Tag: wildlife gardening

Trash to treasure: Winter gardening in your native prairie

Welcome to ChooseSustainable.org a blog about individual climate action. In this post I talk about winter gardening in your native prairie. Have you given a thought about transitioning your gardening habits from an endless list of “getting rid of” to welcoming, sustaining, and restoring of lost habitat? Do you know that restoring a piece of native ecosystem in your backyard is one of the most effective ways you can fight soil degradation, pollution, and loss of biodiversity?

In this post I talk about winter activities that help biodiversity. Remember that wildlife, just like us, inhabits the land all year round, not just in summer, and needs food, water, and shelter all year, just like we do. The good news is that when it comes to winter gardening less is more. In fact, our obsession with fall cleaning deprives other species of their winter shelter and eliminates important sources of food for birds that don’t migrate. Let’s get started then with our fall and winter trash to treasure list.

Leaves

Trash to us treasure to...Birds, insects, turtles, moths butterflies, fireflies, bumblebees, chipmunks, frogs and other amphibians…and the list goes on. Don’t trash the fallen leaves, gently push them out of the lawn area and collect them in a designated corner of your yard. They appear to be a lot, but after a couple of rainfalls they reduce to little. You can also divide them among the planted areas and around trees. I add to them all that is produced in the kitchen, mostly fruit and vegetable peels, and coffee grounds.

Leaves can stay were they fall on planted areas
…Or they can be collected in one place for leaf compost

perennial STEMS

Trash to us treasure to...stem nesting bees, birds, rabbits, chipmunks. Perennials should be left as they are. Perennials in winter provide food and hiding places for birds and small animals. The stems of perennial plants that we are quick to remove because “dead” and “unsightly” provide nesting space for stem nesting bees in early spring. They should be left untouched until late February or March, then just shortened to about 1 foot. You can leave the cut ends on the ground as they quickly decompose during spring and summer and enrich the soil beneath. In early spring stem nesting bees lay their eggs into the hollow stems where the new larvae develop. Read more about stem nesting bees here:

https://xerces.org/sites/default/files/publications/22-005_01_web-press.pdf

Beautiful perennials that provide good nesting for stem bees are: Elderberry, Joe Pye Weed, Goldenrods, Bee Balm, and Purple Coneflower.

Long perennial stems provide hiding for birds while they search for insects under the leaves
Bee balm seed heads are a source of food for winter birds. In early spring stems can be shortened to 1 foot to provide nesting space for native bees

SNAGS, branches, and twigs

Trash to us treasure to...Birds, bees, chipmunks, lizards, rabbits, squirrels. Our fall and winter cleaning often includes complete removal of fallen branches, twigs, and dead trees. Trees continue to live after they die. Hollow wood provides nesting places for wood nesting bees, birds, and small mammals. If you are lucky enough to have a wooded area in you backyard, you can leave dead trees (snags) properly shortened to avoid hazards, branches, and small piles of wood material. Dead trees at the edge of a backyard can also be kept and just cut back enough so that they are not hazardous. Fallen twigs and smaller branches can be piled up in a corner and left there to decompose. Here is a link to know more about wood nesting bees and nesting for pollinators:

https://xerces.org/pollinator-conservation/nesting-resources

Wood mushrooms decompose the hard part of the wood releasing nutrients that enrich the soil. Keeping snags and branches as much as we can ensures that the full cycle of life takes place in our yard.

Small brush piles are used as winter shelter
Empty logs are used by bees and other wildlife
I love to watch mushrooms grow on the stumps of trees

LAWN imperfections

Trash to us treasure to...Ground nesting bees, bumblebees, chipmunks to name a few. Small holes in flowerbeds and lawns are likely due to wildlife trying to find a place to overwinter. Ground nesting bees can dig their own holes where the soil is soft, or they can also reuse holes dug by other wildlife. Extensive pesticide use on the lawn and obsession with lawn appearance are harmful to everybody and especially ground nesting bees. Read more here:

https://www.xerces.org/blog/clear-space-for-bees-why-pollinators-in-your-yard-need-access-to-bare-ground

A small hole in the lawn can be used by ground nesting bees or other wildlife as winter refuge.

enjoy winter gardening

Finally, fall and winter gardening is a lot about observing, discovering, and planning for spring. Already in February we’ll be planning our cutting and sowing if we haven’t done it in late fall. Sustainable fall and winter activities ensure that life continues in your yard through the seasons and allow wildlife to survive harsh winters. HAPPY SOLSTICE DAY!

