Wild Ones LogoHabitat Gardening
in Central New York
    Issue #48 - March 21, 2011  
In This Issue
Native Trees workshop
Master Composter class
Lawns by Michael Pollan
Time to replace some of our turf grass
Beginning the journey north
Wizened winterberries still providing food
Milkweed seeds wanted for school garden
Butterfly weed
Butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa)
Do you happen to have saved swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) or butterfly weed (A. tuberosa) seeds last fall?

An SU Early Education and Child Care Center teacher is planting a butterfly garden, and could use donations of these milkweed seeds as well as nectar plants for the adult butterflies.

Contact Hope if you have donations to make.

Native trees for Urban, Home, and Degraded Landscapes 

tree
This FREE workshop will be presented by Don Leopold, Distinguished Professor of the Dept of Environmental and Forest Biology at SUNY-ESF.

Saturday March 26 at the Cazenovia Public Library.  Doors open at 9:00 am; presentation at 9:30.
The program is sponsored by the Tree Commission of the Village of Cazenovia.
Native plants celebrated at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden this year
pussy willow
Pussy willow (Salix discolor)
In 2011, in recognition of the 100th anniversary of the  Native Flora Garden, Brooklyn Botanic Garden celebrates native plants.

This yearlong tribute underscores the vital importance of plant conservation and offers practical ways for gardeners to renew and invigorate their local environments.

For information about the BBG and its native plant events this year...

 

Master Composter Class
Compost
Compost
A master composting class is being offered  at Northern Onondaga Public Library
Mon.-Wed. May 2, 3, 4
from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm

$15 fee includes supplies for a vermicompost bin and worms.

Call 699-2032 to register or register online.

 

Lawns: A symptom of our skewed relationship to the land
By Michael Pollan
lawn
Lawns, I am convinced, are a symptom of, and a metaphor for, our skewed relationship to the land. They teach us that, with the help of petrochemicals and technology, we can bend nature to our will. Lawns stoke our hubris with regard to the land.

What is the alternative? To turn them into gardens. I'm not suggesting that there is no place for lawns in these gardens or that gardens by themselves will right our relationship to the land, but the habits of thought they foster can take us some way in that direction....

 

For if lawn mowing feels like copying the same sentence over and over, gardening is like writing out new ones, an infinitely variable process of invention and discovery.

An excerpt from Why Mow? by Michael Pollan

 

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Greetings!

This newsletter is a little early this month in order to remind you of the many events being held in the very near future.

We're pleased to have Dr. Mark Meisner as our speaker for our March 27 meeting. The topic is The Significance of Media Images of Nature.
 

This presentation will discuss and illustrate some of the key ways that the natural world is portrayed through the media. These include Nature as a problem, Nature as a resource, and Nature as a victim or patient. The implications of these and other such representations of Nature will be discussed in relation to how Nature is perceived, valued and treated in North American culture.

Dr. Meisner is Assistant Professor of Environmental Communication in the Department of Environmental Studies at (SUNY-ESF). He directs the Environmental Communication Network and edits Indications, the Environmental Communication and Culture blog .

Time/Place: Le Moyne College Library Special Activities Room at 2:00 pm Sunday March 27. (Directions)

 

Welcome spring with our APRIL 2 workshop with author Carolyn Summers 

 

Carolyn Summers has been much in demand as a speaker since the publication of her new book. We're fortunate to have been able to schedule her here in CNY. Not to be missed!

 

Designing Gardens by Summers HGCNY and BWNC are co-sponsoring a workshop with Carolyn Summers, the author of Designing Gardens with Flora of the American East.   

 

For more info...  

Register by calling Baltimore Woods at 673-1350. Wild Ones members are eligible for a discount.  

 

NOTE: There are two sessions. You can register for either or both.   

Each session: $25/member; $35/nonmember

Both sessions: $40/member; $60/nonmember

HURRY! There's room for only 70 people!

 

Janet  

Prairie dropseed
Consider replacing some of your turf grass with plants such as Prairie dropseed (Sporobolus heterolepis)
Plan for less lawn this year
  Chances are your lawn isn't looking so good right now. It's a good time to consider reducing its size.

Why have less lawn?

