The Virginia Native Wildlife Garden I Left Behind

Kitchen herbs in the foreground are mostly European, but the asters and River Birch are natives

When I moved away from Virginia 5 years ago, I was leaving 4 years worth of garden work, which included study, research and hard labor. I had spent countless hours studying butterfly lists, butterfly needs, plant lists, plant qualities and requirements. Many of the resources I used are listed here on the right sidebar::==>

Things were just starting to fill in and fulfill their ecosystem functions when we found out we were being transferred to Italy.  Even though I was thrilled to go to Rome, I was heartbroken to leave my garden behind, because I knew nobody would take care of it and understand it the way I did.

I worked with my gardener, Martin, to the point where he understood how I wanted it cared for while I was away, but he left soon after that as well.  Today I just found my notes that I left with him, on how to care for the garden, and what the names of the native plants were.  I found some photos as well. It really was hard to look at them.  My heart started pounding and my breathing got kind of fast and shallow.  It was as if I were looking at old pictures of my child, or my favorite pets!

Here, for the sake of record keeping, for when I return to Virgina and restore my garden, is the document I left for Martin on the care and upkeep of my Virginia Native Plant pollinator garden.  Some more photos are below as well.

Cory’s Garden Notes 

v  Leave as many fall leaves in place as possible – they contain the eggs, pupae and hibernating adult insects. Leaves also act as mulch.

v  Let the clover stay in the grass for the bees and butterflies.  I don’t mind the dandelions and plantains, but the tenant might.  Keep them comfortable with their surroundings. Leave the violets. Leave the Virginia Creeper unless it starts to take over. So far it’s been well-behaved.

v  Pull up the ivy, bush honeysuckle seedlings, forsythia, grape, porcelainberry, bishop’s weed, garlic mustard. Throw them out in the trash or put them in a pile on the street and call for a county unbundled brush pick-up.  Remove the vinca only if you have some other ground cover to replace it with.

v  Let seed heads persist through winter for visual interest and food for birds and chipmunks.

v  Don’t let the vinca take over the plants in the side yard, but only pull it up if you have something good to replace it with.

v  Divide the green-headed coneflower in front of the porch. Put half back in place, but about a foot forward toward the sidewalk. Place the other half on the other side of the brick steps for symmetry.

v  Tame and contain the asters and give the columbine, Japanese anemone and strawberries plenty of room to live.

v  Don’t let the white strawberries take over the gray dogwood, or the blueberries or the wood ferns. Make sure it doesn’t invade the little bed with the sensitive fern and the wood poppies.

v  I tolerate a lot of insect damage because I try to plant what insects want to eat (so that birds will want to eat the insects…)

v  The native Prunus shrubs and trees are among the most important host plants for lepidopterae, second only to the oaks. Prune the wild cherry so it’s not in the way, but let it live.

v  Hummingbirds love the zinnias. Plant some in the spring near the bird bath and the cardinal flowers.

v  Add more of the plants that survived the drought/heatwave; expand and add mass
   

     List of Native Plants in My Virginia Garden

-          Cardinal flowers (Lobelia cardinalis)

-          Blue lobelia (Lobelia siphilitica)

-          Wild petunia (Ruellia caroliniensis)

-          Swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata)

-          Golden ragwort (Packera aurea)

-          Ironweed (Vernonia novaborascensis)

-          Heuchera

-          Blue mistflower (Conoclinium coelestinum)

-          Common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca)

-          Gaultheria procumbens (teaberry)

-          Marginal woodfern (Dryopteris marginalis)

-          White strawberries (Fragaria virginiana)

-          Blue-eyed grass (Sisyrinchium angustifolium)

-      Bee Balm (Monarda)

-      Purple Passion Flower vine (Passiflora incarnata)

-      Wild Geranium (Geranium maculatum)

-      Witch Hazel (Hamamelis virginiana)

-      Low Bush Blueberry (Vaccinium angustifolium)

-      Sweetbay Magnolia (Magnolia viginiana)

-      New Jersey Tea (Ceanothus americanus) 

-      Maple Leaf Viburnum (Viburnum acerifolium)

-      Cup Plant (Silphium perfoliatum)

-      Bluestem Goldenrod (Solidago caesia)

-      Winterberry (Ilex verticillata)

-      Inkberry (Ilex glabra)

-      Spicebush (Lindera benzoin) is a larval host for spicebush swallowtail.

