Category: Garden and Landscape Design | Accent on Natural Landscaping

Pollinator Syndromes

April 10, 2019

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail on Purple Coneflower (*Echinacea purpurea*). Native coneflowers make the perfect landing platform for pollinators.

Through evolution, plants and pollinators have adapted physical characteristics which allow them to interact successfully. These characteristics are often referred to as syndromes. “The flower type, shape, color, odor, nectar and structure vary by the type of pollinator that visits them.” Hence the reference to pollination syndromes. This means these characteristics can be used to “predict the type of pollinator that will aid the flower in successful reproduction.” (USFS)

Benefits of Predicting Pollinators

About 80 percent of all plant pollination is by organisms (wildlife). By knowing which syndromes attract which pollinators, farmers, crop growers and gardeners can plan the best combination of plants to make the most of the ecosystem services pollinators provide. Maximizing these ecosystem services allows

the plant to benefit from the intermixing of pollen from one plant to another to enable successful reproduction, and
the pollinator to benefit from the food resources it gathers as it travels from one plant to another to enable maximum nutrition.

Table of Pollinator Syndromes

The US Forest Service has put together a table of pollinator syndromes to help identify the potential plants with which pollinators may associate. This helpful chart will assist you in learning which flower traits attract different types of pollinators. See also Pollinator Syndromes by Pollinator Partnership.

On-Line Help Picking the Right Native Plant – Update

April 1, 2019

Chickadees feed 300+/- caterpillars to their chicks daily. Photo by Doug Tallamy. — Chickadees feed 300+/- caterpillars to their chicks daily. Photo by Doug Tallamy

There are good resources to help pick the right native plant for the right place on-line from nursery websites. There are also non-nursery on-line programs available to help with plant selection.

ON-LINE NATIVE PLANT SELECTION SOURCES

The newest on-line program I’ve stumbled across is the Ecoregional Planting Guides provided by the Pollinator Partnership entitled Selecting Plants for Pollinators. All you need do is enter your zip code. It’s a complete planting guide, but on page 16 begins a list of plant names that attract pollinators. There is also an smart app available for download.

Audubon has a program called Native Plants Database. It’s easy to use. Just put in your e-mail address and zip code and a number of tabs pop up showing lists of native plants, what they host, local resources for native plants and next steps. It also references butterflies, caterpillars and birds use.

Tiger Swallowtail on Cherry Tree. Native Prunus support 456 species of caterpillars. Photo by Doug Tallamy. — Tiger Swallowtail on Cherry Tree. Native *Prunus* support 456 species of caterpillars. Photo by Doug Tallamy

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center‘s Native Plants program has been around for a long time. This program asks for your state and a variety of site characteristics (habitat type, light, soil moisture, etc) and then brings up a list of suitable plants. It also includes a comprehensive database of native plants which includes a variety of information from description of blooms and leaves and growing conditions to benefits and distribution in the USA and Canada.

There’s also the NWF’s (National Wildlife Federation) Native Plant Finder program based on Doug Tallamy‘s research on which trees host which caterpillars. Here you also put in your zip code and it brings up appropriate native plants and butterflies and creates a list for you.

LOCAL PLANT SEARCH PROGRAMS

There are also many localized plant search resources. For example, the Missouri Botanical Garden has a program called Plant Finder. Although this listing includes non-natives, you can select for only Missouri natives by soil type, amount of light, height of plants, etc.

Monarch butterfly on New England Aster (Symphotrichum novae-angliae). — New England Aster (*Symphotrichum novae-angliae*) is a favorite fall forb used by many pollinators including monarch butterflies.

The Morton Arboretum has an extensive Search Trees and Plants program for both natives and non-natives broken down by a variety of site information including the hardiness zones. It also allows you to select for landscape use and season of interest as well as growth rate. Don’t forget to select the native locale.

And the Grow Native website from the Missouri Prairie Foundation that includes a Native Plants Database for wildlife besides all the typical site selection criteria.

SPECIALIZED PLANT SEARCH PROGRAMS

Turk’s Cap Lily (*Lilium superbum*) grows in wet to well-drained soil in full sun to part shade. Their Turk’s cap-like blooms have orange flowers with a green star in their center and are densely spotted with maroon. A gorgeous addition to any rain garden.

There are also sites devoted to plant selection for specialized gardens such as raingardens from the Central Ohio Rain Garden Initiative‘s Quick Guide to Native Plants for Rain Gardens. Or pollinators from the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. See their Pollinator-Friendly Plant Lists. And for monarch butterflies such as the listing of Milkweed Species Beneficial to the Monarch Butterfly developed by the United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service.

If you are using other plant selection programs to help you design your gardens and natural landscapes, don’t hesitate to let me know by adding a comment to this post or by sending me an e-mail.

