The Garden Buzz

Tiarella: A Wee Bit O' The Green Poking Through the Snow

Ah! Spring in Minnesota; black snow, playing pothole slalom and the smell of hot asphalt in the air. It's a little early this year. I'm betting on one more blizzard, about April. Meanwhile, those of you in more southerly latitudes are posting and tweeting; the crocuses are blooming! the robins are singing! yeah, yeah, yeah, blah, blah, blah.

Me? I'm excited because I just saw a smidgen of green at my door, just in time for St. Patrick's Day. A leaf! Maybe more. The snow is melting, even the sedimentary layers on my deck that tell the story of early storms in October through bigger and better by December, until now. Other than soggy pine straw and anemic patches of lawn this is the first hopeful happening in my garden so far.

When I planted the 7 Tiarellas (Foam Flower) at the back-but-really-front door, it was a troublesome site, backed by a stone wall, probably 10 inches deep and 8 feet long, and not only narrow but a north-facing exposure. The variegated grasses had done a pathetic backwards stair step in height due to the increasing lack of light as you reach the door. Bare mulch or some kind of rock was the non-plant solution, but I thought I'd give it another try.

In spite of their cutesy name, "Sugar and Spice", the tiarellas called out to me in the nursery towards the end of the season. I love the dramatic leaf shape, deeply cut and bright green with a wine-red blotch for  more interest. Even better the pink and white frothy blooms of this native cultivar attract butterflies, while giving some height to the ground-hugging clumps of foliage. Their shade tolerance helped with the difficult place they were planted. Supposedly distasteful to rabbits, squirrels and deer, I think I'm going to like this perennial more and more.

I harrumphed when I read that the foliage is evergreen. I thought, yeah, and how does that work? But there it is peeking out of the snow, among the gelatinous mess of mulch and rotted plant matter, ready to roll. To think they have been sitting there all winter long, hidden.

But that isn't the only thing showing from under the snow. A few ghosts of holidays past, long buried by the Christmas Eve blizzard, have revealed themselves in recent days.

Remember the blue pumpkin from my Halloween posts?

One of the carolers that sat on the front porch by the Spruce Tips Arrangement the had disappeared in the storm.

For more signs of spring, read my "other" blog on the Star Tribune

Top Ten Butterfly Plants: This List Might Surprise You

Turns out the best plants for attracting butterflies to your garden are actually trees. I know! Who would have thought?

Frosty pines in my front yard    The Garden Buzz

File it under the "Well, how about that" category; it just proves that when you think you know it all, you really don't. After attending the Wild Ones native plant conference this past weekend, I've gained a much better understanding of plant/wildlife relationships, and while there was no wild behavior to report, I'm anxious to share some of the more astonishing aspects with everyone as you all plan your butterfly gardens this spring.

It's not that I didn't know that many trees are larval host plants necessary for butterfly survival, I just didn't know how big the numbers lean toward trees. Yet you've seen them, usually noted at the bottom of plant lists heavy at the top with bright candy-colored annual flowers touted as butterfly magnets, the trees sometimes asterisk-ed as afterthoughts.

 
Yellow sulphur on zinnia   The Garden Buzz

You can't blame us, because after all, it's right there on those flowers that we see the butterflies in our gardens. And we have the best intentions, wanting to provide nectar to the fragile and ephemeral creatures that light up our outdoor lives.

Keynote speaker, University of Delaware entomologist, Doug Tallamy, gave a thought-provoking talk about the food value of native landscapes to insects. While many people might think they want a bug-free yard, he explains, they still desire the presence of songbirds. You can't have one without the other. Put up all the bird feeders you like, insects make up a majority of bird diets, especially for raising young. And then there are all the other animals that depend indirectly upon them as well, like frogs, rabbits, foxes, humans and on and on. That whole circle of life stuff.

The crux of his talk focused on food webs and plant communities and how they relate to suburban backyards. Insects that evolved "eating local" for eons don't often recognize non-native species introduced from other continents. (Yes, some like Japanese beetles can adapt, in a big way) Most of the vast lawns and many of the specimen trees growing in our yards are truly alien to insects and might as well be plastic yard ornaments. How's that for an eye-opener?

But back to the list, the mind-blowing (for me at least) list. It shows the quantity of Lepidoptera (butterfly)species supported by each tree, shrub and perennial. These native trees used for shelter, overwintering, egg-laying, larval food and nectar source support 100-500. While most perennials averaged 30-40, with many of those butterfly magnets in the single digits.

