New England Natural Habitat Gardening

NWF and ScottsMiracle-Gro? No!

Ellen Sousa — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 18:56:58 GMT

I interrupt the scheduled.... um - recent silence - of my blog to put up a quick rant. As many of you know, many years ago we certified our small farm as a National Wildlife Federation Backyard Habitat (certified habitat #71074) as a way to raise awareness of the ways we can all (homeowners, farmers, patio gardeners, and foresters) help birds and other at-risk wildlife in our backyards. I've always been proud to support the NWF for their efforts to reconnect people with nature and to help gardeners support wildlife in backyards. However, I heard something yesterday that was very disappointing... the NWF has formed a partnership with the ScottsMiracle-Gro company.

Huh? Did I miss something? Isn't "Eliminate Chemical Pesticides" and "Eliminate Chemical Fertilizers" in the NWF's very own manual for certifying a backyard as a habitat? Where exactly do ScottsMiracle-Gro products, including Roundup (a weedkiller linked to fetal cell malfunction and several cancers in people and animals), and the chemical lawn fertilizers which destroy soil life and the health of our lakes and ponds, fit into a mission of "inspiring Americans to protect wildlife for our children's future"? No matter which way they are spinning this, the NWF has sold out....

Let the NWF know that they are betraying their own values by accepting money from the corporation that profits the most from selling the chemicals that are poisoning our farmlands, our water supplies, and our own health! Carole Brown's Ecosystem Gardening blog suggests some ways to contact NWF to express your disapproval:

Call NWF: 1-800-822-9919

Post your thoughts on NWF's Facebook page (make sure you click the tab that says "Everyone" under the photo bar)

When Life Gives You Storm Damage, Make Habitat!

Ellen Sousa — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 15:40:23 GMT

Dear readers, if I have not been writing much lately, here is just one of the reasons why:

The freak Halloween nor'easter that hit New England on October 29th dumped 18" of wet snow on our farm, wiped out our power for nearly a week, and caused extensive damage across the region. We will be cleaning up from this for many months...

We lost several trees that we were very fond of, including the beautiful red maple above that was a focal point of our small farm. Here's the tree in happier times:

Interestingly, this particular red maple was some kind of Acer rubrum cultivar, selected by plant breeders more for its beautiful glowing fall color than its ability to withstand freakish New England weather. We have a number of wild-seeded red maple trees on the farm that survived the storm intact. Those trees are really well adapted to early or late snow, and most of them just lost a few branches here and there.

We did lose one of the native red maples, just next to our driveway, which was topped completely:

But look at the habitat that was created from the storm. A brand new snag! Check out the pre-drilled woodpecker holes. This red maple snag may be newly created but clearly it's already been used by wildlife for years...

Conveniently situated with a clear view from the house, this is our new wildlife viewing zone for the winter of 2012. The snag may have to come down completely in future years -- if it starts to lean over the driveway -- but for now we’ll be able to watch the comings and goings of birds, squirrels and other wildlife making use of its many resources.

So the storm wasn’t all bad! Wildlife are grateful! Old trees and branches are part of natural ecosystems and support a huge variety of wildlife, from hawks, owls and bats, to lower life forms such as invertebrate insects, amphibians and even reptiles. In the spring, sapsuckers will drill the remaining living portion of the trunk for sap, attracting insects with a 'sweet tooth', many of whom will get stuck in the sticky sap and become food for birds.

But what to do with all those tree branches and brush that have fallen? If you have the room, use them to build a brush pile! We built what we consider the mother of ALL brush piles at the side of our pasture:

This (ahem) carefully constructed brush pile (aka Winter Wildlife Resort at Turkey Hill Brook Farm) features snug bedrooms with fragrant pine bough ceilings, a lovely screened-in sunroom with a southerly view to safely bask in the sun on a bright winter’s day, as well as several large, fully-stocked pantries. If you’re a chickadee, you’ll find plenty of hemlock and pine cones to pick at all winter long. A chipmunk looking for a safe spot for your stash of acorns? Plenty of safe cover plus acorns free for the taking. If you’re a ground-feeding junco, hopefully you can forage for seeds around the edge of this brush pile and dive into it when the neighborhood cats come prowling. Any woolly bear caterpillars still looking for a place to hibernate can burrow into the dead leaves under the pile.