Would you like to talk about a native plant in your backyard? Please send me your post at info@choosesustainable.org

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Actions and News: Tell Congress to pass the Monarch Action, Recovery, and Conservation of Habitat Act

Welcome to YouChoose, a blog about individual climate action.

Monarch butterflies (eastern and western) are in sharp decline. Read here from the Xerces Society the conservation actions needed and the challenges faced to save the Eastern and Western populations.

You can be part of the effort: Support organic agriculture, start your own native pollinator garden, avoid pesticides and other chemicals in your yard.

Tell Congress to support the MONARCH ACT to help recovery of the Western Monarch Butterfly. Please sign the National Wildlife Federation petition below:

National Wildlife Federation petition page

Please share the link.

Birds of winter

Welcome to ChooseSustainable.org where we discuss sustainable choices. In this post I would like to talk about the winter garden.

One of the wonderful rewards of switching to native and sustainable gardens is that there are no dead seasons. In the traditional suburban gardening the fall season is the time to tidy up the yard and leave everything cut and clean, waiting for spring. A lot of effort goes into vacuuming, blowing, cutting, and shredding. All this cleaning up however does nothing but deprive wildlife of the food and shelter needed to survive the winter.

A gold finch enjoys eating brown-eyed Susan’s seeds in winter

In a sustainable garden the fall season is the time when Nature provides everybody with the means to survive the winter. The fallen leaves are used by larvae and small insects to hibernate, the flowers produce abundant seeds that birds can use as winter food, dead trees and rotting wood provide shelter from the cold for insects and small mammals, dry twigs provide winter food for herbivores that don’t hibernate. Coneflowers, sunflowers, and goldenrods produce much appreciated seeds when left untouched until spring.

Besides providing for wildlife, untouched grasses and forbs add beauty and character to the winter garden.

Winter plants add beauty to the garden
Purple coneflowers in winter

Chickadees, dark eye juncos, gold finches, a pair of red cardinals that I think have been together for a few years, woodpeckers, and of course, owls inhabit my backyard in winter. Now that I am mostly working from home I love watching them come and go. Actually I have never seen the owl, but I hear it at night. They are so attractive that, in spite of the fact that I never held a brush in my hand until now, I couldn’t resist painting them in small pieces of scrap paper and make bookmarks from up-cycled pizza boxes to give to family as gifts. If you are thinking of starting a wildlife garden I’ll be happy to send you a hand-painted bookmark as a thank you gift. You can check them out here.

The adorable black-eyed junco
The couple of Northern cardinals

Sometime I hear that we shouldn’t feed birds so they don’t become dependent on us. In my opinion this would be true if we had left their original habitat intact. Certainly the best thing is to leave native plants and grasses uncut until at least the end of February and also provide additional seeds during the harshest months from December to March. I do my part and place the seeds under a shrub or a tree with tall grasses around to provide shelter from predators.

Providing water during the winter months is challenging. Usually the bird bath can stay outside until the end of November, but it needs to come inside after that. From December to March a black plastic saucer can be used for water, however in the absence of a water heater the water freezes quickly. One of the benefits of working from home is that in the warmest hour I can remove the ice and replace it with slightly warm water. In typical Illinois winter temperatures of 15 to 25 F (-10 to -5 C) this provides birds with a few hours of fresh water every day.

If you are considering native and sustainable gardening I hope this post was useful to see how planting native grasses and trees, avoiding pesticides, leaving grasses, twigs and seed heads in the yard through the winter, helps wildlife survive the cold months. Who knows? It may even inspire you to start painting!

The YouChoose App provides several links to resources to get you started with sustainable gardening. It also provides links to native plants in specific regions. You can download it from Google Play or through the link on the right.

