We know that we need to plant native pollinator-friendly plants and eliminate pesticides that harm or even kill pollinators.

But you can also celebrate National Pollinator Week by purchasing a sign from Xerces Society that helps spread the word about the importance of gardening for pollinators.

From the "outside," a pollinator-friendly yard may not look very different from a yard that doesn't help pollinators. Making our efforts visible by displaying a sign could multiply the benefits of your garden by encouraging neighbors to take similar action.

Purchase at the Xerces store at
 http://www.xerces.org/store/.
I've displayed this sign for a number of years, and it still looks like new. 

Twinleaf seed capsule

What is this weird object and why is an ant exploring it?

The weird object is the seedpod of twinleaf (Jeffersonia diphylla), named to honor Thomas Jefferson in 1792 by the "Father of American Botany," Benjamin Smith Barton.

Twinleaf seedpod

Before it opened, the seedpod looked like a happy frog.

Another interesting feature of this plant is its (duh) twin leaves, which look like a butterfly.

This plant is not only interesting in many ways, but it makes a wonderful groundcover in shade, once established.

A purple finch (still wet from bathing) identified by Merlin

From the Merlin website:
Merlin is designed to be a birding coach for beginning and intermediate bird watchers.

Merlin asks you the same questions that an expert birder would ask to help solve a mystery bird sighting.

Notice that date and location are Merlin's first and most important questions. It takes years of experience in the field to know what species are expected at a given location and date. Merlin shares this this knowledge with you based on more than 70 million sightings submitted to  eBird from birders across the United States and Canada.

I've had a lot of success with the free Merlin app just by submitting basic info about the time, location, and so on, but now they're testing an even more useful version: Merlin Photo ID.

You simply submit a photo of the bird you want to identify. It's still in beta testing, and by trying it out, you'll help make the app even better.

Try it out at http://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/photo-id/

Our never-occupied bat house

Finally, there's some good news for bats, a much-maligned, but very beneficial creature.

Ten years ago, a fungus was introduced in the US that decimated populations of bats in American and Canada.

Now for the first time, scientists have treated bats with White Nose Syndrome and have released them.

Read more about this program from The Nature Conservancy and learn how bananas are involved!

And bats are pollinators, too. Learn more about pollination and bats from Bat Conservation International.

Skaneateles Conservation Area

Exotic bush honeysuckle

This area is an abandoned USDA Soil Research Station (and briefly an Army helicopter training site).

Much of it now consists of highly-degraded fields of buckthorn, honeysuckle, privet, and multiflora rose.

Volunteers have been removing some of the invasives within the last few years, but they could use some ideas about good replacements.

See http://skaak.org/the-areas/federal-farm/ for historic aerial images of the site, and
for some history.
 
Randy will "SHOW" us what they've been doing to remove the invasives and what the result has been over the last few years, and he's interested in our "HELP" as part of this Show Me Help Me Field Trip.

Because this is public land, only licensed applicators are allowed to apply herbicides, so many of the invasives re-sprout and need to be recut over and over. It has made room for some natives to pop up on their own, but those need to be protected from herbivores, and it's only a limited number of species.
 
Geoff Griffiths, a Ph.D. Ecology student at SUNY-ESF, will help answer the more difficult  questions and provide suggestions of his own. His Wildflower Restoration project is being done on a site (the Guppy Farm, on the other side of Gully Road) that was reforested earlier and has less of an invasive species problem, but native woodland wildflowers are absent. See more about that project at http://skaak.org/flora-2/wildflower-restoration/.
Sat. June 20 at 10 am. Open to all. RSVP to Randy Nonenmacher at ranonenmacher@twcny.rr.com.

Details will be sent to registrants.

The most common question people have asked over the years is "Where can we get native plants?"

Central New York does seem to be behind other areas of the country in making native plants available, but each year there are more plants available, and our Native Plant Shopping Guide will tell you where to find them.

Download it for free on our website
The Guide is in three parts:

• an introduction (Download)
• plants listed by scientific name (Download)
• plants listed by common name (Download)

Or you can download the complete Guide (Introduction, List by scientific name, and List by common name).

Please read the introduction! In addition to information about the vendors, it suggests guidelines for choosing plants. For example, it's beneficial to choose species rather than cultivars. The Introduction provides additional information.

New this year is a link (the asterisk in the left hand column) to a map of each plant's distribution county by county as part of the Biota of North America Program at http://bonap.net/NAPA/Genus/Traditional/County.

If you're looking for a particular plant, be sure to call ahead to be sure the vendor has them in stock on any particular day.

Thank you to our vendors for taking the time and effort to provide a list of their native plant offerings.

Special thanks to Randy Nonenmacher, Carol Biesemeyer, and Randi Starmer for their assistance.

And THANKS to all of you who choose native plants!