There Were No Fences

Not everything you plant is going to survive... Yesterday, I was admiring how well this New Jersey tea ( Ceanothus americanus ) was doing; new growth showing up along the stem and lots of signs that it was prospering. This morning, the leaves looked wilted so I watered it, thinking that it was too dry. By tonight, it was obviously dead. The pine lily ( Lilium catesbaei ) in the foreground is also dying. Though very much saddened by these turn of events, it is not unexpected. Plants die. Not always because of what we've chosen to plant, but just because. With the sudden onset of summer and brutal temperatures in the 90's F, some will simply not make the adjustment. I have two other New Jersey teas that are doing splendidly and 3 other lilies in that same category. Perhaps they will succumb and perhaps they will not. It is a risk those of us that plant face daily. All of the wildflowers in my landscape are native. That does not mean that they will perform well. Over the yea...

This morning seemed like a good time to get more of my wildflowers planted. They've been repotted long enough now that they have well-developed root systems and they will fare better in the ground with natural soil than they will with the potting soil they've been kept in.  It's just an act of faith right now, however, as the temperatures outside are setting record highs for this time of year and there has been no rain for more than a week and none expected in the foreseeable future. They will need to be hand watered to survive and become established, but I think it's better this way than confining their deep root systems to the artificiality of a 4" pot. With these new plants, I have now removed about 4/5ths of the sod that has been inside the frame I laid down in late October. I've got more plants to add that are still too small to pot up from the flats they are growing in, but all the species that have been potted have also now been planted. It...

   My landscape continues to evolve with each passing day. The patch of grass in my front yard that I framed in October is now nearly half planted and the wetland in my backyard has mature flowering plants where once it was mostly a collection of sticks. With this has come a wide range of pollinators where once I had virtually none. The transformation to date has been nothing less than spectacular.While the woody components of my new landscape will take years to fully reach their potential, a well-designed pollinator garden can do its job in a very short time. Over the past several weeks, I have noticed a significant increase in both the number of pollinators and the number of species using my landscape. When I first moved in, late October 2018, it was a virtual wasteland here. During that first month, I witnessed only a solitary blueberry bee and it nectared each day on a wall of non-native morning glories that I felt compelled to let live. As my new key lime began ...

Wildflower Garden May 8, 2019 My "wildflower garden", a term I use loosely, is developing as I've added more flowering plants. Although some of these may eventually decline as summer approaches, right now, everything is doing quite well. The two species of tickseed I've added ( C. leavenworthii and C. lanceolata ) are in bloom and attracting the attention of small carpenter bees in the Ceratina genus. The native butterfly milkweed ( Asclepias tuberosa ), of which I've planted six specimens, has begun to bloom and this has attracted the attention of monarch butterflies. The blooms are getting pollinated at the same time that the butterflies are laying eggs on them. Although butterfly milkweed is not considered to be a major host plant for monarchs because they lack the milky sap that protects their caterpillars, I find that they are used when in bloom. Mine certainly are right now and I've moved a few of the caterpillars to other species of milkweeds in my...

Little Metalmark on Flat-topped Goldenrod ( Euthamia graminifolia ) As I plan my wildflower "garden" the focus lies not in aesthetics as much as it lies in ecological purpose. That, of course, does not mean that aesthetics is unimportant. I believe it is. If we are to win over the vast "unwashed masses" that live next to us to our way of thinking about landscapes, they can not be ugly or "out of control."  To achieve both an ecologically significant "wildflower meadow" and an aesthetic one requires planning and management. The management is something I will write much more about in future blogs, but suffice to say that I pull the weeds that emerge from the now-bare soil in my planting area daily. The seed bank that once lay beneath the sod is now germinating and if I let things progress "naturally", I would have a mess in short order and the weeds would soon overwhelm the plants I want to promote. There is no such thing as a manage...