OK, I know that most built-up areas can’t support a brush pile of this size in everybody’s back yard, but even if you have a small area to work with, a more modest brush pile still works:

So if you're faced with tree damage from the crazy weather we've experienced in the past year, remember that if life hands you tree debris, instead of burning it or sending it away with the trash, you can always just leave it alone. And call it a habitat!

(This is a reprint of my article posted on Wildlife Garden: Redefining Beautiful on Nov 21, 2011)

The Year I Shall Win the Pachysandra War

Ellen Sousa — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 13:14:00 GMT

Anybody who has heard me talk about gardening knows that I have an uneasy relationship with Japanese pachysandra (Pachysandra terminalis) which is easily the Number 1 planted shade groundcover in New England gardens. Oh sure, it spreads quickly to form a solid green mat in the shade under trees, and its evergreen foliage stays green all winter. You can find this plant at every garden club plant sale and divisions of it have been passed from gardener to gardener for at least a generation. There is probably not a single neighborhood in Massachusetts that doesn't have an acre or two of of what horticulture guru William Cullina calls "the vinyl siding of landscaping" (an expression that makes me giggle every time)...

But this plant has a darker side, through no fault of its own other than the fact that it's a foreign import into a landscape where it has no natural controls. Unfortunately, when Japanese pachysandra is planted near moist woodlands in New England, it can quickly spread into the woods through its underground roots, choking out anything else that happens to be growing there and threatening unique and fragile woodland plant communities. There are few (if any) native herbivores (insects or other leaf eaters) that can digest the foliage of this alien plant, or co-evolved pests that control its growth in any way. And once Japanese pachysandra is established in an area to its liking, good luck removing it. Ever!

In the photo above, this lush border of pachysandra needs to be rigorously "pushed back" with a sharp spade twice a year, to keep it from becoming an entire backyard of pachysandra....

When we moved onto our small farm six years ago, we were delighted to find a beautiful stream flowing through it, and even more thrilled to discover unique native plants such as trilliums, jack-in-the-pulpit, Christmas and sensitive ferns, and winterberry holly growing in the rich, moist soil along its banks. I did find some Japanese pachysandra also growing along with Japanese barberry (another invasive planted by a previous well-meaning gardener), but I targetted those for removal in hopes of expanding the populations of the native plants. I spent a few hot summer days standing in the cool water of the stream pulling the roots out by hand (it was not a very large area), and thought my work was done.

Fast forward a year or two, when I noticed that not only was the pachysandra still holding on along the streamside, but that it had literally jumped the garden gate, and had spread at least 10' into the woods:

I began beating back the pachysandra again - trying carefully not to damage tree roots and the now-tattered jack-in-the-pulpits. I do not use the weed killer Roundup (or its cousin Rodeo) because of its negative impacts on amphibians, not to mention the fact that this heavily-used neuro-toxic herbicide is being increasingly linked with fetal cell death in humans, along with other alarming impacts to people and wildlife. So armed with only a small garden fork and my hands, I have opted for hand-to-hand pachysandra combat. This spring, I declared 2011 "The Year I Shall Remove the Pachysandra Regime", and each day I've resolved to pull out pachysandra roots for 15 minutes until the pachysandra is completely GONE. Wish me luck! I hope to report back in a few years on the newly restored native plant populations that should be making a comeback!

Jack-in-the-Pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum) is one of the cool New England bog plants that I'm trying to save from a thickening mat of Japanese pachysandra in our "wet woods":

Photo of jack-in-the-pulpit copyright Trudy Walther

A note about hand-weeding: Pulling weeds by

hand might seem like a lot of work, but its slow and steady pace is great for teaching you about the makeup of your soil and how certain plants impact their surroundings. I've noticed that where my pachysandra roots form a tangled mass of stolons (runners), they seem to suck up all the soil moisture from an otherwise boggy area, and the resulting soil becomes dry and lifeless. In my pachysandra monoculture, I find no other plants, no tiny decomposing insects or butterfly caterpillars looking for leaves they can eat, no salamanders or frogs, nothing at all except the thick white pachysandra roots. It's clear to me that the pachysandra has, in a few short years, impoverished my rich woodland soil, and nearby plants (and their associated wildlife) are all suffering from these rapid changes to their environment.

If you're also battling pachysandra, please share your control stories from the trenches!

