The Garden Buzz

Eight Great Pollinator Plants for Fall

You know the season is shifting from summer to fall as temps cool and leaves turn color, but did you know it's also a time of Nectar Flow? I use capital letters because this phenomenon is so important to pollinators as they get ready to hibernate or migrate. Simply put, nectar flow is when one or more major nectar sources are blooming.

And here in Minnesota it's a boom year for nectar flow. Chances are it may be in your area too. Abundant rain and moderate weather sees Minnesota and other surrounding states still green and growing even now at the end of September. This is great news for pollinators as they tank up to spend winter in hives and nests or starting lengthy journeys to overwintering sites. 

Not every year finds nectar flow plentiful. Drought, erratic weather, indiscriminate mowing, pesticide use and other issues can bring shortages of these vital plants. The more fall blooming flowers you plant the better chance pollinators survive and thrive into the next year.

Across much of the Midwest, native plants like asters and goldenrod account for much of the fall nectar flow. But there are other flowers you can plant to help. Use this forage map to see the best plants in your region for all seasons of nectar flow.

Learn more about what you can do to help pollinators in my book: Pollinator Friendly Gardening: Gardening for Bees, Butterflies and Other Pollinators when it comes out February 1, 2016. Take advantage of the special pre-order price of $16.27 (reg. $21.99) on Amazon right now!

Here in my garden these eight showy perennials are the big players in pollinator support for fall:

A green sweat bee visiting purple asters.

 

Graceful arching blooms of Goldenrod 'Fireworks'

 

Heleniums like 'Mardi Gras' are a favorite for bees

 

Joe Pye Weed is popular with both bees and butterflies

Bees love to crawl into these turtlehead blooms seeking nectar

 

Bumblebees sharing gaillardia

Long blooming anise hyssop is popular with butterflies and bees

'Autumn Joy' sedum is a huge joy for bees

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Happy National Pollinator Week and An Announcement!

Help Out the Honeybees (and a grad student)

Happy National Pollinator Week and An Announcement!

There was a time when people would have said, "National What Week?". It's so great to see everyone finally getting on board for pollinators. President Obama has started the push for an initiative to plant millions of milkweed plants along the Monarch migration corridor. And now there's the Million Pollinator Garden Challenge sponsored by the National Gardening Bureau. Things are moving in the right direction.

I hope you'll be doing lots to sustain pollinators not only this week but from now on. For the past year I've been writing a book on this very topic. I've been planting for pollinators for many years now and I've gathered all that wisdom and passion into my first book, Pollinator Friendly Gardening: Gardening For Bees, Butterflies and Other Pollinators. It comes out in February 2016 just in time for planning next year's garden with all sorts of great information and photos for creating a beautiful garden that welcomes and supports these vital creatures. I'll have more info about the book as the time draws near. I'll tell you though, it can't happen soon enough!

If you're busy with summer activities or perhaps overwhelmed with weeds, here's the three most important things to know in a nutshell about creating a garden that supports pollinators.

• Plant more flowers. They are the source of pollen and nectar that pollinators call food.
• Avoid pesticides. They kill more than just the pesky pests, pollinators become collateral victims.
• Support their reproductive cycles with bare dirt and deadfall wood for bee nesting, as well as larval host plants like milkweed for hungry caterpillars.

In the meantime join me on Twitter every Tuesday at 8pm CT for #pollin8rchat when I along with lots of knowledgeable and enthusiastic folks share our passion for pollinators and strive to answer everyone's questions on this urgent issue.

Happy gardening!

 

Help Out the Honeybees (and a grad student)

 Ever since the beginning... The Garden Buzz has been all about the bees, no trouble. Long before Whole Foods imagined marketing Pollinator-Friendly Almonds. Still it's great to see pollinators finally getting their moment in the press.

There has been a seismic shift in attitudes when it comes to gardening and insects. It wasn't long ago that the only mention of bugs in gardening info detailed methods of killing them. New generations will be surprised to learn there was a time when we didn't seek out ways to welcome pollinators and other beneficial insects to our gardens.

That's where Cory Wilcox comes in. Cory is a grad student in biology at Miami University in Ohio. She's been taking a class called "Biology in the Age of Technology" in which they look at the different types of technology available to address conservation issues. For the class she decided to look at threats to bees and ways citizen science can help overcome these problems. So already The Garden Buzz gives her a solid "A". Along with research and papers, her instructors required they share their findings on social media other than their personal pages. Apparently Cory has been a big fan of 'The Buzz for quite awhile and asked if I would post this fabulous infographic to fulfill this part of the class. No problem, Cory!