-      Buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis)

-      Elderberry (Sambucus canadensis)

-      Trumpet Honeysuckle Vine (Lonicera sempervirens)

-      Greenheaded Coneflower (Rudbeckia laciniata)

-      Common Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta)

-      Sassafras (Sassafras albidum)

v  Here’s a list of March-blooming natives that I never got around to planting:

-          Cardamine concatenate (shade/moist)

-          Dicentra cucullaria (Dutchman’s breeches) (sun-shade/moist)

-          Dirca palustris (leatherwood) (shade/moist)

-          Mertensia (VA bluebells) (shade/moist)

-          Polemonium reptans (Jacob’s ladder) (shade/moist)

-          Sanguinaria Canadensis (shade/moist)

A few more photos (indulge me a little, sniff)...

Palo Borracho: Drunk on Montevideo's Spectacular Trees

What’s Blooming Now? Palo Borracho

Whether you're driving by or jogging by, you can't help but notice these tropical beauties in Montevideo's parks, blooming in March with a lacy pink canopy. Visible from a distance, their true wonder is revealed when you look up close. Its gorgeous flowers, unique fruits, and shady leaf structure make it a coveted tree in many regions of the world.

“Palo Borracho” and  “Silk Floss Tree” are common names of the Ceiba speciosa, a tree that is native to Peru, Paraguay, Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina. It is in the same family as the kapok and baobab. It can reach a height of over 12 meters.

This tree has many showy features. The bark of the younger trees is green, turning streaky brown and green later in life. The trunk and branches are covered with thick thorns. The base of the trunk flares out in a bulbous shape.

The Palo Borracho flowers in summer to fall, before dropping its leaves. The pink and white flowers resemble hibiscus flowers. The nectar attracts pollinators such as bees, butterflies and hummingbirds. The palmately compound leaves are made up of 5-7 leaflets all coming to a common point on the stem. The tree is bare in winter. In the spring, the fruits appear, looking like woody pears. These burst open, and black seeds covered in fluffy white cottony fibers fly out. This fiber has been used as stuffing for cushions, packaging, canoes, and added to paper pulp.  The seeds germinate easily and the tree grows quickly: nearly ten feet in just two years. 

All photos by Cory Giacobbe, 2017, Montevideo, Uruguay

Water Young Trees in Summer

If you planted a tree within the last two or three years (congratulations!!!), it is still in the vulnerable stage of early root growth. Young trees need to be watered once a week, or twice a week if the weather is especially hot and dry.  The amount of water needed depends on a variety of factors including tree size and how well the soil drains.  Here are the watering guidelines in my area, from the Arlington County, VA website: 

Trees planted within the past two years that are less than 6 feet tall need a minimum of 5 gallons for each watering.  These trees should be watered at least twice a week starting in April and continuing through November.  Rainfall should not be considered adequate unless it is 2" or greater. 

The best time of day to water is early in the morning so that the amount of evaporation is minimized.  Late in the evening is the second best time.  The amount of water that comes through a hose varies for a variety of reasons such as hose size, length, size of the building's plumbing, water pressure, etc.  However, you can still estimate that about two gallons of water flow through a typical garden hose per minute.  This is roughly comparable to the amount of water that flows through the typical shower. Therefore, you should water newly planted trees for at least (3) three minutes with an unrestricted hose.  Hoses with sprinklers may need to be run longer since sprinklers may restrict the amount of water that flows each minute.

Casey Trees of Washington DC recommends "25 to Stay Alive", meaning 25 gallons per week, but the amount of water needed each week depends on the local precipitation and temperature. During the summer months, Casey Trees posts weekly tree watering recommendations on the main page of their website. Check it if you‘re unsure how much water your trees need. You can also sign up to follow them on Twitter, and that way you can receive reminders to water your trees.  If you don't live in the National Capital region, look for tree advocacy organizations in your area for information on the specific needs of the trees in your ecological region.

If you use a slow-release watering bag such as a  Treegator or an Ooze Tube, re-fill it each week from May to November.  These bags should be removed after two years. Arlington County, VA has a water truck and staff dedicated to watering street and park trees during the summer.  However, if you are within hose-watering distance of public trees that appear to be in distress, consider doing the trees and the community a favor and give the trees a drink. The watering bags can be tricky, so go ahead and visit the Treegator website for instructions. My neighbor Cheryl was motivated to fill the Treegator on the county street tree in front of her home, but it was so confusing that she wrote an article about it for our neighborhood newsletter to show others how to do it after she figured it out. Here's a link to her article, "Solving the Water Bag Mystery," in our civic association newsletter (hint, it's on page 8).

