A male cardinal feeding its baby.

Save the dates for our 2014-2015 programs

Mark your calendars for all our programs from September through April (except December). The schedule is on our website.

Our meetings are the last Sunday of each month at 2:00 pm at Liverpool Public Library (directions). And they're all free and open to the public, so bring a friend or two!

Creating a Bird-Friendly Landscape

Our first program of the 2014-2015 program year will be presented by Janet Allen on Sunday, Sept. 28 at 2:00 at Liverpool Public Library. 

Directions to FLCC Stage 14

Doug Tallamy is a professor in the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware where he has authored 80 research articles and has taught Insect Taxonomy, Behavioral Ecology, Humans and Nature, Insect ecology and other courses for 32 years.  

 

Chief among his research goals is to better understand the many ways insects interact with plants and how such interactions determine the diversity of animal communities.  

 

His book "Bringing Nature Home; How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in Our Gardens" was published by Timber Press in 2007 and was awarded the 2008 silver medal by the Garden Writer's Association. "The Living Landscape" coauthored with Rick Darke, was published in 2014.  

 

Doug was awarded the Garden Club of America Margaret Douglas Medal for Conservation and the Tom Dodd Jr. Award of Excellence in 2013. 

 

For more information 

Flowering raspberry (Rubus odoratus)

The annual HGCNY plant sale, held on Sept. 13-15, was a great success due to the hard work of a number of volunteers:
John Allen, Randi Starmer, and Soule Leiter.

Thank you, too, to our vendors: The Plantsmen Nursery, Amanda's Garden, White Oak Nursery, and Maple Hill Nursery.

And a big thank you to our HGCNYers who donated plants to the sale! These nicely labeled plants expanded our range of offerings (and, of course, raises the most funds for HGCNY).

Yes, it was a successful fundraiser, but we accomplished more than that.

First, we now have more native plants growing in local landscapes.

But just as important, people learned more about native plants and natural landscaping as they browsed the plants. They also learned more about HGCNY from our plant sale "staff." We expect to see some new faces at our meetings!

Westchester County (downstate NY) has developed a Love 'Em and Leave 'Em campaign to change the common -- but unnecessary and harmful -- practice of raking up and bagging leaves to be discarded at the curb.

As their website says:
Mulching-in-place is not some new fad. Shredding your leaves where they are on the lawn, using shredded leaves as a winter mulch on landscape beds, collecting shredded leaves into compost piles, or simply leaving your leaves under the trees in wooded areas are all examples of using Mother Nature's own time-tested method of turning old leaves into new soil.

Besides building better soil, the leaf layer provides a home for some moth or butterfly chrysalids that are waiting for spring and other insects, which themselves are a good food source for true sparrows, such as white-throated sparrows. (Note: House sparrows are not really sparrows; true sparrows are charming little birds.)

The Love 'Em and Leave 'Em campaign has specific information for: municipalities (which can save LOTS of money and prevent LOTS of pollution), landscapers, and homeowners (including a video on mulching leaves with a mulching mower). They have developed a whole toolkit for anyone to use.

Learn more about composting leaves on the Our Habitat Garden website.

Red oak leaves in fall

Celebrate the beauty of autumn by observing plants in our community with Project Budburst's Fall into Phenology campaign.

 

During September and October take a moment and make an observation of plants as the seasons change. Participating is easy - just Observe, Record, and Submit.

 

New to the world of plant observing?  

No problem - check out the "What Path is Best for Me?" section at the bottom right of the Fall into Phenology page. 

 

Why participate in Project Budburst citizen science?
Today, the well established science of phenology is seeing a resurgence of interest as researchers seek observations of changes in plant phenology to help them better understand changes in our environment.

As the climate continues to change, tracking the life stages of plants and animals will help conservation efforts.

And tracking how plants and animals change through the seasons will increase your powers of observation and your enjoyment of the natural world.

Gary Stell, a milkweed expert formerly living in CNY, provided the following information on mowing and maintaining meadows for wildlife, especially for monarch butterflies:

* In general the meadow should be mowed at least once every 3 years to eliminate trees and other woody plants, preventing the progression to an eventual wooded lot.

* Never mow the entire field at once. Mow 1/3 each year, leaving it 6 inches high.

* Timing: Fall mowing leaving 2/3 of the meadow will leave the majority of the seed for the birds and other wildlife. This cutting should occur after the monarch migration has completed in order to not disturb late emerging butterflies. Waiting until after the first killing frost will give time for migrants to leave. Most of the monarchs are well on their way when the goldenrod and New England asters are in bloom.

* I do not recommend mowing swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) or butterfly weed (A. tuberosa). Swamp milkweed blooms in mid to late July and provides important nectar for butterflies and bees. Butterfly weed blooms in early July. I have no experience with mowing it, but doing so may kill the stand. Monarchs generally do not select butterfly weed for oviposition. Of course there may be exceptions, but it makes a better nectar source than monarch host plant.

* Common milkweed (A. syriaca) responds well to mowing. My best experience mowing of common milkweed was with a dairy farmer who harvested first cutting from a hay field (over 100 acres) where milkweed was very common.

The first cutting was lush and ready early in June. Milkweed typically emerges from the ground the first week in May. In many years the monarchs are only just arriving in early June so the larva and pupa death from the mowing are minimal if at all. The pleasant surprise was the milkweed fully recovered and bloomed late July instead of July 1 and produced a full crop of seed although it matured a week or two later than other wild milkweed.

In an area of hundreds of thousands of acres of GMO corn and soybeans, this dairy farmer's management practices created an ideal monarch habitat.

In This Issue

Robin Kimmerer

Wed., Sept. 24, 7:30 pm at the Gateway Center
(Directions)
Admission to the lecture and reception if FREE and open to the public.
Parking will be available on campus.

In 2014, we commemorate the 100th anniversary of the extinction of the passenger pigeon as Professor Kimmerer shares insights from indigenous environmental ethics on species conservation.

Dr. Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass and Gathering Moss, will sign copies of her books after the talk.

Her books will be sold from 6:00 to 7:15 pm at the ESF Bookstore in the Gateway Center prior to her talk, and for an hour after her talk.

According to Westchester County's Love 'Em and Leave 'Em:

10:1 - That's the reduction of volume of leaves you achieve when you mulch them with a mower or use a leaf shredder.

60,000 - The amount of tons of leaves handled in Westchester County every fall (Oct. -Dec.) and which could potentially be eliminated as handling waste.

$100,000-$750,000 - The estimated savings for specific municipalities from the reduction in County yard waste tipping fees, labor overtime, fuel, and transportation costs, specialized equipment purchase and maintenance, prevention of storm drain clogging, etc.

0 - The number of trips you have to make to the curb to place your bags or blow your leaves if you mulch-in-place.