Donna VanBuecken
There is much more to see. The immature Cooper’s hawk is flying around to check out bird feeders because they do go after small birds. The pollinators have just a smidgen of hope to see wildflowers.
Here in Northeast Wisconsin I have seen:
(Click a single photo – then click the photo again for a larger view.)
It finally happened! In a grand bipartisan move, the U.S. Senate authorized this April 2021 as National Native Plant Month.
Senate Resolution 109 was introduced and co-sponsored by Rob Portman (R-OH) and Mazie K. Hirono (D-HI) to the Senate on March 15th. It was passed by unanimous vote on March 25th. Please join us in thanking our senators for supporting this resolution.
The two senators recognize the importance of native plants to environmental conservation and restoration, as well as in supporting a diversity of wildlife. Senator Hirono also co-sponsored the “Botany Bill” which seeks to improve management of botanical resources on federal public lands.
This resolution includes Wild Ones and the Native Plant Societies of Florida, Oregon, Washington, and North Carolina, as well as our partners, the Garden Club of America and Doug Tallamy.
Here is the Wild Ones response: “Native Plants, Natural Landscapes promotes environmentally sound landscaping practices to preserve biodiversity through the preservation, restoration and establishment of native plant communities. Recognition of a Native Plant Month supports education and advocacy efforts in many organizations to restore native ecosystems and support all of our efforts to heal our planet,” said Jen Ainsworth, Executive Director of Wild Ones: Native Plants, Natural Landscapes.
Please take a minute to mention this to like-minded friends, colleagues, and professional acquaintances, letting them know that April 2021 is Native Plant Month for the United States. Let’s see if the House of Representatives will agree.
You can help by reaching out to your representatives to let them know you support the bill and to ask them to co-sponsor/sign-on to the bill. E-mail or call your representative to ask them to introduce or co-sponsor a House companion resolution to Senate Resolution 109 designating April as National Native Plant Month. The benefits of native plants to the biodiversity, beauty, resilience, and economic security of this nation are grossly under-appreciated. This resolution will help raise awareness about the need to enjoy, conserve, and restore our country’s unique native-plant communities. Find Your Representative.
If the House sponsors a resolution, there is a renewed hope! We must keep the Botany Bill legislation alive.
Read: Botany Bill S2384.
Read: Botany Bill HR1572.
We hope this new recognition of the benefits of our native plants leads to an understanding of the circle of life. Who knows? The native plants may harvest carbon dioxide more efficiently through photosynthesis.
Read the full Press Release for the Resolution.
Read the Resolution.
Are you starting to get excited about spring and getting out in your yard? Digging in the dirt? Planting new plants, trees, and shrubs? Are you asking yourself what you can do for butterflies, bees, and other pollinators? Then you should know about the Wild Ones Fox Valley Area Chapter’s annual native-plant sale. Orders for native plants, trees, and shrubs are due Saturday, March 31, 2021.
Native plants are the host plants and food source for most native pollinators and insects. They evolved together, so it’s natural that they would rely on each other for their preservation. In this day and age of bee-colony collapse, monarch-butterfly loss, and insect eradication, it’s important for all of us to do our part by gardening for wildlife. Without bees and other insects, many of the foods we eat would not be pollinated naturally, which means our meals would be a different experience and would become more costly.
The Wild Ones Fox Valley Area Chapter’s annual spring native plant sale will be held at the WILD Center in Neenah, Wisconsin (2285 W. Butte Des Morts Beach Road, Neenah, Wisconsin), on May 22, 2021.
The plant sale order form identifies all plants, trees, and shrubs offered as to ecotype (shade, sun, mesic, etc.). There are also some pre-designed collections of prairie and shade plants available, and a listing specifically for monarchs and pollinators. If you need assistance in selecting native plants, see alternatives to non-native cultivars and nativars.
Plants are in 4-inch pots and are more than reasonably priced at $6 per plant. Trees and shrubs are individually marked. There is also special pricing available for non-profits purchasing plants for their outdoor learning centers and habitats.
Don’t forget to place your order!
Orders are due Wednesday, March 31, 2021.
Pick up is May 22, 2021, from 9AM to 2PM.
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The e-mail photo is by Robert Carlson.
http://www.accentnatural.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/WOFVA-PlantSale-BackUp.docx
When I started to plan my prairie in 1986, I didn’t know what I was doing. In fact, I’m not even certain I understood what was a native plant. I learned about the benefit/necessity of surveying my property from Don Vorpahl. Don was one of the first native-landscape designers in Wisconsin and an early member of Wild Ones. His generosity in sharing what he had learned about the fledgling native-landscaping movement was immensely helpful, and I shall always be grateful for his ready counseling. He was a good friend of Wild Ones.
See his article titled “Planting a Woodland” in the Wild Ones book Landscaping With Native Plants.
I started developing my yard by surveying my property, and then as I planned to add to my natural landscaping, I updated my design. This gave me better control over what I was trying to achieve, instead of a “willy-nilly plunking in” of plants in our yard. We now have a very large prairie in our backyard (south) and an adjacent woodland in our sideyard (east).
Where once we had 1-1/3 acres of lawn that took my husband all week to mow because of its soggy nature and Northland Creek’s tendency to overflow, he now has about an hour’s mowing. The rest of our week’s time is spent enjoying the birds, the insects, and the rest of the wildlife that frequents our beautiful yard. We are fortunate to have mature bur oak (Quercus macrocarpa) and shagbark hickory (Carya ovata) on our site, so we built our prairie and woodland around them.
The summer storm that came through in July 2019 uprooted our green ash (Fraxinus pennsylvanica) throughout our prairie. It’s always sad to lose a mature tree, but in this case losing the green ash was not so bad. When we planted our prairie, the trees were small and cast little shade on our back yard. But over the past 30 years, they have grown to an immense stature with a very dense canopy and have changed the dynamics of our prairie. Now the dynamics of the prairie will rebound. Never have I seen so many native plants spring up. The yellows, purples, and whites just crept up and filled in the spaces.
Many of the prairie and shade plants in our yard came from plant rescues arranged through my Wild Ones chapter, Fox Valley Area. Other plants came from my chapter’s spring plant sales. Seed for the original planting came from Prairie Nursery. Subsequent overseedings have come from Wild Ones Fox Valley Area Chapter seed exchanges, Prairie Nursery, Wild Ones Fox Valley Area Chapter plant sales, and through the nursery catalogs that have become increasingly more available.
As we grow older, our landscaping grows older with us. Soon, we may not be able to care for it as well as we do now, but our hope is that it will care for itself when we get to that point. I am also hoping that by then the invasive noxious weeds I’ve written about previously will have ceased to be a problem.
For more information about planting your own naturally landscaped yard, you can also read the book Wild Ones Landscaping with Native Plants on the EPA website.
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The e-mail photo is by Donna VanBuecken.