 

  

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Pollinator Friendly Plants: Yellow Trout Lily (Erythronium)

Pollinator Friendly Plants: Yellow Trout Lily (Erythronium)

 

 Yellow Trout Lily (Erythronium)

Like lots of old-fashioned spring ephemerals this one comes with a slew of funny folk names like dogtooth violet, adder's tongue and fawn lily to mention a few. But what's an ephemeral you say? Just like the label implies these flowers are fleeting. Born atop broad foliage spotted like a trout, the nodding blooms of trout lily appear in early spring and then vanish, going dormant for the rest of the year. The one pictured is the cultivar 'Pagoda'. During the time it blooms this adorable native plant is a source of food for early emerging bees. 

Delicate blooms of Yellow Trout Lily 'Pagoda' await foraging bees in my garden

 

Type: Corm, Spring ephemeral

Habitat Function: Nectar plant for native bees 

Attracts: Bees

Landscape Use: Woodland garden, naturalizing, ground cover

Hardiness: Zones 4-9

Color: Clear yellow

Native: To North America

Light: Dappled shade beneath deciduous trees

Soil: Moist, somewhat acidic soil

Water: Takes advantage of spring rains, tolerates dry shade while dormant

Size: 12-14 inches tall

Did You Know? Ants help ephemerals reproduce. They carry the seeds to their nest where the young feed on fatty deposits on the seeds call elaiosomes. The discarded seeds then germinate and form new colonies.

Pollinator Friendly Plants: Siberian Squill (Scilla)

 

 

Siberian Squill (Scilla)

 People have mixed feeling about this little blue flower. Lots of people love to see its cheerful blooms rise above the snow this time of year, especially those who share the same weather with its Siberian origins.  Popping up in lawns where they readily naturalize; they're a sure sign of spring. Other folks fear its invasive quality after seeing it form thick colonies in local woodlands. In town it serves as an early source of much needed nectar for early emerging native bees.

 

 Type: Bulb

Habitat Function: Nectar plant for native bees 

Attracts: Bees

Landscape Use: Mass plantings, naturalizing, spring bulb displays

Hardiness: Zones 2-8

Color: Deep blue

Native: To Russia

Light: Full sun for best bloom, tolerates partial shade

Soil: Prefers somewhat acidic, loamy soil

Water: Average

Size: 3-6 inches tall

Did You Know? You can tell when bees forage on scilla by the steely blue pollen they carry on their bodies.

Pollinator Friendly Plants: Witch Hazel (Hamamelis)

 

Witch Hazel (Hamamelis)

For many gardeners not much goes on in February. That's where this botanical outlier comes in. Blooming way before other plants in mid-late winter (or for some areas the last thing to bloom in fall) the curious yellow (copper or red) flowers are a welcome sight. Looking like twisty yellow ribbons or shoestring fries depending upon your perspective, the fragrant flowers will brighten your day when it's needed most. Better yet it's perused by bees seeking food in the earliest (or latest) days of the season.

 

Among the first (or last) flowers to bloom

 

Type: Deciduous shrub

Habitat Function: Nectar plant for bees and other pollinators, larval host plant for Spring Azure butterfly 

Attracts: Bees, butterflies, beneficial insects

Landscape Use: Specimen, woodland garden, shrub border or hedge, rain garden

Hardiness: Zones 4-8 for species, 5-8 for for hybrids

Color: Yellow, copper, red depending upon species or cultivar

Native: To North America, Asia

Light: Full sun for best bloom, tolerates partial shade

Soil: Prefers somewhat acidic, loamy soil

Water: Keep moist, mulch in hotter climates

Size: Matures to 15 feet tall and wide

Species: Common Witch Hazel H. virginiana, Ozark Witch Hazel H. vernalis

Cultivars: H x intermedia:

'Pallida', pale yellow, 'Diane', coppery red, 'Jelena' , coppery orange, 'Arnold Promise', light yellow, 'Barmstedt Gold', dark yellow

 Did You Know? The branches were used for divining rods for water witching. The bark is used to make an astringent used for both medicinal and cosmetic purposes. 

Winter Interest While It Lasts

 

 In 115 years Minneapolis has had a white Christmas 72% of the time. I guess we had to hit one brown Christmas after living here for seven years. With green lawns and nasty sleet pelting down it was a strange looking holiday. Never fear, two days later just in time for travel, a fluffy snow fell silently in the night.

