A Wildlife Garden for all Seasons
OSGF
Our landscapes and gardens are integral to humans, offering up an immediate opportunity for us to connect with nature. Increasingly, we are incorporating more native, local flora in our designs and plantings at OSGF, which creates better habitats for insects, wildlife and more. Read below to learn more about the process of creating the Rokeby Wildlife Garden (which will be the first of many) and a few of the species that were planted.
Eco friendly or pollinator friendly gardens are becoming increasingly popular amongst gardeners and landowners. Of course, for Indigenous Peoples of the world, the principles behind this movement are nothing new. Their reverence for the natural world was reflected in their stewardship of the land, which declined once colonists arrived. Lawns are one prime example of this, carried over from European estates that saw a peak in home landscapes during the mid-19th century. While mowed lawns are functional for certain occasions, they lack any structure or ecological value to support a biodiverse landscape.
“In an attempt to attain the perfect lawn, Americans are using enormous quantities of water, fertilizer, herbicides, pesticides and fossil fuels to make grass grow more vigorously, then spending time and money on a weekly basis to keep it short. ”
With higher species diversity, ecosystem functions are higher and landscapes are more well equipped to be resilient. When the habitats that host our native insects, birds, mammals and other species are absent, ecological patterns in the landscape become imbalanced. As we continue to witness species decline, the role of intentionally ecological-rich spaces becomes even more crucial.
In Spring 2021 our Biodiversity Management Team (BMT) set out to do this exact thing on the Rokeby Farm property. One of the first steps? Get rid of the lawn! Or technically, as is the case with most of Rokeby Farm, the pastureland. A small garden was planted in 2021 and then additional ground was prepped to quadruple the garden size for the following year.
There are many different approaches to preparing the area where you want to create a Wildlife Garden. For our BMT, they opted for occultation, which involves rolling out a layer of black plastic, weighing the edges down, and letting the sun go to work. As the black tarp heats up, it traps that heat and moisture, encouraging the unwanted plants underneath to germinate; and then kills them off by blocking access to light and water. This method doesn’t involve any chemical applications but does take longer to completely kill off the grass. After 9 months, the plastic did its work and in June 2022 the site was ready for more mulching and prep and an additional 700+ plants were planted in fall 2022. The project is ongoing with more planting planned for 2023!
Another key element to consider when creating a garden that is ecologically sustainable is selecting plants with a local provenance. In horticulture, provenance refers to seed that is collected from a specific location. Keeping the plants and seeds you plant in your garden local, you are preserving the evolutionary history of a particular plant community. The BMT took extra care in selecting plant material with a local provenance, from local nurseries.
Monarda didyma & Monarda fistulosa
A winged visitor to Monarda didyma. Photo by Charlotte Lorick.
Scarlet Beebalm (or Oswego tea) belongs to the same family as our mints, catnips, and American beauty-berry, Lamiacaeae. It has a relatively large native range and is found in wetter sites like forested seeps and wet roadside ditches. A physical characteristic within many species of the mint family are the blocky, square stems. During winter, this structure is still evident. At the height of summer, in June and July, blazing red flowers appear and with them, lots of visitors. The bright color of the blooms combined with the elongated tubular flowers makes scarlet beebalm attractive to Ruby throated hummingbirds and bumblebees, which are the dominant pollinator of scarlet beebalm.
Another relative, Monarda fistulosa (Appalachian bergamot) is also in the Wildlife Garden. Flowers are soft purple to white with showy pinkish bracts below the flower clusters. Faded into winter, the winter architecture transitions into small oblong globes.
Asclepias tuberosa var. tuberosa
Like cookies and milk.. some things just go together.
Photo by Charlotte Lorick.
This list of our Wildlife Garden plants wouldn’t be complete without the ever-popular butterfly-weed. Also called Eastern butterflyweed, this congenial plant belongs to the genus Asclepias, which comprises 100 species spread throughout North and Central America. A common trait within this genus is milky sap that is contained in the stalks and leaves (Butterfly-weed is an exception to this and has clear sap instead). Records indicate that the sap (which is considered mildly toxic) was used stringently in traditional medicine. This medicinal application inspired Carl Linneaus to name it after the Greek god of medicine, Asklepios. Flowering time typically stretches from June all the way through to August or September with blooms varying in color from yellow, to orange, and even orange-ish red. The transition into fall is met with the appearance of green capsules that, as they mature, open to reveal silky follicles that are carried by the wind. In the garden, its adaptability to grow in a variety of sites, along with their crucial role as a larval host for monarch butterflies, cements this along with all milkweed species as a ‘celebrity’ of pollinator plants.
Penstemon digitalis
In garden design, searching for a plant not only consists of meeting certain site requirements, but bloom time, foliage texture, color, habit, are all factors to consider. Foxglove beard-tongue (named in part after its resemblance to the European foxglove, Digitalis) checks boxes in all of these categories. A statement like that may seem bold but it’s true. Not only do the flowers hang around for a month and then some, the foliage keeps on into fall where it turns a beautiful mash of orange and red. When in bloom (typically May through July) the flowers are a soft white, often transitioning to a soft lavender closer to the flower stems. The flowers themselves are stout and tubular – perfectly fit for a bumble bee who is the most frequent visitor.
Summer into fall, as the maroon capsules begin to appear after flowering.
In winter we are left with their structure and the sounds of seed pods rattling in the breeze.
Interested in learning more about how to design your own habitat-friendly landscape or garden? Apply to join our residential short course, New Directions in the American Landscape, led by Larry Weaner.
Thank you to Naturalist & Biodiversity Management Team Coordinator, Charlotte Lorick for her help with this blog post.
References:
Luna, Tara, and R. Kasten Dumroese. “Monarchs (Danaus Plexippus) and Milkweeds (Asclepias Species): THE CURRENT SITUATION AND METHODS FOR PROPAGATING MILKWEEDS.” Native Plants Journal, vol. 14, no. 1, 2013, pp. 5–15. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43309893.
Penstemon digitalis beardtongue. CT NOFA. (2020). Retrieved February 2023, from https://ctnofa.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/beardtongue_50-gloss-color-OPT.pdf
Stritch, L. (n.d.). Plant of the Week: Asclepias tuberosa. U.S. Forest Service. Retrieved February 2023, from https://www.fs.usda.gov/wildflowers/plant-of-the-week/asclepias_tuberosa.shtml
Weakley, A.S., and Southeastern Flora Team 2022. Flora of the southeastern United States. University of North Carolina Herbarium, North Carolina Botanical Garden.
Weaner, L. (1996). SEEDED MEADOW TEN YEARS AFTER PLANTING. Wilton, CT; Landscape Design.
Whitten, W. M. (1981). Pollination ecology of Monarda Didyma, M. Clinopodia, and hybrids (Lamiaceae) in the southern Appalachian Mountains. American Journal of Botany, 68(3), 435–442. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1537-2197.1981.tb06382.x