If you liked this post please share it!

Hummingbirds!

Welcome to ChooseSustainable.org where we explore ways of living sustainably. In this post I would like to talk about hummingbirds and how native and sustainable gardening is important to ensure their well being. This is true not only of hummingbirds, but of countless species that coexist (or try to) with us.

Sometime, when we take simple decisions such as getting rid of bugs, spiders, or dandelions in our yard we don’t consider the far reaching consequences of our actions. Most of the time things that we consider trash or nuisances are essential for the survival of other species. When we think of hummingbirds we think of feeders, but our yard can provide much more than that. The good news is that what they really need comes at no cost to us, it is already there, we just need to leave it where it is.

Every spring I look at the hummingbird migration map and around the beginning of April put out a feeder hoping that a few of them will take notice and stop in my backyard. The idea is to offer them plenty of reasons to stay through the summer and fall, so let’s see what hummingbirds need to be happy in our backyards.

Food and water

Contrary to common belief the main part of a hummingbird diet is not made of nectar, but of insects. Hummingbirds are voracious eaters of all kind of small insects, from spiders and small flies to aphids and 80% of their diet is made up of them. Nectar is important especially in early spring when the availability of insects is still limited. If we use pesticides to get rid of spiders, ants, or even mosquitoes in the yard we deprive hummingbirds of their main source of food and, even worse, we may poison them.

The best thing is to provide them with nectar-rich flowers and insect attracting plants from spring to fall. A shallow bird bath can provide water access. From what I see in my backyard, hummingbirds like to go to a variety of plants. Here are some plants that provide nectar and/or insects, these are mostly for the Midwest, please check native plants in your area:

Spring: Aquilegia Canadensis (columbine), Geranium Maculatum (wild geranium), Penstemon digitalis (foxglove penstemon), Diervilla Lonicera (dwarf honeysuckle)

Summer: Lobelia Cardinalis (cardinal flower), Silene Regia (royal catchfly), Monarda Fistulosa (wild bergamot or Monarda Didyma if you are on the East Coast), any native Liatris (for example Liatris Spicata), native Hibiscus if you are in the native range.

  • Fall: Chelone Glabra (turtlehead), Lobelia Siphilitica (blue lobelia), any of the goldenrod (for example Solidago Speciosa).
A hummingbird visits the Royal Catchfly (Silene Regia) in summer
Shelter

Hummingbirds are not exempt from predators. For this reason a habitat rich with tall grasses, tall prairie flowers, and shrubs near the feeder provides a better way for the hummingbird to avoid hunters.

Tall grasses, shrubs, and trees offer nearby shelter to the little hummingbird
Nesting

Hummingbirds use spiderwebs and possibly fluffy material to build their nest. The fluffy material is provided for example by dandelion and milkweed. If you eliminate spiders from the backyard you eliminate essential elements for the survival of hummingbirds. Similarly leaving an untidy backyard over the winter with grasses and twigs and possibly dandelions in spring will provide material for nest building. Additionally, tall trees provide a place where to position the nest.

The fluffy cotton-like material produced by milkweed is used for nests.
Feeder

In addition to to a variety of native plants a feeder is a good way to provide easy access to nectar and to attract hummingbirds near your window where you can see them often. I love watching them come and go and I know that, as I observe them, they observe me. They observe me when I go to replenish the nectar and they come to look inside the window when I am in the kitchen.

Preparing nectar is quite simple: 1 part of sugar to 4 parts of water is enough. I warm up the water and dissolve the sugar until the solution is clear.

One small glass of sugar and 4 small glasses of water make about 1 cup of nectar

Because the sugary solution can be outside only for 2-3 days before it becomes old and dirty I put out only what is necessary for a few days in order to avoid wasting sugar. Every 2-3 days I rinse the feeder and replenish the nectar. Approximately once a week I empty the feeder entirely and wash it well to eliminate sugar residue. Keeping the feeder clean will also reduce ants that can sometime become a nuisance.

Insects such as wasps and ants will use the feeder.