Most Valuable Woody Plants for Butterflies

1. Oak (534)
2. Black Cherry (456)
3. Willow (455)
4. Birch (413)
5. Poplar (368)
6. Crabapple (311)
7. Blueberry (288)
8. Maple (265)
9. Elm (213)
10. Pine (203)

River birch dangling his "toes" in our pond     The Garden Buzz
 

Fritillary butterfly on swamp milkweed   The Garden Buzz 

However don't think the perennials and annuals don't have value. There are many butterflies that depend upon one, and only one plant for survival. I think that's material for another post. This one has gotten a little long.

Note that the list is for the Mid-Atlantic region, but every region save for some arid desert areas has the rough equivalent of these native trees, some translation might be required. To learn more, I highly recommend his book, Bringing Nature Home.

Well, what are you waiting for....go plant a tree! 

Garden Trends: Seeing Double

Oh no, Mama's having one of her spells. It might be a migraine, very possibly that pesky vertigo, but always annoying; Yet I usually live through them to plant and pontificate another day. However, what a great lead-in to a subject I've been thinking about lately. All the dizziness has me thinking about double flowers.

Double Hollyhock (martha stewart)

When plant breeders aren't trying to conjure up square watermelons or blue roses, their fall back position is to just make something double. Snapdragon "Twinny Peach" is one of the latest to come out. Yet double flowers aren't twice the flower, they just have more petals than usual. Ironically, double flowers are often far short of something else. Nectar and pollen.

The slightly scientific explanation is that double flowers occur when there is a genetic "misfire" that causes the sexual structures to mutate and  produce more petals. Plant breeders work to make that happen on purpose for showier flowers. The drawback is that completely double flowers are sterile.

Planting sterile double flowers has its advantages; with more vivid, longer-lasting floral displays. They are a literal lifesaver for those who are allergic to bees, but want to see some color in their backyard scenery. Many sterile flowers are also self-cleaning, just like an oven, meaning no dead heading chores.

Unfortunately with sterile flowers, you get a sterile landscape; no buzz in your garden.

I love the cleome variety "Senorita Rosalita", for its prolific flowers and huge, rounded habit, plus its salsa-rific name. It blooms and blooms and fails to get all rangy and mangy like its old-fashioned, open-pollinated cousin. But watch the butterflies stop to feed and then pass it by, their disappointment almost palpable. OK, I'm being silly, but they won't be thanking you for your hospitality and hanging around your garden.  

Imagine you see a splendid smorgasbord laid out with succulent dishes of food, but upon closer examination, it's all made of plastic; pretty but inedible. That's what mass plantings of double flowers, like Double Wave petunias, can seem like to your local wildlife. Does this mean all double flowers are the work of the devil? No.

Double Wave Petunias   (photo by ndgardengirl)

There is, as mentioned above, a time and a place for double flowers. Moreover, there are different degrees of double flowers, there are semi-double and flowers that have a combination of fertile and sterile inflorescence (that's a fancy name for flowers), hydrangeas being a good example.

Pee Gee Hydrangea has both fertile and sterile flower petals   The Garden Buzz

Many semi-double flowers have merely an extra layers of petals, just enough to make a little petticoat. Some are fairly flouncy, but the nectary is still apparent, in the form a pollen-laden yellow center. Without being a botanist, that is your best bet to noting the wildlife value of a particular plant.

Double Cosmos "BonBon" still offers nectar and pollen to butterflies and bees.  (The Garden Buzz)
 

Double flowers give you a lot of bang for your buck, so place them strategically and sporadically around the garden; maybe in containers or hanging baskets within an otherwisepollinator-friendly garden. Then maybe they can work like those resin replicas on the dessert tray that draw us in for the main entree and the promise of sweet things to come.

Note----It is my personal policy to use my own photos whenever possible, however I don't grow any completely double flowers at this time, and with 10 inches of snow falling, none were available anywhere! Please note that these photos have been credited with their source.

2010 Perennial Plant of the Year: Baptisia australis...The True Beauty of Blue False Indigo (and how it reminded me of Stevie Nicks Singing at the Grammy's)

I had been toying with the idea of comparing the 2010 Perennial Plant of the Year to a chubby, pretty girl in the third row of a choir. I meant to imply that while you might not necessarily notice her presence, you sure would be aware if she were to go missing; there would be a hole in the whole and the harmony would go flat. I meant it in the nicest way. But I didn't want to be called a fat-phobe and lose any readers. But, heck, I'm a little chubby and I can't even sing.

