Wetland Ho!

I am waiting for next week's Spring Break to make my pilgrimage to several north Florida native plant nurseries in order to purchase the plants that will form the backbone of my backyard woodland. I will be writing about that in the days ahead.
Right now, I am focusing on the parts of my landscape that I have plants for - my wildflower "meadow" in the front and this created wetland in the back. So far, this wetland has experienced two major rain events of 2 inches each and functioned as I envisioned. As you can see in this photo, taken today and several days after the last big rain, the water moves away from the house and settles to the front before spilling over into the yard beyond the rock edge. This design allows for some diversity of wetness in the soil and therefore also dictates where I can plant what. If you've been following my progress in this blog, you will notice that I have been adding plants over the past weeks since I first installed it.
For a person like me that loves nearly every plant, it is always a bit difficult to choose which plants to add and which to leave to another time and project. I love Florida's native hibiscus, for example, but this space is simply too small to get carried away with them. I would end up with a beautiful hibiscus marsh and nothing else, but that is not the purpose here. I've added this feature so that I can increase the diversity of plants that will add life to my landscape and to me that means adding butterfly host plants more than it means adding nectaring plants. Of course, I always break this rule a bit by adding plants that I simply love that have little purpose other than they bring me joy - but joy is an important thing too. Our zeal to add life cannot be a grim journey. It must be a joyous one.

Crimson-eyed rosemallow

I may add a native hibiscus or two in the area nearest the house and "above" the pool liner. My guess is that this area will remain moist enough to support a hibiscus. The problem I have is choosing which species. I am growing 4 of our native hibiscus in my hobby nursery that I call Hawthorn Hill and I've added 5 species to a project I've designed near me in Land O'Lakes - The Rosebud Continuum. Right now, I'm leaning towards adding crimson-eyed rosemallow (Hibiscus moscheutos) to this spot as it is my favorite, but I may change my mind and add the scarlet hibiscus (H. coccineus) which I know to be a bit less fussy. It's a good dilemma to have. I have quite a few of each and so I'll wait until my mind is more made up.

Scarlet Hibiscus

To date, I have been adding larval host plants for butterflies I am trying to attract. I have added two species of native milkweed, swamp pink and swamp white (Asclepias incarnata and A. perennis, respectively) and they almost instantaneously drew in a monarch butterfly which oviposited on them. I've already written about this in a previous post, but I'll add that the caterpillars are still doing well. I've also recently added two water dropworts (Tiedemannia filiformis) to the area just below the downspout. Here, they will help break up the water flow as they reach their mature size and they will feed the caterpillars of the eastern black swallowtail butterflies that I hope someday will find me. Water dropwort is one of the best host plants for this butterfly, but they seem to only use it in the fall when it is in bloom. Lastly, I've transplanted pieces of water hyssop (Bacopa monnnieri) from my former landscape into the upper areas of my new wetland. They are now taking off and spreading across the open soil. This is the very best host plant for white peacocks and I suspect that they will find me shortly. 

To this small area, I've added a few plants purely for their value to pollinators. I've put a corkwood (Stillingia aquatica) right above the small piece of wood that serves to slow the water flow near the downspout. This will become a small narrow-crowned shrub and will give some structure that would be otherwise lacking. Songbirds will appreciate the place to perch. I've added a shiny coneflower (Rudbeckia nitida) - a state endangered species with a large black-eyed susan bloom in the late summer and a perennial golden ragwort (Packera aurea) that provides flowers very early in spring. 

All of this may be enough, but it's time now to watch it fill in and then evaluate. The inclination is to overplant. I find myself forever fighting that urge.

I also have been planting ferns around the outer edge. I love ferns for their aesthetics. They'll provide a bit of ground cover, but their purpose is mostly to make me happy. Near the house, and outside the pond liner, I've transplanted the three southern lady ferns (Athyrium felix-femina) that were formerly in my Seminole wetland. These are deciduous ferns that I find exceptionally graceful, Near the lower edge and also outside the pond liner, I added two Christmas ferns (Polystichum acrostichoides). these are evergreen and will help to break up the now sharp edge of the wetland. Yesterday, I added rhizome pieces in this area and in my pool/potted wetland of a southern maidenhair fern (Adiantum capillus-veneris) and time will tell which location(s) will give them the conditions they favor. Below are photos of southern lady and Christmas fern that I took recently at a woodland in south Georgia.

I am also busy working on the wildflower are in the front. I will be writing about my progress there, in the next couple of days as well as the planting of my backyard woodland.