If you are considering native and sustainable gardening I hope this post was useful to see how planting native grasses and trees, avoiding pesticides, leaving grasses, twigs and seed heads in the yard through the winter, helps hummingbirds find a welcoming backyard in spring.

The YouChoose App provides several links to resources to get you started with sustainable gardening. It also provides links to native plants in specific regions. You can download it from Google Play or through the link on the right.

If you liked this post please share it!

Prunus serotina (Black cherry)

Welcome to ChooseSustainable.org where we explore ways of living sustainably. In this series of short posts I present a native plant to encourage everybody to abandon our traditional way of gardening (basically a continuous fight against nature) and engage in sustainable gardening practices that nurture the ecosystem, sustain wildlife, and foster biodiversity.

In this post I’ll talk about a large cherry tree: Prunus Serotina (Black Cherry).

A young black cherry in my backyard. Mature trees grow up to 60′-80′ (18-25 m).

Quick facts:

  • Zones:3-7
  • Bloom time: Early spring (Apr-May)
  • Sun: Sunny area to shade
  • Soil Moisture: Wet-dry
  • Aggressive: NO
  • Front yard: YES
  • Height: (60-80’)
  • Status: OK
  • Maintenance: NONE
  • Wildlife value: Very High

Wildlife connection: A host of insects, birds and mammals depend on this tree for survival. The early flowers provide food for many species of bees and bumblebees, along with smaller insects. The leaves provide food for the caterpillars of several butterflies and moths and for a large variety of beetles. The fruits are extremely important for birds and mammals such as foxes, raccoons, opossums, chipmunks and squirrels.

I consider myself very lucky because I had a large black cherry in my yard. The tree was able to survive the invasive buckthorn and, after the buckthorn was cleared, two new small trees emerged. The large tree died last year, but the young trees are growing fast.

The leaves of this tree are bright green and shiny. If you look at them up close you will notice that many leaves have bumps and holes. There is no need to worry, it just means that the tree is serving its purpose and it is being used by insects, as it should be.

The presence of holes and galls suggests that insects have been using the leaves.

In mid spring (mid to late May in my yard) the tree blossoms with nice white flowers that unfortunately don’t last very long, perhaps 2-3 weeks. In summer the flowers are replaced by small black cherries that look more like berries. It is hard to catch a glimpse of them as they quickly disappear, eaten by birds.

The flowers of black cherry in mid-late May

The importance of this tree to the ecosystem is hard to overstate and it is on the same level as the oak’s. Both trees provide to the essential needs of a large number of species. If you do have some room in your yard and are thinking of planting a tree, Prunus serotina is an excellent choice for conservation.

The tiger swallowtail is just one of the many creatures that rely on black cherry for survival. I wonder if this one was born on my tree

Please make sure to purchase native flowers from nurseries that don’t use neonicotinoids and look out for the full botanical name to avoid cultivars. The YouChoose App provides resources and several links to useful sites for sustainable gardening.

Would you like to talk about a native plant in your backyard? Please send me your post at info@choosesustainable.org and if you liked this post please share it with others.

Start a native garden: Motivation

Welcome to YouChoose, a blog where we explore ways of living sustainably. This week I would like to share the first steps we can take towards sustainable gardening. There are many topics to be discussed on this subject and I plan to share several postings about my journey to achieve a 100% sustainable backyard.

The focus of this post is motivation. It is important to be confident that our efforts make a difference. My experience bears witness to this fact: I have seen my backyard quickly transform from a lawn wasteland to an ecosystem full of life.

After-A part of the tall prairie section in my backyard
Before-My backyard as it was with the traditional suburban landscape

Here is just a quick overview, we’ll go into the details in future posts.

