Month: August 2020 | Accent on Natural Landscaping

The overall dryness of my prairie has dealt a blow to the most brilliance I have ever seen. The uprooted and removed trees have done wonders for my prairie. I have never seen it so high before!

The big Bur Oak tree on the backside of my house gives the perfect setting of my prairie.

Explore the prairie. Click a single photo. Then click the photo again to enlarge it.

Years ago, I rescued a Tall Ironweed, and it has been a statement plant in my rain garden. Flanked by Joe Pye Weed, Prairie Cordgrass and Carex comosa, it is — and the seedlings — the beginning of the western edge of the prairie.

Compass Plant, Cupplant, Rosinweed and Yellow Coneflower. The Plums were planted over thirty years or more. The last two years have been the only ones with any plums.

All around the perimeter is Branched Coneflower or Browneyed Susan. My rain garden consists of my drain tile from the house foundation system and the septic drain tile.

Joe Pye Weed and Boneset surrounding Carex comosa. Note the Gray Dogwood berries in the background.

Joe Pye Weed and Wild Senna. Note the Gray Dogwood forms an ideal backdrop from the leaves and the red of the pedicels.

A Monarch rests on the Gray Dogwood which is a perfect color contrast between the leaves and the red of the pedicels.

The are oodles of insects around the prairie.

Surrounded by Bluestem grass, there are Cupplant and Sweet Blackeyed Susan. My eastern prairie is tallgrass prairie.

The Sweet Blackeyed Susan with my house in the background. Note the length of the Blackeyed Susan in right foreground.

The Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, a frequent visitor to my prairie, is getting nectar from a Purple Coneflower.

The Royal Catchfly has a floral tube that is long enough for most butterflies, while the flared petals provide a colorful landing platform for their legs.

Sweet Blackeyed Susan, Purple Coneflower and Royal Catchfly. Note the Swallowtail at right of the Purple Coneflower.

I have never seen this variant in white Tall JoePye Weed before – with Woodland Sunflower.

Nodding Pink Onion with Yellow Coneflower. The Wild Senna leaves near the back end are the compound leaves. Their leaves are medium green and evenly pinnate, with each leaflet elliptic-oblong and a short petiolule.

Adult wood ticks (American dog ticks) (left bottom) vs. adult ticks (left top). Wood ticks have whitish markings on the body vs. deer ticks or blacklegged ticks (right bottom/top) that are reddish to dark brown with markings and are usually smaller. (WDNR)

Now is the time for ticks. We often see them in wooded and brushy areas, sitting or skittering around in high-grass environments and falling from balsam branches. With warm temperatures and sunny skies, we will spend time this summer and fall enjoying the outdoors and coming into contact with bugs and probably some ticks.

Ticks are active from March through November, the same months we tend to be outside the most. It’s important to understand and recognize the various kinds of ticks and know how to remove any ticks that land on us.

The Ticks

Most ticks are harmless, or they might bite and cause some minor discomfort. But there is at least one tick, Ixodes scapularis or the blacklegged tick, that can transmit a dangerous disease.

*Ixodes scapularis*, known as deer ticks or blacklegged ticks. Top: nymph and larva. Bottom: adult female and adult. (WDNR)

Lyme Disease

According to Laura Jesse, Donald Lewis and Ken Holscher at Iowa State University, “Ticks have become infamous as carriers of Lyme disease, an illness that can be transmitted from other infected mammals to humans through ticks. Ticks feed on the blood of smaller animals like rodents and birds as they move from their nymph stage into adulthood. When adult ticks latch onto humans they can then transmit Lyme disease if they are infected.”

Be sure to check yourself and children after being outside in areas of wood or brush and areas with long grass. The main outward sign of Lyme disease is a bulls-eye-shaped skin rash at the site of the bite. Other symptoms include arthritis, facial paralysis, neurological and cardiac problems, general malaise and fatigue. The disease has also been reported in dogs, cats, horses, cattle and sheep.

There is a good description of these ticks, along with information on the bacteria that causes Lyme disease (Borrelia burgdorferi) on the Extension University of Missouri website. Download the Guide to Ticks and Tick-Borne Diseases.

How to Prevent Tick Bites

You can help prevent tick bites by wearing long, tucked-in pants and long-sleeved shirts.
Wear light-colored clothing to see the ticks easier.
Use tick-specific EPA-approved repellent.
After returning indoors, check yourself and children manually to find and remove ticks.

Best Way to Remove Ticks

If you find a tick that has bitten and attached itself, remove it by grasping the tick’s mouth parts with tweezers where they have entered the skin. Pull the tick away from the skin and thoroughly clean and disinfect the site of the bite. For more information, check out this video: Nature Scoop July 2020: YouTube

Opossums Are the Heroes

The Opossum, often called the Possum, is credited with killing an estimated 5,000 ticks in a season. Here, the young possums ride of their mother’s back as she hunts for food. Photo courtesy of MonicaR./flickrScientists

Rick Ostfeld, Senior Scientist of the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, says, “The opossums are extraordinarily good groomers it turns out – we never would have thought that ahead of time – but they kill the vast majority – more than 95% percent of the ticks that try to feed on them. So these opossums are walking around the forest floor, hoovering up ticks right and left, killing over 90% of these things, and so they are really protecting our health.” (Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies)

North America’s Marsupial

The amazing opossum is North America’s only marsupial. It is a pouched mammal, it’s mostly active at night, and generally lives in burrows and cavities that they find ready-made – or they often find shelter underground, in trees, or anywhere in between.

In addition to eradicating ticks, opossums are a benefit to ecosystems and a healthy environment. They will catch and eat cockroaches, rats and mice, and gardeners appreciate their appetite for snails and slugs.

The Tick App

The Tick App is a free app for your smartphone that contains lots of great information on ticks. You can use the app to complete a daily log of your activities to help tick researchers, and you can send in pictures of your ticks for identification. The app was developed to let people living in high-risk areas for Lyme disease participate in a tick-exposure and human-behavior study.

Archives for August 2020