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The beautiful Black and Gold bumble bee enjoying Monarda fistulosa
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Show Me Help Me Tours
Thank you to Diana Green for hosting a Show Me Help Me tour!
We were impressed at the progress she's made in just a few years, even though she started out as a novice gardener. She wishes to thank all who came, helping her identify plants she wasn't sure about and providing helpful advice. It was truly a "Show Me" as well as a "Help Me" since we learned a lot, too!
Our Habitat Garden / Our Edible Garden tours
If you'd like to tour Janet's yard, feel free to contact me and arrange a tour BY APPOINTMENT (email me at hg.cny@verizon.net to set up a time). FREE Presentation open to the public
Sat. Aug. 22 at 10:00 am Habitat Gardening for LifeUpper Onondaga Park Fire Hall. NOTE: This is in the Strathmore area at Roberts and Crossett Roads, NOT Onondaga Lake Park in Liverpool. ANNUAL Plant sale Sat./Sun. Sept. 12/13
Please send in your requests and get your Northeast-native plants ready for donation! More information in the story below.
Janet Allen, President
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Lots of "worms" ... or none?
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Monarch caterpillar eating the leaf
Note "flagging" at the top:
Chewing a notch in the leaf's petiole, causing the leaf to hang down, minimizing the flow of sap
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Thanks to publicity about the plight of the monarch, many people have gotten the message that it's important to plant milkweed.
It seems like straightforward advice, but sometimes we assume too much.
We've recently encountered two misunderstandings HGCNYers have found in their conversations with the public.
1) TOO MANY "worms" eating the milkweed
Some people are distressed to see "worms" eating the nice milkweed plants they're growing. As HGCNYers know, these aren't "worms," they're the monarch caterpillars we're hoping for! (Note: Some other caterpillars, such as tussock moths, will eat milkweed leaves, too.)
As you talk about monarchs to other people, please mention that the adult butterfly we enjoy is only one phase of four, and the monarch caterpillar phase needs to eat milkweed leaves in order to become a butterfly.
2) NO caterpillars eating the milkweed
Some people have reported no caterpillars eating the milkweed ... but unfortunately their response is that they might as well pull it out since "it didn't work."
Please mention to people that this is a long-term project.
We may have unwittingly led people to think that by planting milkweeds, their yard would be instantly swarming with monarch butterflies. But the reason we're planting them is because the population has declined partly due to lack of milkweed. Sadly, there just aren't that many around!
As their numbers rebound, we want to have lots of healthy milkweed waiting to sustain the population. If people didn't get monarchs this year, ask them to be patient. If enough people plant milkweeds, we hope to see a steady increase in their numbers so eventually we'll be able to enjoy seeing them in their previous abundance.
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Butterfly- and bee-friendly joe-pye
(Eutrochium, formerly Eupatorium)
Let's drop the "weed"
part of the name!
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Discussions about native plants often puzzle people when it comes to the idea of "weeds." Unfortunately, "weed" is often embedded in the name of many fine native plants, such as milk weed or joe-pye weed - beautiful plants despite their name. Some people consider plants growing in the wild, not intentionally planted, as "weeds" as opposed to the "desirable" plants bought in a store. The bottom line is that people often wonder why we ask them to plant "weeds"! Another way of thinking about weedsConsider Darke and Tallamy's definition of "native": A native is a plant or animal that has evolved in a given place over a period of time sufficient to develop complex and essential relationships with the physical environment and other organisms in a given ecological community.If we think of this in reverse, we could consider as "weeds" those plants that have NOT developed complex and essential relationships with the physical environment or other organisms in a given ecological community. So what fits that definition of "weed"? Japanese barberry, Norway maple, Bradford pear etc. etc. etc. could easily be considered weeds, despite the fact that these are intentionally produced, bought, and planted. They may have some simple relationships, such as birds eating their berries, but these aren't essential nor complex relationships in our ecological community.
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Help in designing your landscape
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| | Lots of design help for creating a living landscape |
Where to begin? Not only have people lost many of the gardening skills their grandparents took for granted, but we now need to ask more of our landscapes than we did in the past. It can be a daunting task indeed for someone starting with the conventional lawn-dominated American landscape. Rick Darke and Doug Tallamy offer lots of practical help and advice as you plan your landscape, and equally important, they help redefine the idea of "beauty" in a landscape. The OurHabitatGarden.org website page at ( http://www.ourhabitatgarden.org/habitat/design.html) has many links to other assistance from Audubon at Home, Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay etc. in planning your living landscape. Local design assistanceOne of the keys to changing the CNY's landscapes is to have local plant and design experts available to help people create living landscapes and habitat gardens. We've worked hard to support local professionals and vendors, and we appreciate their support through the years. We're now pleased to add an additional local resource: Laura Shaddak, a SUNY-ESF Landscape Architecture grad who is specializing in native plant designs with edible and medicinal plants. Her website is at LShaddakLandDesign.com. Welcome, Laura!
