Native Plant Selection Made Easy

Posted on July 27, 2016 by Scott Vogt

I have found that a beautiful native landscape doesn’t magically appear. It starts with a plan. By choosing the right plants that grow well together in your setting, you will avoid many of the challenges homeowners face after the plants are established. Plant selection is the most important step in the process of developing a native landscape, but it can also be the most challenging. How do you select the best plants for a particular setting? What do you need to do to insure their success? Here are the steps I use to choose the best plants for a site and design a landscape that is both functional and beautiful.

Analyze the Location

You know your garden better than anyone. You know the soil type. Does it stay wet or is it extremely dry or something in between? You know how much sun your area receives during the day and throughout the year. You know where the water flows. Are there areas that you can utilize as a background or backdrop? Is there something you are trying to screen? Is there an area you are trying to develop? These are important questions that ultimately affect the types of plants you will choose.

Prepare the Site

Site preparation doesn’t have much to do with plant selection, but it is an important step to consider as you develop your native landscape. You need to get perennial weeds such as bindweed and Bermuda grass eradicated before you plant your garden. If these weeds are not eliminated, they will overrun and out compete anything you plant. Trust me on this. I am still fighting these weeds in certain areas in my yard because I didn’t complete this step.

It is also good to define the area with some kind of border. I have used metal edging, brick, limestone or landscape stone. Edging makes your native garden look intentional. Develop an area you can manage and fits your lifestyle. You can always expand, but a bed that is too large can quickly become overwhelming.

Choose the Plants

Once you have gathered all this information about your site and all the initial work has been done, you are ready to decide which plants will grow well together. The most important step in the selection process is matching plants to the site. You need to become familiar with every aspect of the plants through investigation, research and experience. I often start with one or two plants I know will grow in this location. Once I have established them as the foundation, the other plant combinations come easier.

I design each landscape with the finished picture in mind. I consider heights, bloom time, habit, forms and textures. We often only think about these plants when they are in bloom, but don’t forget their other qualities, such as seed heads that provide visual interest in the winter months. It provides you an opportunity to highlight these qualities with another perennials or native grasses (e.g. coneflower seed heads against little bluestem). I group plants together for visual affect and stagger blooms throughout the season. You want something coming into bloom and going out of bloom from spring through fall. I include grasses for texture and movement during the winter months.

Why plant a garden if you can’t enjoy it? I predict that your native landscape will be a hub of pollinator and butterfly activity. It will be an important link to other gardens in your neighborhood. It may even inspire you to establish other prairie gardens in your landscape. Your success may influence others to follow your example. A native plant garden should be cherished, because you are helping the natural world in so many far-reaching ways. Believe it or not, your garden will have a positive impact. So get started! Let your imagination and creativity inspire your design.

Bearer of the Ammonite by Paul Friesen-Photo Courtesy of Jen LeFevre

Photo Credit

A Weed By Any Other Name

Posted on July 20, 2016 by Katie Schmidt

Here at the Dyck Arboretum it can be a tricky task deciding what is a weed to be pulled and what should be allowed to grow on. Many of our beloved volunteers look to me for guidance when they encounter a plant that looks out of place. What is a weed here?

Many wonderful prairie plants carry the misnomer of “weed”, such as butterfly weed, iron weed, and milkweed. These are plants that may or may not need to be pulled, depending on where they are located. I consider a few factors: does the plant belong here or fit the theme of that garden bed? Is it annual or perennial? Will it become invasive? Is it part of a plant family that is notorious for colonizing? …and so on. Weeding will become less of a guessing game when you learn to identify some native species and particularly those nasty exotics.

While the name ‘milkweed’ might cause you to shun this plant for your garden, think before you pull! In the right area, milkweeds may be a perfect addition. They will bloom for several weeks and add a bit of important monarch habitat to your backyard. Photos from Dyck Arboretum.

“Where do they come from and how can I beat them?”

Just when you think you have weeded every last square inch of your garden, here they come again. The seed bank – dormant seed that exists in the top soil – will continue to produce more weeds as long as conditions are favorable. Seeds can lay dormant in the soil for long periods of time, waiting for adequate moisture and light levels. Bindweed seed can remain viable in the soil for up to 50 years! The seed bank is created by last year’s mature weed seeds, bird droppings, hay/manure used for mulching, and seeds carried on the wind. The good news? With regular weeding and mindful practices you will decrease your weed seed bank every year. That means pulling weeds before they seed, using carefully sourced mulch material, and disturbing the soil as infrequently as possible to reduce the amount of dormant seeds awakened by light and oxygen.

Some weeds are obvious

Bindweed with it’s morning glory bloom, Siberian Elm saplings with their small serrated leaves, and prostrate spurge with its circular, flat habit all send up the red flag. These kinds of plants look out of place right away because they lack charisma and often grow in inhospitable areas. (i.e. in driveway cracks and gravel, climbing up stems of other plants).