For more information on tree care, visit the TreeStewards website. Also, check out some of the great links over there to the right, such as the Tree Owner's Manual, a free downloadable, printable book from the USDA Forest Service, with everything you need to know about planting and caring for trees. =>

Cory's Baked Native Garden

Today was the hottest June day in Washington, DC in recorded history, at 104 degrees F.  It's been over 100 degrees F. for a couple of days now here in Northern Virginia, and I'm watching as my native garden bakes. Leaves are drooping, flowers are turning brown, and not even early morning watering perks them up. I'm watching four years of planning, purchasing, planting and nurturing native plants as they wilt, and I'm wondering if they will be hardy enough to withstand this assault. I'm hoping that, as natives accustomed to this climate, they have programmed in their genetic code a mechanism to protect themselves from this dry heat.  And if the leaves and flowers don't hang on, will there be time this season for the plants to grow new leaves and flowers?

I tout the benefits of growing native plants to my neighbors, and one of the selling points I use is that the plants don't need as much care, don't need as much water, don't need fertilizer, because they have adapted to our soil and climate over thousands of years. I guess what we're going to see is how well they handle an extended period of dry heat.

We just got hit with a frightening and severe thunderstorm tonight, a rare weather event called a Derecho, which is sort of a long, horizontal tornado, fueled by dry heat on the front side and cooler rain on the back side. The derecho caused a huge, multi-state swath of downed trees, deaths and power outages. Hundreds of thousands of households, businesses and government agencies lost power for days. We were very lucky in our home to have no damage, but there were trees snapped off like toothpicks, with at least 5 trees blocking streets within 5 blocks of our house.  We hosted one family seeking refuge from their unbearably hot house, and others stopped by to charge phones and cook food to use it up before it went bad.  Actually, I observed a great deal of  camaraderie and cooperation among neighbors over the last few days.  The storm brought the temperature down about 20 degrees in 20 minutes, but the temperatures are going to stay in the mid- to high 90s for the next nine days. Poor plants. Poor bugs. Poor birds. Poor mammals.  We shall see how this all turns out.

Evening Primrose Puzzle: One of These Things is Not Like the Others

Evening Primrose, Oenothera biennis. Photo by Cory Giacobbe

Perhaps among the Evening Primroses, Oenothera biennis, you see one stalk that is just a bit taller, the leaves are a bit longer, less shiny? That’s because one single Black-eyed Susan, Rudbeckia hirta, insisted on moving in with them last fall after an aggressive clump of perennial Black-eyed Susan, Rudbeckia fulgida ‘Goldsturm’ (purchased at Home Depot in a moment of weakness when the native R. hirta, a more delicate biennial, was taking too long to establish itself) took over their spot and kicked them out. Now single R. hirta shoots are popping up here and there, exiled, tentatively trying out new spots to colonize.  The goldfinches loved the R. hirta, so I hope they make a comeback somewhere.

Meanwhile, the Evening Primroses just keep getting taller and denser each year. This native biennial wildflower is a favorite of bumble bees. It’s said to be edible for humans too.  The Sacred Earth Ethnobotany and Ecotravel website claims that the roots of the first year plants are good to eat and posts a couple of recipes. The seeds are said to have many healing properties, but they are too small to harvest in a usable quantity. The flowers are nice in a salad, although I haven’t tried it yet.  The leaves are also edible, but no recipes were offered.

Carpenter Bee on Evening Primrose. Photo by Cory Giacobbe

Evening Primroses are more than just a drop-dead gorgeous plant. They are tough little guys and very easy to grow.  According to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, they are valuable to wildlife as well. The flowers attract moths, and hold special value for native bees. The seeds are eaten by birds, and small mammals eat the roots and leaves of young plants. The flowers of this plant are said to open at night, stay open in the morning and then close up in the mid-day heat. So far mine have been closed in the morning and slowly open throughout the day. I’ll keep an eye on them to see if they start to behave like a normal primrose as the summer progresses.