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Get ready for our annual plant sale
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Cedar waxwing enjoying pagoda dogwood (Cornus alternifolia) berries
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The annual HGCNY Northeast-native plant sale will be held Sat., Sept. 12 9:30 am to noon. Plants not sold Saturday will be available Sun., Sept. 13 from 1 - 3 pm. Location: The Allens ( directions). We'll have an assortment of plants from local vendors in addition to plants donated by HGCNYers. I f there are particular plants that you want please let us know and we'll try to acquire them and hold them for you. Email your requests to John. Special note on shrub and tree seedlingsTree and shrub seedlings will also be available ONLY by ordering in advance no later than August 31 (details below). These pre-orders will be available at the sale. (The reason for the early ordering date is that our vendor White Oak Nursery must deliver the plants before September 3.) To see what shrubs and trees are available go to www.whiteoaknursery.biz and click on "Potted Seedlings". To cover the additional costs of the container, the delivery, and a small HGCNY contribution, our price is $5 more than the price listed on the White Oak Nursery website. To order the seedlings, email John listing the name of the tree or shrub, the quantity, and the price, i.e. the White Oak Nursery price + $5. (And if you have White Oak Nursery pots from last year, bring them along and Jim will credit us for them!) If you're not able to pick them up during the plant sale on Sept. 12 or 13, indicate that you need to arrange another time/date for pickup. Plant donationsIf you have Northeast-native plants to donate, you can bring them between 8 am and 9 am the day of the sale. Please pot them up and label them. It is best if they are potted at least a week before the sale. Contact John if you want to bring plants before Sept. 12. Please be sure your plants are Northeast-native. If you're not sure, check at The Biota of No. America Program. (Green is native range; blue is non-native.) People who bring plants to donate between 8 am and 9 am on the day of the sale will have the opportunity to buy plants prior to the 9:30 am starting time. Thank you for participating in our plant sale! It not only gets native plants planted in CNY to benefit both people and wildlife, but also funds this newsletter, our programs, and other projects!
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2015 Native Plant Shopping Guide
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 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 websiteThe Guide is in three parts:
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! |
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I believe that our grandchildren will look back on us now and marvel that our economy was once dependent on chemicals that were killing the planet and killing ourselves and they will think of it as unthinkable.~ Sandra Steingraber, biologist and author of Living DownstreamIn fact, insects are evolving resistance to chemicals just about as fast as we humans can devise new ones. Perhaps the greatest of all celestial ironies is being played out. As we increasingly risk our own health in a war of toxic terror--a process of unnatural selection--we are encouraging insects to become ever more dominant life-forms.~ Eris Grissell, Insects and GardensDo unto those downstream as you would have those upstream do unto you.~ Wendell Berry
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Asian Longhorned Beetle
Photo: US Forest Service
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NYS's Dept. of Env. Conservation is inviting pool owners to be citizen scientists. Pool monitoring is a simple, economical alternative to traditional procedures for surveying Asian Longhorned Beetles (ALB) in the state. It also has the potential to become New York's most effective method for detecting ALBs. Learn more and find out how to participate...
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Barefoot Bats at Baltimore Woods
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Well, not actually barefoot bats, but a chance to be barefoot in the woods and also a chance to learn more about bats. Sat. Aug 22 1-3 pm Barefoot Hike Free your feet! Come feel the earth under your soles at Baltimore Woods, as Barefoot Bob reconnects you to this underutilized and healthy mode of transportation. Join Bob for a half-mile barefoot hike along the Valley Trail over grass, wooden bridges, leaves and soil. For ages 4 and up. Sat. Aug 29 7-8:30 pm Bats! Misunderstood by many, repulsive to some, and feared by others, come spend and evening, indoors and out, as we find out why bats are truly beneficial creatures, with undeserved reputations. Meet at the lower parking lot. For ages 5 and up. Each program: $6 for B. Woods members; $9 for nonmembers. For more info and to register for any August program ...
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Baltimore Woods
Summer Nature
Day Camps
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Since HGCNY is a chapter of the national organization Wild Ones, when you become a member of Wild Ones, you're automatically a member of HGCNY, too. And since Wild Ones is an official not-for-profit, your membership is tax-deductible.
It's easy to become a member, receive the bimonthly Wild Ones Journal, and support our mission.
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As more of us participate on our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/hgcny, this will become a useful resource for asking (and answering!) local HGCNYers' questions about habitat gardening.
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 Visit Our Habitat Garden website for information on providing habitat, earth-friendly gardening practices, plants, and various creatures here in Central New York. |
Visit Our Edible Garden website to see an example of a local vegetable and fruit garden. An edible garden is a perfect complement to your habitat garden. Email me if you want to receive a vegetable gardening e-newsletter.
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