The Garden Buzz

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.

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! 

  

Nothing Happening in the Garden Right Now? Think Again.

If you're like me, you are always alert for something nature-wise going on outside the window in winter. Anything. The snow just sits there, not melting, not moving. The occasional chickadee flits by the feeder, a squirrel scampers up the cottonwood. But besides this, it appears that the world is standing still. And it would seem that a watched landscape never thaws.

Yet there are all manner of biological processes occurring right under our noses. Not the fancy stuff of summer; not the bright flowers and brilliant feathers among lush green growth that flaunts itself on sunnier days. This sort of activity is slower, you might say slow-motion, than we are accustomed to observing. It is subtle, almost silent, and elegant.

'In the bleak midwinter, water like a stone', is unrecognizable. Under the snow, decomposition is turning leaf debris and worm droppings into soil. In whatever leaves are left, cell walls are bursting as ice crystallizes. Beneath frozen ponds fish float like ghosts in suspended animation. In small snug dens, tiny hearts are barely beating as torpor marks time. In some hibernation is happening. Birds shiver to hold fast to a body heat with zero tolerance for error. Glycol, yes, anti-freeze forms in the bloodstreams of others, allowing life to continue in frigid cold.

And you would say nothing's blooming, but look at the lichens.

 
Lichens on snowy tree    The Garden Buzz

The shadows will start to shorten soon. Only 79 days until spring.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!  

  

Turkeys Lurking

Yeah, I could have just gone on Google images and cadged a cool photo of the mean-lean prototype of our butterball bird. But with all the wild turkeys lurking along our road, certainly it wouldn't be hard to shoot one for the blog. Yet like a new Murphy's Rule, it seems that carrying the camera is a sure-fire way to stop seeing those beautiful, bronze and barred babies. In my quest to supply an authentic photo of this truly authentic American treasure, I stalked the haunts and homes of the local turkeys. Finally on day three, I resorted to an easy out. I know they are always out and about on a nearby wooded and lovely corporate campus. Hence...here you have a grainy and and not-so-great snapshot of what I'm calling "my bookend birds" with this almost symmetrical pose.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

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

Oh Dear, Oh Deer

I live in a crittery sort of place. Coyotes cross my path quite regularly. Wild turkeys forage under oaks along our road. Beavers build and re-build dams in the inlet. Last week I witnessed a pair of bald eagles fishing for dinner while I ate mine. It's no big deal to see deer.

But right now it's deer season, in more ways than one. Hunting season is a period of high holy days in Minnesota. And the deer are out and about, in meet and greet mode; it's mating season. And after watching the deer dating game this week I am amazed that there is an overpopulation problem.

I awoke at dawn to a commotion of deer. There are prides of lions and pods of porpoises and the more onomatopoetic murmuration of starlings; yet this is my collective noun for the sight I saw just beyond my backyard. Leaping about in the area that transitions from woods to wetland were five or six deer. There in the narrow meadow I watched while the courtship ritual played out.

The bucks would crash about in the cattails then strike an arresting pose. The does daintily nibbled the grass while feigning disinterest. This went on all day. The photos are unremarkable (Mama needs a telephoto lens for Christmas) except for the change of light as the day progresses. Look hard, there are more deer than you think; the cattails are an effective camouflage.

As daylight fell, the does were still perfecting their doe-eyed glances. I became convinced that I might find a well-worn copy of The Rules if I went out looking in the trampled down sedges. Then finally they all gamboled off together into the woods, hopefully guaranteeing more little spotted Bambis for next year.

 

A Tale of Two Butterflies; a Clarification.

In my haste to post information on the Monarch butterfly migration, I flicked through my personal catalog of butterfly photos, and mistakenly displayed...a Viceroy! I was attracted to the soft, almost antique-like image of the aging hydrangea blossom and the tattered butterfly; they depicted the mellowing season so well.   

It's easy to mistake the two butterflies. Although they can appear almost identical as they flutter and float through our gardens; the Viceroy's giveaway is that vein of black that runs paralell to the hindwing margin. In addition to that blogging blunder, the Monarch website is Monarchwatch.org, not .com!  Please accept my apologies and a lovely photo of a genuine Monarch...

Be a Part of the Miraculous Monarch Migration

Monarch butterfly numbers are alarmingly low in my garden and in others across the country. Lots of factors such as weather and habitat loss are to blame. As days shorten and temperatures drop, the Monarch butterfly prepares for the arduous journey south. Many obstacles come between them and their destinations in California and Mexico. Planting their larval host plant, milkweed (asclepias tuberosa, acslepias incarnata, etc) in your garden is the best thing you can do to help these beautiful creatures.  Right now many nurseries have milkweed and other native varieties on sale at great prices. Next summer the Monarch will eat and lay her eggs on the milkweed you plant now. Consider planting at least 10 plants and you can register your garden as a Monarch Waystation through the University of Kansas-based program, Monarch Watch. Learn more about Monarch Butterflies through www.monarchwatch.com

 

The Monarch in this photo is tattered from heavy rain and other wear and tear, her days are numbered due to normal life expectancy. However the last generation of the season is physiologically different from  previous ones, and do not reproduce, but return to the wintering grounds to complete the life cycle.

Home is where the habitat is...

Since the automobile was invented there have always been boys bent over the hood, tweeking and tinkering. At the same time there have always been girls sitting in rusty lawn chairs watching with dewy-eyed adoration, just to be in close proximity. And before I am accused of sexism, I am sure that nowadays this situation is done in reverse.

When these boys grow up, some of them keep their cars in something called a motorplex; a series of upscale garages where they store their toys and maintain their "man-caves". Now, the now-wives visit and murmur encouragement and summon up enthusiasm for the collections of cars.

When I visit the motorplex, my favorite thing is to walk through the area that hasn't been developed yet, and gaze at the geese and other waterfowl down the hill in the pond. From a distance it seems a wasteland, a wild and scrubby, weedy field circled by the beginnings of a road and a few utility tie-ins poking from the ground.

As my dog and I ambled along, the field erupted with finches and waxwings that had been feasting upon browning thistles. Clover and Culver's root, ironweed and goldenrod, bustled with bees and buzzing insects. White butterflies fluttered haltingly as they do.  And I realized that this hardscrabble lot was habitat; a place where flora and fauna make do, adapt.

It would be gone by next year. How many seeds and tiny eggs would be lost under the concrete? What would the birds and bugs do, but look further afield. Not to single out the motorplex, this happens hundreds of times every day. But habitat isn't something over here, or way over there. Habitat is everywhere, right here.

I gathered some seeds from a purple legumy-like plant to scatter somewhere else, someplace safe. The case for planting native plants in our backyards, our front yards, our ditches; suddenly a lot more real.