*  It takes a lot of work and money to keep it looking good. After all, it wasn't meant to grow here!

 

*  It's a biological desert, providing nothing for wildlife, and using space (63,000 square miles of space) that could otherwise support life.

 

*  It creates many environmental problems:  

   - water pollution from lawn fertilizers and herbicides,   

   - high water use, 

   - health risks for our children, pets, and wildlife from pesticides,

   - air pollution from fossil fuel-powered lawn equipment,

   - noise pollution. How nice it would be to enjoy our weekends without the incessant roar of lawn mowers! 

 

* Lawns are s-o-o-o boring.

 

A multi-year project 

It's probably not a good idea to get rid of all of it at once--it would just be too much work, and it's hard to visualize large changes in your yard.  

 

Instead, create a three-year plan or even a five-year plan for reducing your lawn. You could replace perhaps 10% to 20% each year with plantings that would be more interesting and healthier for people, wildlife, and for the planet.

 

Probably requiring the least work (once plants are established) are native trees and shrubs, especially if they're in one big planting bed, perhaps long the side of your yard, so you don't have to be mowing around individual specimen plants.

 

How-to 

Attending our Carolyn Summers workshop on April 2 (see above) will give you lots of ideas for what you can plant instead of lawn.

 

For additional information on how to get rid of lawn (hint: Digging it up is NOT the easiest way) and for ideas of what to plant instead:

 

* LessLawn.com - Explore the site and you'll get lots of ideas for different designs to fit your taste as well as how to smother your lawn

 

* Bayscapes: Homeowner's Guide to Designing Your Property - an excellent guide that helps you visualize some ideas for your yard. 

 

Putting lawn reduction into context 

And for inspiration to take this step, read Michael Pollan's article "Why Mow? The Case Against Lawns" (Although--horrors!-- in his own yard, he replaced some of his lawn with forsythia, bittersweet, and lilac--all non-natives. We can do better than that!) 

Hummingbird
Beginning the journey north
  Two of our favorite creatures have started their long journey north.

Hummingbirds  You can check their progress on the Journey North website or on the Hummingbirds.net website. Some have already made it into Virginia!

Besides the migration update, Journey North has  amazing photos of hummingbirds. Don't be put off by the fact that many are in the section labeled Journey North for Kids. I can't imagine any adult not also being intrigued by these spectacular photos and fascinating information. There are additional slide shows, too, which show how they build their nests and much more.

Caterpillar
Monarch caterpillar - what we hope to see in July! 
Monarchs    
Track the monarchs' progress here, and learn more about how the population fared this winter. Here's the  update as of March 17, as well as the updates from previous weeks. They're lagging behind the hummingbirds, since the monarchs are now only in the southernmost part of the US.

Monarchs and hummingbirds: A difference
One difference between the hummingbirds and the monarchs, is that unlike hummingbirds where individual birds may return to CNY, monarchs are in a type of relay race. Overwintering individuals move into the US to lay their eggs, and then this new generation advances northward.

In other words, the monarchs we will see in June are not the ones that overwintered in Mexico. They have never been here before. And it's their descendents who will travel to Mexico, a place they have never been. Here's a slide show describing how monarchs navigate.
Winterberries still a source of food

Winterberry and robin

Robin eating wizened up winterberries

 Though the winterberries (Ilex verticillata) that decorated our yard all winter are no longer plump and no longer scarlet, robins still appreciate them as a source of food.

This robin was actually here throughout the winter, but a northern mockingbird had claimed this bush as his own and had defended it vigorously. It's now the robin's turn since the mockingbird hasn't been around lately. Last year, while awaiting their favorite serviceberries (Amelanchier), robins were still eating wizened-up winterberries even after the bush had leafed out.  

 

The winterberry is a native holly and can be seen beautifying the Labrador Hollow Unique Area in the fall. It's easy to grow and is a good solution for a very wet area, though it grows in well-drained garden soil, too.  


Winterberry
Winterberries at the beginning of winter

Like other hollies, you need a male to pollinate the female plants. Cultivars generally are marked as to sex, but, instead, you can buy inexpensive potted seedlings of the species. Just get a few extra and eliminate any extra males when you know which are which. (The females will have the berries.)