewhere more suitable. Your shade garden will quickly fill with color and life!

White Wood Aster is an excellent plant for a natural woodland "edge" to link your lawn with nearby woods. Pollinators find ample supplies of nectar and pollen in the aster's pale late summer blooms, and if you leave their seedheads standing into winter, birds can feast on the numerous seeds produced late in the season.

So if you are looking for a tough plant to add a little pizzazz to shady areas of your garden, give White Wood Aster a try. You won't find it at the big-box stores or the supermarket (yet!) but it is now readily available from nurseries selling native plants. In central MA I have seen it sold at Bigelow Nurseries in Northborough, Project Native in the Berkshires and the nursery at Framingham's Garden in the Woods. It is easy to grow from seed collected from wild plants. Or, if you see it growing in one of your neighbor's yards, ask them if you can dig up a seedling or two. Chances are, they'll have plenty to spare, and you only need one or two plants to start your own populations of this native plant.