Doug Tallamy & Mariette Nowak to Speak in Stevens Point April 12, 2019

March 29, 2019

Great news! Nationally known speaker and Wild Ones Honorary Director Doug Tallamy will be a keynote speaker for the Wisconsin Lakes Partnership Convention and Water Action Volunteers Symposium to be held April 10-12, 2019 at the Holiday Inn Convention Center in Stevens Point. Doug will speak on April 12th at 9AM.

Additionally, Mariette Nowak, Author of Birdscaping in the Midwest, Past Director of Wehr Nature Center, Milwaukee County and President of Wild Ones Kettle Moraine Chapter will be speaking later in the afternoon from 2:45-3:45PM.

The Keynote Presentation

With a conference theme of “Pay it Forward,” Dr Tallamy’s presentation argues we all can “pay it forward” to nature by including many more native plants in our domesticated landscapes. He will take a closer look at how nature can (and does!) provide for itself through the complex web of life which is most often based on the relationship between plants and insects. Whether at an “up north” cabin or in the middle of Milwaukee, our deeds will be multiplied and eventually will return to us in the form of a more diverse and resilient natural community.

Doug Tallamy is a professor in the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware, where he has taught for nearly forty years. His research demonstrates the enduring connections between plants and the insects that feed on them. Though we may think of these insects as pests, they are in fact critical food sources for native birds and small mammals.

Dr Tallamy is the author of the best-selling garden book, Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants, and was awarded the 2008 silver medal by the Garden Writers Association. He also co-authored with Richard Darke The Living Landscape: Designing for Beauty and Biodiversity in the Home Garden, a how-to book to “enable you to create a garden that is full of life and that fulfills both human needs and the needs of wildlife communities.”

Birdscaping Your Shoreline Property

The Tennessee Warbler migrates through Wisconsin from the Canadian Boreal forest. It is often referred to as a “nectar thief” because it will pierce the base of a flower tube to get nectar and not exchange any pollen. Photo by Dave Nowak

Mariette will present ways to increase the variety of birds on your shoreline property by growing native plants which offer birds a natural habitat and a yearlong smorgasbord of berries, nuts, seeds and insects. By doing so, she’ll show you how you can play a vital role in preserving and enhancing native communities that support not only birds, but also other wildlife including butterflies, bees, and bats. By taking on this role, you become a steward of your piece of Earth and pay forward its diversity and beauty to future generations.

To register See you there!

Wisconsin Lakes Partnership

Sponsored by the UW-SP College of Natural Resources, UW-Extension Lakes Department, the Wisconsin Lakes Partnership is made up of three partners: the Department of Natural Resources (which supplies scientific research, technical expertise and regulatory authority), the UW-Extension Lakes Program (which provides supporting educational materials and programs), and Wisconsin Lakes (which mobilizes citizens to be advocates for lakes).

Propagating Native Plant Seed

March 4, 2019

Swamp Milkweed (*Asclepias incarnata)* pod and seeds. Photo by Tim Lewis.

Assuming you gathered native seed this past fall from your own plantings or were successful in purchasing Valentine’s Day Seed from Prairie Moon Nursery, and you haven’t yet done a winter seeding, you may be considering starting some seed indoors. Well, now is the time to get started.

Cold Treatment Stratification

If you haven’t already done so, start the stratification process by mixing equals amounts of clean dry seed and clean moist sand in a suitable storage container. Place the container in refrigerator for four to eight weeks.

Germination

After the stratification process has been completed, spread the seed and sand mixture into your germinating tray and cover lightly with more soil. Water gently and cover with a sheet of paper. Place in a location indoors near a window or other light source, or outdoors where it can catch the sunlight. Keep the sand and seed mixture evenly moist.

Transplanting

When the seedlings have three to four leaves, transplant to temporary individual pots or directly outdoors. Because these leaves will be tender, the best time to plant outdoors would be in the evening or on a cloudy day so the leaves won’t get burned by immediate and intense direct sunlight. If you have the time, consider hardening them off first, by moving them outdoors for short periods of time before transplanting them permanently to the planting site. Then for the next one to two weeks, make certain to maintain an even amount of moisture.

Royal Catchfly (*Silene regia*), Wild Bergamot (*Monarda fistulos*a), Purple Coneflower (*Echinacea purpur*a) at Donna’s prairie

Typically you should not only have marvelous new plants come summer, but you’ll also have experienced the satisfaction of starting your own plants and seeing them grow up, and bloom — after a couple of years

Please be patient. Remember most native perennial plants take two to three years to blossom. First they must put down substantial enough roots to adequately accommodate the eventual burst of blossoms and the visiting pollinators.