Virginia Rose

Ellen Sousa — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 16:24:00 GMT

Have you always loved roses, but hate the spraying, fertilizing, watering and pruning they require to keep them from looking a mess? Please meet the lovely Virginia rose (Rosa virginiana). Unlike its highly-bred, cultivated cousins (hybrid tea roses and modern cultivars of climbing roses) this native eastern rose is hardy to the coldest parts of New England, grows happily in almost any soil, needs little to to no irrigation except for rainwater, and blooms its head off through June with pink flowers with the most heavenly fragrance. Not to mention, their beautiful red fruits (hips) persist right through the winter, feeding birds and providing winter interest when the landscape is otherwise white and brown. What's not to love?

Most Virginia roses bloom in light or medium pink, although there are white-flowering cultivars available too (I've not had good experience with the white-flowering form, however). Their flowers might not have the fluffy allure of the larger double-formed hybrids, but their single-flowering form makes them much more attractive to butterflies and other pollinators, who don't have to fight their way through many layers of petals to access the sweet nectar and pollen at the center of the flower. And did I mention its fragrance?

When it's happy, which is in any decent soil with good drainage and plenty of sunshine, Virginia rose will spread fairly rapidly within just a few years, so if you have a large area you'd like to fill in quickly with a wildlife-friendly native plant, Virginia makes a great choice.

In bloom, a pink tapestry of Virginia rose mingles beautifully with foxglove, cranesbill and other late spring bloomers and will form a low, thorny hedge that offers excellent year-round predator protection for the birds visiting your gardens. This sunny hillside of our farm was planted with a single container of Virginia rose in 2006, and by June 2009 it had happily spread to form a sizeable thicket:

As you might imagine, its spreading habit (through underground roots that snake in every direction) makes Virginia rose unsuitable for small gardens, where its roots will eventually take over surrounding plants and form dense canes that shade them out. A better-behaved but just as pretty wild rose is Virginia's closest cousin, Carolina or pasture rose (R. carolina) which spreads by slowly enlarging clumps rather than spreading roots.

In the thicket above, an annual mowing stops Virginia rose runners from spreading into the adjacent lawn, but you can also contain its advancing roots with a hard root pruning every few years with a sharp shovel. A driveway also makes a good boundary, as long as you don't use large amounts of salt to de-ice your driveway.

Note: Please let it be known that I would dearly love for the above Virginia rose thicket to spread and cover the entire hill, but hubby has drawn a literal line in the sand (with rocks!) where his lawn cannot be further encroached! I am hoping he won't notice the line has moved a few times

So planting Virginia rose in beds with other perennials is not a good idea, but in a new planting of a large area, you can interplant with self-seeding annuals, biennials or short-lived perennials to fill the bed for the first few years while the rose spreads....I initially planted the above bed with common sage, purple coneflower, cranesbill, foxglove, cosmos and cleome, and after 4 years, mostly only the foxglove remains in the area, probably because its seedlings are more shade-tolerant than the others. The others I have simply moved to other areas of the garden or given away to friends.

If you've grown roses before, you'll appreciate that Virginia's foliage is very resistant to most of the common diseases that disfigure roses. Like all roses (wild or cultivated), Japanese beetles love to eat its foliage, but if your plant is healthy and vigorous, it should shrug off any damage. These roses bloom in June in central Massachusetts, and Japanese beetles don't tend to arrive in large numbers in our area til early July, so by the time the beetles start chewing, you should have other beautiful blooming plants to distract you from a few holes in their leaves.

Virginia rose canes top out at about 4', so you should never need to prune them for height, especially because you'd be cutting off one of the plant's best features, its plump red hips that you barely notice until the first winter snows suddenly bring them to life:

The hips must be pretty sour to taste, because the birds don't seem to touch them at all during the winter. They disappear around the beginning of spring here, so winter's deep freezes must sweeten them up a bit, or else late winter birds are too hungry to be picky. I often see their thorny stems used as a temporary hideout by foraging winter birds, who get spooked by hungry hawks hovering around my bird gardens and feeders. The white background makes tiny birds much more visible to larger predators (my dogs will confirm this because they constantly mistake them for chipmunks!) but even a cat is unlike to risk those nasty thorns and go in after them...

If your garden conditions are boggy or wet, the best native roses for garden use are swamp rose (R. palustris) and New England rose (R. nitida), although these bloom a little later than the field roses in summer.