Meanwhile I can't get out of my head, that Taylor Swift/Stevie Nicks duet on the Grammys last night. When I should be blogging about Baptisia australis, I keep stopping by google news to read eyewitness accounts of that train wreck. What were they, whoever they are, thinking? Taylor Swift tells a good story, to music, and has really nice hair and cute kind of cat-eyes, but they just weren't singing on the same page. And somehow that got me back to thinking about Baptisia australis.

Baptisia is adaptable and dependable, sort of like Stevie Nicks, but then that makes them sound like a Chevy. And they are both so much more than that.

Baptisia....

• Grows best in full sun, may need staking in partial shade
• Attracts butterflies
• Drought-tolerant once established
• No serious insect or disease problems
• Unappealing to deer
• Combines well with other perennials/bulbs

Also known as blue false indigo or wild indigo, Baptisia is more shrub-like than perennial. Anchoring the back of the border, the native plant matures in a few seasons to grow 3-4 feet in height and width. This should be a consideration when placing it in the perennial border; besides the large taproot that resists dividing and transplanting. But once you settle on a spot, this plant is pretty much care free.

 
Striking seed-pods of Baptisia australis The Garden Buzz

Baptisia blooms for 3-4 weeks in June, with spikes of beautiful, deep violet-blue lupine-like blossoms. The blue-green foliage is attractive throughout the season. After the flowers, a second season of interest comes from large seed pods that are charcoal black and rattle to the touch. Do plant this perennial next to lots of yellow, something sunny, because this combination...sings.

(Apologies in advance to Taylor Swift fans and Chevy-drivers) 

Tall Perennials: Go Big for the Birds

I usually consider the cute little junco a harbinger of doom when he first arrives in late fall. The dark-eyed junco is a winter bird, a sign there's no turning back. But as winter settles in, my attitude softens. Small birds with that sweet-little-bird silhouette, the junco is nattily attired in charcoal gray with a white breast. They seem to be perpetually puffed up against the cold, giving them that slightly rounded shape.

(I made an exception to providing photos other than my own, just this once)
  

They flit about and flash their white striped tail as they fly from feeder to ground. They are birds of the ground; woodland birds that prefer the forest floor. However yesterday I saw them causing a ruckus in the joe-pye weed. Later when I stepped out I saw they had shattered the withered flower heads and scattered the seeds over the snow. Their little tracks marked the icy crust from where they fed.

Seed-heads of Joe Pye Weed (The Garden Buzz)

You see, the snow is deep. And there's still more winter to come. The snow cover makes it difficult for all animals to find food. The other day we watched a red fox lope and sink through the snow when not supported by the ice-stiffened surface. The going is hard. While the juncos are not endangered birds, they and all birds this time of year, still struggle to find seeds not hidden by the snow. By now most gardeners with a nod to the birds leave up seedheads over winter, indeed it is now you see the value in this practice.

Black-eyed Susan's in the snow (The Garden Buzz)

This stand of black-eyed Susan's could be covered with just a few more snowfalls. So maybe it's time to think about planting some taller perennials for next year's late winter habitat. Tall perennials lend architecture and variety as well as wildlife support to herbaceous plantings; think Russian sage, bee balm, Rudbeckia "Herbstsonne", Baptisia (false indigo), New England aster, boltonia, coneflowers and globe thistle. For shadier spots, use cimicifugia (snakeroot), meadow rue, ligularia and larger astilbes.

As a side note, I'm not a bird-watcher but I watch birds. In doing a little research I found this great site. Maybe you know about it already and I'm just now finding it. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has beautiful photos, concise information and best of all birdsong! A recording of each bird is available with all the other facts about habitat, migration patterns and concern status. I encourage you to visit it for a little color and flutter while we wait for spring.

Garden Catalogs: Getting Behind the Birds, and Now the Bees

Hopefully by now you've accrued a pile of well-thumbed garden catalogs, some already marked with sticky tabs and yellow highlighter, or at least a couple turned-down pages. I'm still hoping for a little more quality time with my catalogs and some hot chocolate. Maybe you've just been glued to the computer screen, dazzled by the bright colors and earnest promises of the seed and plant companies.

You'll see some catalogs have widened their offerings to include more vegetable seeds after the explosion of interest in growing food this year. Seed companies were one of the few businesses to see growth (is that a pun?) after the economic downturn. And yet another trend has emerged and spread in scope; pollinators are finally getting their time in the spotlight.

Bee on Coneflower by The Garden Buzz

A few catalogs have always been kind enough to connote the attraction of certain plants for particular pollinators like hummingbirds and butterflies. But this year some catalogs have given a shout-out to the hardworking and humble bee. It's about time.

Like a horticultural Oscars ceremony, I wanted to give an award for the best catalogs in a pollinator-supporting role, and maybe a few honorable mentions. Please note there might be some that I missed, if so let me know, I'm always up for a good garden read. And as always, these plugs are totally unsolicited.