Some weeds are ambiguous

Virginia creeper vine seems to crop up everywhere, and are very decorative if left to grow in a good spot. But they can also be aggressive when not trimmed regularly. Similarly, a mulberry sprout (which tend to come up just about everywhere a bird flies over), could be left to grow into a nice fruiting tree if you are prepared for the berry-mess and seed spread. Plants like ironweed and Illinois bundleflower seem to pop up everywhere and, though they can be aggressive spreaders, they are also quite attractive.

Ironweed (Vernonia sp.) may at first appear as an intruder, but it produces a colorful, longlasting bloom and is a favorite of swallowtails and many species of bees.

Ironweed (Vernonia sp.) may at first appear as an intruder, but it produces a long lasting bloom and is visited by many species of bees. Photo from Dyck Arboretum.

Some weeds are not weeds at all

I always advocate for leaving milkweed in the garden as habitat for monarchs. Lucky you if a few come up! Other species like purple poppy mallow and wild petunia that may appear weedy at first actually make well behaved native specimens. These species bloom all summer long and are extremely drought tolerant.

While you pull and pluck away at the weeds in the garden, remember the wise words of the poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox – “A weed is but an unloved flower”. Although weeding is the tedious task all of us gardeners must endure, you can make it easier and more productive by knowing the difference between potential friend and foe.

Get Rich and Happy with Phenology

Posted on July 13, 2016 by Brad Guhr

Phenology will make you rich and happy. Ask any person who likes to watch/study plants, animals, and/or climate if their life is richer and happier because of their observance of phenology, and they will unanimously agree.

I’m not talking about monetary riches. The study of phenology has made very few people rich in dollars. In fact, many people I know spend a fair bit of money in their pursuit of phenology studies (i.e., birders). I am referring to the put-a-smile-on-your-face, educational, blood pressure-lowering, life enriching observance of the natural world around you.

Phenology is the observance of cyclical and seasonal natural events. These phenomena occur all around us in nature: plants blooming or setting seed, migrating animals arriving or leaving, the first or last killing frost of the year. For millennia, these kinds of observations have been not only interesting and enriching to our human ancestors, but they have been critical to health and survival. Being successful with agriculture, hunting and gathering required an intimate connection to the natural world through careful observations and record-keeping.

Gray hairstreak on Leavenworth eryngo.

Why phenology?

The USA National Phenology Network provides great insights and resources related to the study of phenology. They highlight some good reasons for observing phenology. I’ve added to their list and included my perspectives as well.

1) Detecting Climate Change Impacts – Quantitative documentation of the natural world through scientific data collection is critical to understanding the effects of a warming planet. From professional scientists to common folks practicing hobbies of citizen science, phenologists help us better understand what is happening in the natural world around us. If we didn’t have scientific observations to help us learn about changing trends, we might never recognize the changes until they become glaringly obvious and have negative, irreversible impacts. Think of the boiling frog metaphor here. Collecting data on annual trends in weather, the timing of life cycles of plants, and the migration patterns of animals all give us sound evidence to monitor changes in our planet.

2) Ritual Celebrations – We are social creatures that enjoy regular celebrations, and it is easy to connect them to phenology. There are the obvious examples of fall color festivals and cherry blossom festivals. For me, even religious and cultural celebrations have a relationship to phenology. Christmas has a deep meaningful connection to the long, cold nights and dormant prairie of the winter solstice. A favorite September music festival always happens around the peak of the fall monarch butterfly migration and the flowering of Maximillian sunflowers. Butterfly milkweed in bloom tells me it is time for our early June Earth Partnership for Schools (EPS) summer institute.

3) Enjoying A Connection to Nature – Connections to the natural world make us happy and feed our souls. Even if folks from Psychology Today, BBC, and The Nature Conservancy didn’t vouch for it, I’d say this is true from my own experience. Experiences in nature enhance our connections to friends and family and solidify memories for a lifetime. At our EPS summer institutes we examine children’s increasing disconnectedness to nature and how we can reverse those trends. Teachers regularly recall how important outdoor events in their own childhood left lifelong positive impressions and important connections with people. The thrill of catching blinking fireflies with neighborhood kids, the sounds of buzzing cicadas around shortest nights of the year, witnessing a toddler son’s first taste of a tomato in the garden, watching the arrival of bald eagles fishing over big rivers in the heart of winter, observing sunsets with grandparents, and so many other examples have been shared. These sorts of positive experiences inspire many to want to share a love of nature with succeeding generations.

Iralee Barnard and Susan Reimer find happiness in spending a day on the prairie counting butterflies.

Personally, I am drawn to the phenology-loaded pursuits of native plant conservation, and butterfly and bird watching. I spend time at Kansas Native Plant Society board meetings focusing on ways to best educate Kansans about the fascinating flora across our state. Annual butterfly counts in Harvey County and at Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve document summer butterfly populations and contribute citizen science to the North American Butterfly Association that monitor continental trends. Kansas bird watchers organize under the Kansas Ornithological Society and passionately spend weekends and holidays throughout the calendar year in all weather conditions across the state to document in detail the presence of bird species.

Collectively, the folks I have met at these events are smart and endearing, generous with their time in teaching others, fun to be around, and happy doing what they are doing. I am proud to call them my tribe.