If you look, you may still find native roses growing wild in natural areas. More often than not, though, roses that you see in the wild are the invasive multiflora rose (R. multiflora), which is often assumed to be native but is an introduced rose from Asia that has been steadily overtaking old fields in New England for decades:

Although birds do eat their berries, multiflora rose has a highly negative impact on its surroundings, forming enormous thickets that crowd out the native plants that underpin balanced and healthy ecosystems. Chances are, if you see a large, fragrant sprawling wild rose with white flowers and arching stems, it's multiflora rose. Removing these from your property can be a great contribution to protecting local biodiversity...you can either replant with one of our native New England roses, or use the "wait, weed and watch" approach, which means simply rooting out any remaining multiflora canes that pop up over time, and allowing any native plants that are still hanging on to make a comeback.

If you try the wait, weed and watch approach, be prepared for a funny thing to happen. You'll begin to notice an increasing variety of birds, butterflies and other interesting wildlife that visit your naturalized area, many more so than your more cultivated garden areas, and eventually you will realize that your wildlife garden, with all the life it attracts, is your most beautiful and favorite garden of them all...

** BY THE WAY ** Apologies to my email blog subscribers who received a half-written article on Wednesday by email - I hit the "Publish" button instead of the "Save" button and the article went out as is {deep embarrassment}. The complete article is available here: Gimme Shelter...for the Birds

Gimme Shelter...for the Birds

Ellen Sousa — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 19:50:00 GMT

Happy New Year to my blog followers! With apologies to the Rolling Stones for this blog title, I'll start the year talking about some ways to help overwintering wild birds stay safe from bad weather and predators in your backyard. With many of our native bird species declining at an alarming rate, our feathered friends need all the help they can get from those of us who care about their future....

With the exception of hummingbird feeders, winter is the only time of year I hang bird feeders here on our farm. To be honest, feeding wild birds is more about making us feel good than about really helping birds. Birds rely on a variety of natural food sources (seeds, berries, buds, and the various insect life forms that overwinter in leaf litter, plant stems or tree bark) to get themselves through winter, and the best way to help them is to plant as many bird-friendly plants and trees in your surroundings to provide food and habitat throughout the year.

But hanging a feeder is a great way to supplement natural food sources for birds especially after heavy snowfall has buried many seed plants and ground-level food sources, and a bird feeding station near the house is an low-impact way to enjoy nature from indoors. Especially in the worst of the horrid weather when even I (who LIVES to be outdoors) prefer to stay inside...

If you do hang feeders, locate them somewhere that birds can quickly dive for cover if necessary. Birds visiting a crowded feeder in an exposed location are sitting ducks for predators such as hawks looking for a quick meal. Evergreen shrubs and trees (including rhododendron, mountain laurel, yew, hemlock, pine, spruce, fir and cedar) are the best, because they also provide shelter from wind and harsh weather. But any shrub or tree with a twiggy or dense branching structure will give birds a safe place to rest in between feeding. Shrubs such as holly, crabapple and native viburnums are all great "shelter" trees for birds, plus they retain their fruits well into winter to feed hungry birds.

Any plant with thorns, including wild rose or hawthorn, also provide a safe haven for birds to hide from danger. Not many predators (especially cats!) are willing to fight with thorny stems for a meal.

If your family puts up a live Christmas tree at the holidays, consider re-using your discarded Christmas tree as temporary evergreen cover near your winter feeders. The very first year we tried this, within hours, we saw finches, sparrows and chickadees begin to use the tree as a hideout in between visits to our nearby feeding station. And within days, we witnessed real drama when a sharp-shinned hawk held some of them hostage inside the tree:

Can you imagine his beady little eyes watching you inside that tree? This photo still makes me shiver...
The truth is, this hawk was just too slow for our speedy songbirds. At one point (after a good 20 minutes of waiting), a group of brave birds mad e a dash for the shrub border at the edge of our property. The hawk watched and waited a while longer, but after a few minutes, he gave up and flew away in search of easier pickings elsewhere.

So remember, feeding the birds is a nice idea, but make sure you're not lu
ring th
em to certain death at your feeders. Resolve to add some "bird shelter" to your gardens this year. I'll be posting over the next few days with some more ideas...

Book Review: Energy-Wise Landscape Design

Ellen Sousa — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 17:31:00 GMT

The THB Farm blog has been sadly neglected in recent months due to deadlines and commitments, but I'm back , this time to post a review of Massachusetts landscape architect Sue Reed's excellent new book "Energy-wise Landscape Design: A New Approach for your Home and Garden". This book is a must-read for anybody looking to build or renovate a home, especially in the temperate climate of New England, where the siting, positioning and surrounding landscaping of a home can directly influence the energy efficiency and environmental footprint of your property.