Winter interest in the northern garden is an elusive animal, there for a moment and then covered in white. Snow can define, outline and decorate, bringing out the best of the "bones" in your garden. Or it hides a multitude of gardening sins and mishaps. 

Do you have winter interest where you live?

A beautiful snow after a brown Christmas

 

Gold edged arborvitae with frosting

 

The long side of the house with veggie plots

Liatris, Little Bluestem and Helenium dusted with snow

My daughter who lives down south gets a taste of real winter

'Annabelle' hydrangeas are always good for the snow

Holiday Savings and $50 Gift Card Chance at Shop.PAllenSmith.com

  My husband and I have a deal. When it comes to commerce in our household, he buys, I sell. This means he does all the Christmas shopping! I know, what kind of woman makes her husband do all the Christmas shopping? It's more like I let him. He's just better at it and loves getting out in the hustle bustle of the season. He's first out of the gate on Black Friday while I sit back and wait to see what he brings back in his sack of goodies.

I may not be a big shopper but I know what I like. And I like everything in P. Allen's new online store. The man has impeccable taste mixed with a certain down-home sensibility. His new shop has all the beautiful things, the stunning kitchen/garden/home kind of stuff like you see in his home at Moss Mountain Farm if you're lucky enough to visit. (I've been lucky twice!)

Allen's sending out word to all his favorite garden bloggers (like me) about a great deal for the holidays starting right now. Here's a special link for an immediate 25% savings when you sign up and a chance to win a $50 gift card. 

Be sure to visit the shop.pallensmith.com store online. Meanwhile check out some of these adorable items from his new shop...

 

Bees Knees Garden Pot 

Cow themed pressed glass butter dish

 

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The lastest in "chicken chic" T-shirts

Gifts From Above

 As the snowy weather hinted at its arrival, the wind had roared all night pushing and shoving the big trees outside my window. The next day as I walked back from the coffee shop (where I drink tea) I noticed this lovely nest on the sidewalk where it had been shook loose from the limbs above.

Bird Nest with Zip Ties and Hydrangea

Each nest is unique but this one even more so. The bird who made this nest recycled! Well, all of nesting material is recycled if you look at it from a bird's point of view. But this bird used plastic zip ties! Isn't the heavier mud and straw outer edge beautiful with the delicate swirls of grasses in the center? I really loved the contrast between the utilitarian plastic ties and the delicate dried hydrangeas she added, maybe as a last decorative touch?

I wonder which bird built the nest? Did I see her going about her chores this summer?

We just experienced our first snow storm so gardening is over for the year. Yet life goes on in the garden. It just switches gears; ideas, objects and processes we didn't see amid all the green noise of growing things become quietly apparent, like the nest.

I spied this nest along the lake last week.

I am in awe of what I call animal architecture. How do they build it? Where in their mind lies the design? Questions better contemplated on snowy, inside kind of days.

Now that the branches are bare, have you seen any bird nests that leave you marveling at nature's cleverness?

 

 

Same Shrub, Different Fall Color

You've probably seen a similar family; three kids with dirty dishwater blond hair and one suspiciously fiery redhead. Ha, that's the story of my sumac shrubs.

I've got lots of Fragrant Sumac, 'Gro-Low', a great native plant cultivar. It's a low maintenance, adaptable plant, a spreading tall groundcover in masses or a striking stand alone specimen. The majority of mine is planted as a long hedge along the driveway. Others are here and there spotted among rocks and grasses above my rain swale. Three different locations and three different shades of fall color.

The brightest red is behind the house of course

What causes trees or shrubs to exhibit a wide spectrum of fall color from brilliant to blah. Why does one make you say "Wow" and while another makes you say, "What?" 

A few feet away, dark red fading to orange

Like with children trees and shrubs are a combination of varying genes and bloodlines that can affect what color you actually get. Of course weather is a big factor depending upon the timing of frosts along with summer rainfall and other things.  And within your yard microclimates can all determine how spectacular your fall foliage turns, or not.

Fall color on the hedge is spotty at best

Go to the tree farm or garden center and it's apparent. As you walk down the rows of trees you'll see the difference from tree to tree. When purchasing trees and shrubs specifically for fall color potential the best thing you can do is shop for them at the peak of fall color in your area. This way you can pick a standout.

Meanwhile I'll wait and see what this week's cold does to the long hedge. Is it too much to wish it all would turn as red as the one hidden behind the house?