High Country Gardens comes in first with a bee on the cover and directly inside a moving message about bees as the "spark of life", responsible for every third bite of food we eat. High Country Gardens specializes in xeric and native plants, mostly for the western half of the US, however there are quite a few selections that are suitable for the rest of us. Plants for the western states are marked with a cowboy hat icon; I always get sad when I see the cowboy hat, so many cool plants I'll never grow again. But this year something that makes me smile with every page; joining the butterfly and hummingbird icons is a buzzing bumblebee to showcase bee-friendly plants. Kudos to High Country Gardens and its founder, David Salman.

John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds is a close second with delightful drawings of birds and ladybugs, and now with golden bumblebees buzzing around the seed selections and tasty recipes on every page. In addition the back cover features a collection of collections for growing habitat gardens for butterflies, hummingbirds, songbirds and now, ta-da...bumblebees!

In third place, Select Seeds, whose specialty is antique flowers, so often preferred by pollinators, uses an icon to specify plants for hummingbirds and butterflies while also mentioning them in individual plant descriptions when appropriate. They sell habitat seed collections as well.

Thompson and Morgan gets an honorable mention for selling 'The Natural Garden", a grouping of traditional British wildflower seeds suitable for the US, for planting a wildlife habitat.

Beyond that Richter's, the herb catalog, Seed Savers Exchange, the heirloom seed source, and Blustem Perennials, along with White Flower Farm and Roots and Rhizomes give occasional mention of the pollinator attracting charactersistics of certain plants.

I'm sure there are more catalogs adding this crucial onformation to their products...let me know and I'll list them in an additional post. Please consider planting for pollinators this year. Climate change, habitat loss, invasive species and disease are some of the greatest threats facing these valuable creatures. Every little bit helps! 

  

Big Hips

With Thanksgiving dinner just behind us it seems like the perfect time to talk about big hips. But I'm not talking about the turkey, potatoes and pie kind of hips. I love roses with big hips. I once grew a white rose named after Princess Diana; so small, pale and demure. Unlike the royal namesake the rose was unremarkable, yet the hips, whoa, the hips. Incredibly round, red and robust, these hips were the main attraction that overwhelmed the shrub in late summer. What would Diana have thought?

 
Rose hips (Pavement roses) The Garden Buzz 

 Not every rose has big hips. Rugosas are the most reliable for producing the large, pronounced seed pods. That's what hips are, just big seed pods that offer one more season of interest, as well as adding habitat value to your garden, because the birds adore them. Up north growing Pavement series roses I find consolation in their luscious hips; the blooms while highly fragrant are short-lived and shatter easily.

In shades of scarlet to burnt orange hips rival berries for winter decoration. However my Rosa glauca, an understated, still interesting native rose with small pink star-shaped flowers, blue-green foliage and red stems  puts out prolific quantitites of olive-green hips, pretty in their own way. 

While deadheading roses can prolong flowering, once the season wanes, blooms left to mature will produce hips of various shapes and sizes. They range from small bead-like pips to plump little apple-like productions. These larger hips like that of the rugosa, are the best for human consumption. As with all wild edibles, avoid those where pesticide was used and approach with caution should you suffer from allergies.

Rose hips (William Baffin)    The Garden Buzz

Touched by frost they start to shrivel then sweeten. You can harvest the hips to make tea, jelly or syrup. When making tea, use them fresh or dry them for a winter pick-me-up. Snip the hips and cut in half, scrape out the seeds and infuse with boiling water. Technically that process names the finished product; an infusion, but for simplicity's sake we'll call it tea.The resulting rosy-golden liquid has a delicious mildly tart taste that provides more vitamin C than citrus. And once again, it is so satisfying to find food in your front-yard.

Berry Grateful Birds

Winterberry Holly in the Snow   The Garden Buzz

Somewhere along the line my gardening goals evolved beyond feeding myself to feeding the wildlife that frequent my garden. And then I took it one step further; attempting to attract even more fauna to feast upon my flora. And while it seems awful altruistic, a few of my reasons were selfish, plain and simple. I consider an abundance of animals the mark of a successful garden.

 
Cotoneaster berries   The Garden Buzz 

 We almost all start gardening for purty flowers or tasty tomatoes, but after a while I think we crave a little more excitement, some unexpected variety, a new challenge. One day I realized I was just as interested in the insects as I was fascinated by the flowers. I needed a little more birdsong, a lot more flutter. I found the animals added movement, whimsy, and a certain wildness to an otherwise artificial space. But while I'm well aware of all that circle of life stuff, I insist that snakes are optional.