Sue's book is timely for many reasons. As our utility bills go through the roof and natural resources continue to suffer enormous pressure from development, industry, the spread of invasive, non-native plant species, as well as warming average temperatures, homeowners have every incentive to reduce their energy usage and landscape their properties in a way that contributes to environmental health rather than degrading it further.

The book is structured into useful sections such as "Arranging the Landscape to Help Cool a House in Summer", "Situating New Homes with Energy in Mind" and "Fitting the Landscape to the Land", which shares excellent tips for landscaping on slopes. Even if you're in the midst of a current landscaping or construction project, the section "Revise your Ideas to Fit the Terrain" is worth reading before you do any more work! In New England, where every property seems to be situated on some kind of hill, Sue's book will help you understand how to work with the challenges of your landscape and turn them into design features that enhance your property's beauty and usefulness.

Topographically challenged? Sue Reed has lots of good advice for landscaping on slopes.

Landscaping sections include designing gardens to reduce water usage, how to have a green, healthy lawn without using toxic chemicals, and information on how to properly plant trees and shrubs. Considering that most plant deaths that happen in the first few years occur because of improper planting (by homeowners as well as poorly trained landscapers!), this is advice that will save you money!

Construction and installation-related topics include building wood structures for long life, installing efficient outdoor lighting, how to lay durable patios, paths and stone walls, and ways you can generate your own energy from your property using sunlight, wind, water and geothermal heat. Clear diagrams and pictures illustrate complex concepts such as how to read and understand the effects of sunlight on your property based on your geographic location, altitude and time of year.

Although Energy-Wise Landscape Design is a practical, comprehensive guide that could be used as a textbook for a sustainable design curriculum, Sue's writing style is friendly and the book is a surprisingly good read, considering the technical nature of its subject. It's no surprise that Sue taught for many years at the renowned Conway School of Landscape Design, her writing reflects her ability to explain complicated concepts in a way that students can understand. I read half this book in one sitting, but I know I'll be returning to it time and time again as a technical reference on future projects. My only disappointment was that the beautiful photos of ecologically-friendly landscapes were not in full color, but I'm sure this kept the book's price at an affordable price.

Energy-Wise Landscape Design belongs on the bookshelf of everyone who dabbles (or works!) in construction, gardening and landscape design. Even if the only greenery in your yard is a lawn, you will learn from this book, and in the process, save money, time and protect our precious natural resources.

You can buy the book through Amazon.com, or visit Sue Reed's website at EnergyWiseLandscape.com to learn more and order the book.

A Wander at St Joseph's Abbey

Ellen Sousa — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 16:49:00 GMT

After a rainy, dismal week, the sun has returned to the farm. It hasn't been a great year for foliage (due to the drought, I wonder?), and heavy rains have forced many leaves to the ground already, so our days of viewing central Massachusetts' stunning fall foliage are nearly behind us. With that in mind, I grabbed my camera and headed to the nearby St. Joseph's Abbey this morning. This is an enormous hillside farm in North Spencer, now owned and maintained by Trappist Cistercian monks who converted the farm buildings to a monastery and jam production facility.

The farm, formerly called Alta Vista Farm, was one of the largest dairy farms in Spencer in the early 1900s, and was famous for its prize-winning Ayrshire cattle.

Thousands of native and other ornamental trees grow there, including many gorgeous sugar maples.

Unfortunately, the sugar maples are not at their peak yet, but it was a beautiful day for a hike and I saw some really cool stuff, including a plant that is on the Endangered Species list for Massachusetts. On the side of the road to the abbey, underneath some pine seedlings, I noticed this mat of ground-hugging stems that looked like miniature cacti:

It reminded me of the diminutive clubmoss princess pine but the foliage was more dense and it had cute yellow pine-coney fruits (called strobili). When I got home, I checked my Cullina/New England Wild Flower Society book Native Ferns, Moss & Grasses and sure enough, what I had spotted is a relative of princess pine, a type of fern called foxtail clubmoss (Lycopodium clavatum). This plant is widespread across its range (in the East along the coastal plain from Maine to Florida), but is endangered in Massachusetts, perhaps because it thrives best in a sunny moist areas with little competition from other plants. Unfortunately, sunny areas with consistent moisture in New England tend to naturally revert to woodlands over time, or be developed, so foxtail clubmoss is rare except in areas where succession is kept under control through brushcutting or logging.