QUICK TIPS TO START – STEPS to DO

  • Be motivated and be sure that your efforts make a difference
  • Don’t be overwhelmed; small steps go a long way
  • Remove invasive plants (if any)
  • Reduce the amount of lawn in the yard
  • Plant native forbs and shrubs
  • Provide wildlife with places to live and shelter
  • Plant native trees
  • Provide water

QUICK TIPS TO START – things to AVOID

  • Being obsessed with lawn appearance
  • Being afraid of making mistakes
  • Using herbicides or pre-emergent chemicals
  • Using pesticides
  • Collecting and disposing of leaves

My neighborhood is a typical Midwest suburban neighborhood with single family homes surrounded by yards landscaped with lawn (a lot of it) and mulched areas planted with evergreens, roses, and plants readily available at general home improvement stores or nurseries. As a foreigner in a foreign land my initial efforts were devolved to maintaining what was found. Therefore, I joined the chorus, hired a lawn maintenance company to take care of the lawn and visited local nurseries or whatever was nearby to purchase familiar plants: roses, azaleas, peony, etc. Plant diseases or parasites were treated with chemicals recommended by the nurseries and, occasionally, a mosquito treatment kept the yard free of bugs.

It is likely that my experience mirrors the one of many homeowners. It was only later that I realized that the weed-free, picture-perfect look of the suburban homes is achieved at a very high environmental cost. The perfect lawn is maintained by pouring herbicides and fertilizers, in addition to constant mowing. The weed-free mulched areas are loaded with pre-emergent chemicals, and the bug-free backyard requires the use of non-selective pesticides that have repercussions on the entire food chain of the creatures living (or better trying to survive) in our backyards.

The eye opener for me came one day when I was going for a walk in the neighborhood and came across a road that was developed on one side and undeveloped on the other. The developed side had new homes surrounded by a luscious lawn of an intense green. The mulched areas were planted with flowers of almost a neon color that matched some of the house details, nothing was out of place, the whole view was studied to the detail. The undeveloped side in the front was filled with milkweed and other tall grasses and had the messy look of the summer prairie. When I stopped and listened, the developed part was dead silent, not a buzz to be heard, not a bug to be seen; the undeveloped side was a concert of sounds and voices of creatures living there.  This was when the realization came to me, that my move into a suburban acre was forcing all the other creatures living there to move out or die. I was depriving many species of food and shelter and was poisoning the soil and water.

Since that day my yard has changed very much and it is still an ongoing effort. I have also become addicted to bugs and can’t stop taking pictures of them and being amazed at their shapes and colors.

Hummingbird feeding on Silene Regia and hummingbird moth feeding on Asclepia Siriaca

Are you ready to start the transition? Don’t wait and don’t be afraid of the messy look, there are wonderful native plants that are perfect for the front yard. My only regret is that I didn’t start earlier. It takes about 3 growing seasons to go from nothing to an initial blooming backyard.

In a next post we’ll discuss the first step: How to identify and remove invasive plants.

Do you want to share your motivation for starting a native gardening? Send me an email at info@choosesustainable.org

Amelanchier Arborea (Downy Serviceberry)

Welcome to ChooseSustainable.org where we explore ways of living sustainably. In this series of short posts I present a native plant to encourage everybody to abandon our traditional way of gardening (basically a continuous fight against nature) and engage in sustainable gardening practices that nurture the ecosystem, sustain wildlife and foster biodiversity.

In this post I’ll talk about a small tree I planted in my yard a few years ago: Amelanchier Arborea (Downy Serviceberry).

Quick facts:

  • Zones:4-9
  • Bloom time: Early spring (March-May)
  • Sun: Sunny area to shade
  • Soil Moisture: Medium, Wet
  • Aggressive: NO
  • Front yard: YES
  • Height: (15-25’) But it can vary
  • Status: OK
  • Maintenance: NONE
  • Wildlife value: High

Wildlife connection: The trunk, flowers, leaves, and fruits of this plant are very important for wildlife. Serviceberry is the host plant to caterpillars of several butterflies and moths. Several other insects use this plant for their larvae. The flowers attract bees, honeybees, and other early insects and the berries are food to birds and small mammals.

I planted a very small serviceberry tree in my backyard several years ago. Not being very familiar with the plant I placed it in a location where it was unhappy. Thinking in retrospect, the soil was probably too dry. Although the plant is tolerant of a wide range of soil moisture it prefers moist and well drained soil.