If I had more time, I would extend my interests to hunting and fishing as well. I eat meat and I can’t think of a better and more meaningful and enriching way to live and eat than to be a hunter and gatherer. Most hunters I know are very biology-literate and are also good stewards of the land.

Inspiring the next generation

The efforts of these groups help us better understand the biology and ecology of Kansas. In subtle and inspirational ways, they inspire others to follow their lead, and it is my hope that this infectiousness will extend to the next generations as well. After all, they are the future caretakers and stewards of natural Kansas.

One of the most famous phenologists was Aldo Leopold. In the early 1900s he studied phenology through spending weekends at “The Shack” with his family along the Wisconsin River. His observations, land stewardship practices, hunting outings, and scientific studies as a professor were all synthesized into the poetic writings of the book A Sand County Almanac. Leopold’s thoughts on land conservation and specifically his chapter entitled “The Land Ethic” will guide many of our Dyck Arboretum activities and events in our coming 35th anniversary starting this fall.

We think they will make you rich and happy.

Aldo Leopold (Aldo Leopold Foundation)

Shrubs for Bees

Posted on July 6, 2016 by Scott Vogt

A well-designed garden has many different forms, colors, heights, bloom times and textures. Plants are integrated in ever-changing combinations that should be appealing to us and the wildlife we are trying to attract. Obviously, pollinators depend on diversity of plants and being able to find the food they need. Shrubs are an important nectar source for many different pollinators, particularly for bees. By including just a few of these in your own landscape, you can have a beautiful and productive garden that makes a difference in their survival. Here is a list of shrubs for bees to feast upon.

Small Deciduous Shrubs (1-3 feet tall)

Black Chokeberry–Aronia melanocarpa-The tiny white blooms of this ornamental shrub attract many different types of bees. The black fruit is a bonus to be eaten fresh or left for wildlife. Look for varieties like ‘Autumn Magic’, ‘Iroquois Beauty’ or ‘Viking’ to add to your garden.

Black Chokeberry

Western Sand Cherry–Prunus besseyi ‘Pawnee Buttes’-This wonderful, easy to grow landscape plant has an abundance of sweetly scented flowers in the spring followed by black cherries in the summer. The glossy green leaves turn shades of red and purple in the fall. It only grows to 18 inches tall by 4-6 feet in spread making it a fantastic ground cover.

Coralberry–Symphoricarpos sp.-This is a shrub that is grown for its ornamental berries. However, the tiny blooms are gladly used by bees. The summer’s flowers swell into pinkish white pearls along arching stems. The fruit is persistent well into winter. “Candy™’ or ‘Galaxy™’ are forms with great fruit clusters.

Lead Plant–Amorpha canescens-This is a great butterfly bush alternative. The purple flower spikes in late spring atop the silvery gray foliage are extremely attractive. Bees cover these plants while blooming. It is a native wildflower that thrives in a sunny spot.

Lead Plant

Medium to Large Deciduous Shrubs (4-10+ feet tall)

Buttonbush–Cephalanthus occidentalis-The unusual, fragrant flower balls of this native shrub are magnets to a host of pollinators. I have seen up to two dozen swallowtail butterflies on one plant when in bloom. ‘Sugar Shack®’ is a shorter form that works well in the landscape.

Buttonbush

Elderberry–Sambucus canadensis-As you drive the highways in summer, this shrub is everywhere. The creamy white blooms pop out of the landscape especially against the glossy green foliage. These flat topped clusters of flowers make great landing pads for bees. The fruit is tasty and very high in antioxidants. ‘Adams’ and ‘York’ are native forms selected for their larger fruit. Other non-native forms like ‘Black Lace’ and ‘Lemony Lace’ are more refined alternatives for the landscape.

Elderberry

Spicebush–Lindera benzoin-We have had success growing this as an understory shrub. The tiny yellow flowers attract bees and the leaves have a spicy smell when crushed. Plants develop a nice yellow fall color.

Viburnums-There are too many of these shrubs to mention, but I will highlight our native to Kansas varieties, which have beautiful white flowers in the spring followed by clusters of purplish fruit that develops later in the summer. Viburnum prunifolium has smaller oval leaves that develop reddish-purple fall color. Viburnum rufidulum has shiny leaves that turn burgundy-purple fall color. Each of these shrubs can grow to 12 feet tall.

Blackhaw Viburnum-Viburnum prunifolium

Certainly, there are other shrubs for the landscape such as Beautyberry-Callicarpa americana, sumac (Rhus sp.), Roughleaf Dogwood-Cornus drummondii, American plum-Prunus virginiana, Clover Currant-Ribes odoratum, and serviceberry (Amelanchier sp.) that deserve more use in landscapes. Many of these shrubs have been pushed aside for ornamental varieties that are nice to look at, but offer nothing to wildlife because the flowers are sterile. By strategically choosing plants that are both beautiful and alluring to bees and other wildlife, your garden will become a haven for pollinators.

Shrubs for Bees Photo Credit