I also saw a cute white fuzzy caterpillar crossing the road from some woodlands towards a large field:

I am pretty sure it's a hickory tussock moth caterpillar, can anybody confirm? I certainly noticed many hickory trees on my hike, as well as oak, willow and ash which are also food trees for these caterpillars.

Gray squirrels were busy collecting acorns from underneath the oak trees. They'll bury most of them, and some of the acorns buried by a forgetful squirrel might later sprout to form new generations of New England's massive oaks. I don't see many gray squirrels on our own farm, our dogs are less than hospitable, so I enjoyed watching their industrious work.

By the way, the monks at St Joseph's Abbey make GREAT jam from their fruit trees, and buying their jam not only supports the monastery, but also helps preserve the pastoral views and agricultural heritage of their beautiful farm. I highly recommend the blueberry preserve...

To all my wildlife garden friends, enjoy the great weather this Columbus Day Weekend! Schedule yourselves a quiet walk in the woods and keep your eyes peeled. You never know what you'll spot when you unplug for a few hours!

Resurrecting the American Chestnut Tree

Ellen Sousa — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 18:34:34 GMT

Once upon a time, when most of the eastern US was covered with a thick canopy of trees, the dominant tree species was the American Chestnut (Castanea dentata). Loaded with sweet and nutritious nuts, chestnut was an important "mast" tree, feeding and sheltering many forms of wildlife. In the early 20th century, a fungal blight imported on Chinese chestnut trees tore its way through our native chestnuts, virtually obliterating the species from our landscape in just a few decades. Since then, oak and hickory have replaced chestnut as the dominant tree species in many areas of the northeast, but there is hope for the return of the American chestnut to our landscapes. Healthy American chestnuts are occasionally found still growing in various parts of the country, unaffected by the deadly blight, proof that with enough genetic diversity in a species, often a few individuals can withstand whatever nature throws at them.

This is where science, technology, horticulture and medicine have all come together to resurrect the magnificent American chestnut species. Through a lengthy process of controlled pollination, genes from the blight-resistant Chinese chestnut are crossed and back-crossed into the American chestnut gene pool, which over the span of many generations develops a greater resistance to the blight. Those offspring that show the most resistance are then cross-pollinated with pollen from blight-free American specimums. The healthiest of all are inoculated with the blight, and nuts from these chestnuts are being planted in various areas across the country for further selection for regional adapability.

How can you help this project? If you own woodlands, or just like to walk in the woods, you can contribute to the American chestnut restoration program by looking for mature, surviving American chestnuts to add to the pool of blight-resistant genetic material. If you see what you believe may be a healthy American chestnut, contact The American Tree Foundation for details of how to collect and send a leaf and twig sample for analysis. The resulting nuts will then be planted in chestnut orchards to continue the breeding and selection program. To date, over 500 "mother trees" have been found along the eastern seaboard, and regional groups are hoping to find more.

To identify an American chestnut , look closely at the leaves. They are unmistakeably long and toothed (see below), but look a lot like the foliage of other trees such as American beech, chestnut oak, as well as Chinese, Japanese and European chestnut. One feature that sets them apart is that American chestnut leaves are not hairy, whereas other similar tree species have hairy leaves.

Even if you can't find mature blight-free American chestnuts on your travels, you may well spot the living remains of blight-affected chestnut trees that collapsed many decades ago. Chestnuts affected with blight can take a long time to die, and living stems will continue to sprout from old root systems, growing to about 10-15' high before being attacked by the blight. If you find a stem with living leaves alongside dead stems rising from the same root base (see above), you have found an old American chestnut dying from blight. You might even be lucky enough to find the remains of the long-fallen trunks. The lightweight but hard wood of chestnuts was highly prized by settlers for its rot-resistance, and fence posts, telephone poles, coffins, furniture and even pianos were some of the products that fueled a thriving chestnut logging industry over the centuries.

The good news for wildlife gardeners is that in time, we will be able to buy seedlings of American chestnuts to restore this majestic tree back into our landscapes. As Sudden Oak Death (another imported pathogen) threatens our native oaks, the re-introduction of the American chestnut could eventually fill gaps left by other declining trees, pre-empting the incursion of invasive species and insuring the health of our forests and woodlands into the future.

Photo credits:

Historical photo of American chestnut tree, W. Virginia, 1924, courtesy of the Forest History Society, Durham, N.C.

Photo of blight-infected American chestnut at Broadmeadow Brook Audubon Sanctuary in Worcester, MA. by Ellen Sousa.

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!