 
In Michael Pollan's book, Botany of Desire he ponders whether plants are manipulating humans to insure not only their survival but their spread; playing to our desire for beauty, sweetness, control and and intoxication.  So when I plant fruit-producing shrubs not only for the beautiful berries and subsequently the birds, I have to ask, who's beguiling whom?  Is that a two-tiered trap that I willingly fall into?

 
Frosted Snowberries (Charming Fantasy)

No matter. Shrubs with berries are easy plants that demand little attention in return for the show they put on. Which birds eat which berries and when, is the matter of much speculation. It is readily assumed that the sweetest and juiciest go first. Yet I watch the black crows eat the white berries of red-twig dogwood while the wild grapes hang on. Recently a red cardinal plucked a winterberry and dropped it like a rock. But the cedar waxwings strip the crabapple clean and move on.

 
Chokeberry (Aronia Autumn Brilliance)  The Garden Buzz

Red commands attention in nature, but there are other colors to collect like black chokeberry and blushed snowberry. As winter approaches I can't resist photographing the frosted fruits all day. They remind me of Victorian epergnes of sugared grapes and such; one last, lush display of excess all too welcome before the whiteness of winter.

Chokeberries

Magic Beans

Do you remember your first time? I do.

The teacher handed out Dixie cups and dirt, and one shiny bean. Once planted they sat along the sunny windowsill next to the guinea pig cage, until one day they germinated.  I don't remember if Mrs. Pierce taught us about seed coats and cotyledons, it is more likely we were reading Jack and The Beanstalk. At that age I didn't know the definition of metamorphosis, all I could think was WOW.

 
It's that time of year for seed-saving. If you're patient you can harvest the tiny pinpoint seeds of  snapdragons or poppies. But I think you get a lot more bang in a bean. I don't mean dried beans for eating, that would be a Herculean task, although not impossible. In fact, you should utter a small prayer of gratitude the next time you open a can of black beans. I'm talking about ornamental flowering vines like the scarlet runner bean (Phaseolus coccineus) and purple hyacinth bean (Dolichos lablab)that decorate my garden.

These beans are beautiful in all phases of their development.  The scarlet runner bean races up a trellis then turns out little purse-like blooms of fiery red. Hummingbirds find them fast. Try the bi-color varieties, Painted Lady and Sunset as well. Purple hyacinth bean goes all out with bronze foliage and flowers of a lovely lilac shade but it is the pods that really pop all over the plant. And then there's the beans!

 
At the end of the growing season, when the pods are completely dry, crack them open and find a surprise. It's better than anything you ever found in that foul-tasting cracker-jack stuff. Scarlet runner produces huge polished beans of black and lavender, patterned like an appaloosa pony, gorgeous in their own right. Hyacinth beans are sometimes called little nuns with their crisp black and white appearance. Save them all for next year, pass them around to friends, it's like being a kid again. Have you got a favorite "bean" or large-seeded plant? I'd love to hear about it!

 PS Scarlet runner beans can be eaten when very small and thoroughly cooked. It is not recommended to eat purple hyacinth beans.

Hey! Gardeners! Leave Those Seeds Alone!

I mean seed-heads and seed-pods and such.  But then the Pink Floyd reference doesn't work nearly as well. And I haven't even got started with all the "dead head" stuff. I could go on.

Regular deadheading and trimming through the growing season promotes flower formation and gives the garden a tidier appearance. But as the season wanes as well as the gardener, it is time to let those plants achieve their genetic destiny; the production of seeds. Even Tracy DiSabato-Aust, the author of The Well-Tended Perennial, who practices deadheading and disbudding like the making of art, suggests leaving the last vestiges of vegetation as winter approaches.

Seedheads appear in sculptural forms; plumes, starbursts, whorls, spears, and more. I love the brown buttons of Black-eyed Susan, the burnt toast color of yarrow umbels, the mops of Annabelle hydrangea.  They provide interest and architecture once snow falls, and then stays in the case of my Minnesota garden.

Birds, bees, insect larvae find shelter and food among these remnants of summer, miniscule eggs rest in tiny nooks of seeming debris. It is not unusual to see swarms of finches, nuthatches or chickadees feasting from the spiky remains of echinacea, or purple coneflower.

Seeds that fall to the ground may show up as free plants some spring. No law says that they have to grow where they germinate, they can be transplanted and rearranged to increase plant numbers. Leaving basal foliage also helps to protect plants from winter injury.

Finally, what a great excuse to avoid those dreaded fall chores.