After waiting for a few seasons I decided to transplant it to a different location. Since then the tree has been growing better and this year it bloomed for the first time.

If you are looking for a small tree, Serviceberry is a very good choice. Its size makes it suitable for small yards but it can be a nice decorative addition to a big yard as well. It provides early spring flowers, fruits, and foliage color in fall and it seems fairly low maintenance. The spring flowers are particularly important for early bees, when other flowers are still not available.

Please make sure to purchase native flowers from nurseries that don’t use neonicotinoids and look out for the full botanical name to avoid cultivars. Contact me for suggestions on where to buy.

Would you like to talk about a native plant in your backyard? Please send me your post at info@choosesustainable.org

Viola Sororia (Common Violet)

Welcome to ChooseSustainable.org where we explore ways of living sustainably. In this series of short posts I present a native plant to encourage everybody to abandon our traditional way of gardening (basically a continuous fight against nature) and engage in sustainable gardening practices that nurture the ecosystem, sustain wildlife and foster biodiversity.

In this post I’ll talk about a spring flower that comes up in my backyard: Viola Sororia (Common violet).

Quick facts:

  • Zones:3-9
  • Bloom time: Early spring (March-May)
  • Sun: Sunny area to shade
  • Soil Moisture: Medium, Dry
  • Aggressive: YES (but keep in mind it is a 3 inch plant)
  • Front yard: YES
  • Height: (3-4’’)
  • Status: OK
  • Maintenance: NONE
  • Wildlife value: High

Wildlife connection: Viola sororia is the host plant of several marvelous butterflies whose populations have been declining. The caterpillars of at least five different  Fritillary butterflies feed on the foliage, the seeds are attractive to ants. Several birds and small mammals eat the seeds and occasionally the leaves of this plants. Read more at https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/pollinators/pollinator-of-the-month/fritillary.shtml

I wasn’t really thinking of writing this post until last week when I was placing an order to purchase a few violets for the front yard and did a quick internet search on common violet. I was surprised and saddened to read the conversations about this little plant and felt that it deserves better than the constant disdain it gets. The discussions around this flower usually include terminology such as weed, extirpate, smother, eradicate and similar. One is even warned not be fooled by its innocent look! I quickly realized I was dealing with the public enemy #1 of the gardening world.

Apparently the unforgivable crime of this tiny warrior is that it refuses to die and go extinct like so many other less resilient native plants. In some posts the plant is tagged as an invasive! However if we look at the definition of invasive plants from the USDA we find that an “invasive species” is defined as a species that is:

  1. Non-native (or alien) to the ecosystem under consideration; and,
  2. Whose introduction causes or is likely to cause economic or environmental harm or harm to human health.

Our little viola sororia is a native plant, which means it was here before we Europeans even arrived, and it doesn’t cause any harm to anybody. It is actually an edible and medicinal plant. In addition, as the host plant of several butterflies, is beneficial to the environment. By this definition we humans are a more invasive species than the viola sororia!

In fact the gentle violet has been gracing our landscapes for thousand of years. Known in ancient Greece as ion, the violet was borne from an act of kindness of our Mother Earth (the goddess Gaia) to feed Io, a young girl turned into a cow by the always vengeful Greek gods. It speaks a lot of our gardening habits the fact that a gift from our Earth, a symbol of  love and gentleness has become the object of so much hatred.

I welcome violets in my yard wherever they come up, usually in patches here, there, and everywhere. Hopefully this short post will inspire others to see violets in a different light, to see that they have an important purpose and perhaps to stop and think before removing them. By letting this ancient flower thrive in your yard you will be feeding small herbivores and birds, and you will be sustaining a declining population of butterflies. If you think your efforts won’t make a difference think again. For the first time this past summer I was able to snap a picture of a Fritillary in my backyard.

Welcome back dear violets, resist, I am glad you haven’t become another casualty of our suburban gardening.

Please make sure to purchase native flowers from nurseries that don’t use neonicotinoids and look out for the full botanical name to avoid cultivars. Contact me for suggestions on where to buy.

Would you like to talk about a native plant in your backyard? Please send me your post at info@choosesustainable.org