Luna Moths Need Black Walnut, Hickory Trees and Dark Skies

Luna Moth (from Wikipedia)

Two decades ago when I moved to our house in Arlington, Virginia, a Luna Moth took up residence for a couple of days among the moon flowers and morning glories climbing up the bean trellis. Since I was new to Virginia as well as the neighborhood, I assumed Luna Moths were a common occurrence that I would be able to enjoy in my new home. That turned out not to be true, and I’ve only seen two, both more than a decade ago.

 

The Luna Moth, Actias luna, is a lime-green swallowtail with a wingspan of four and a half inches, making it one of the largest North American moths.  Its preferred larval host trees in our area are the walnuts and hickories, but it will also use sweet gum and persimmon trees.  Up north, they go for birch, alder and sumac.  The trees are not damaged by the caterpillars.  After eating their fill of leaves and transforming through five instars (life cycle phases or molts), the caterpillars drop to the ground at the base of the tree, wrap themselves in silk and leaf litter, and pupate.

 

Luna Moths face many challenges to survival in the urban sprawl.  They require dark skies to reproduce.  They fly up to the tops of the host trees well after midnight to mate and lay eggs.  There is evidence that the bright lights from streetlights and buildings interfere with the moth’s ability to reproduce. They are also becoming endangered by the measures to control Gypsy Moths.  

While I haven’t read anything about the effect of leaf collection on Lepidoptera, it seems logical to me that our obsession with raking, mowing and blowing our yards clean has had the effect of sweeping away the pupated moths and butterflies as they undergo the miracle of metamorphosis at our feet.   [for more information on supporting wildlife by leaving in place the  leaves, seedheads and leaf stalks that insects, birds and small mammals depend on, see this post by Pat Sutton "A Love of Untidy Gardens and Why!" on the website Native Plants and Wildlife Gardens]

Finally, as our neighborhood’s original native tree cover is aging and disappearing, we are not replacing them with the species that the local fauna require for food, shelter and reproduction. Maybe we can help keep these beauties around by planting native hosts, leaving some leaf litter each fall, especially at the base of walnuts, hickories and sweet gums, and turning off unnecessary lights at night.

 

For more information on native landscaping for wildlife, have a look at the links on the right =>

Update May 27, 2012: We went for a walk this morning at Huntley Meadows Park in Alexandria, Virginia. On the path of the forested area near the edge of the wetlands, I saw a Luna Moth. It was the first one I have seen in almost 20 years.

Why I Plant Native Plants

How did this native plant adventure start for me? Moving frequently with my husband’s job, we rent the house out whenever we are overseas.  The shrubs and perennials I planted got neglected and taken over by English ivy and Asian honeysuckle. I got the idea to plant attractive weeds that would survive renters. That didn’t work out very well because I didn’t have time to research it and implement it.  When I came home in 2008, a friend suggested I take the Arlington Tree Stewards Volunteer training. Over the course of the 3 month training, I became convinced of the literally vital role of native trees, shrubs and forb (the forest ground later that goes away in winter and comes back in the spring), not only for wildlife but for civilized life as well.

As Dr. Doug Tallamy, Professor and Chair of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at University of Delaware, points out in Bringing Nature Home , native plants are vital to survival of the food web, but we are experiencing a precipitous decline in undisturbed habitats. Bulldozing wetlands, forests, meadows and prairies for housing and monoculture farming is leaving precious little food and cover for insects, spiders, birds and mammals. Combine that with the alien invasive ornamental plants we brought over from Asia and Europe that are choking out the remaining native habitat, and we clearly have a crisis on our hands.

Dr. Tallamy’s current research shows that insects eat plants, and they largely eat the native plants they co-evolved with.  We’re losing our native bugs because we’re losing our native plants. And we’re losing our native birds because they need the bugs and fruit and nuts from the native plants, and so on. You get the picture.

Dr. Tallamy’s solution is to convince homeowners across the country to change the way they think about gardening, and to gradually replace lawns and alien ornamentals with the native trees, shrubs and forb that butterflies and moths need to survive. He focuses on Lepidoptera because he’s an entomologist, but also because butterflies are beautiful and can engage the public.  They also provide food up the chain for birds and mammals, and gardening for them also helps other species.

Blogs are supposed to be short, so I’ll stop here for today. In future posts I’ll point out the benefits of gardening with natives, how to get started, and show what’s going on with my own backyard habitat as it develops.

When you’re ready to get started, have a look at the resource links over here on the right =>