Celebrate No Mow May along with the butterflies, birds and bees
The No Mow movement is sweeping the world after getting its start in Britain. It is now being picked up by environmental groups, cities and towns and individual homeowners looking to do their part to help native flowers and fauna.
The No Mow May movement is picking up steam around the world. We can all play our part by just doing less.
Plantlife gives birth to No Mow May movement sweeping the world
Turns out we have permission not to mow our grass in May.
Not only do we have permission, some very important people, environmental agencies and lovable tree huggers are actually encouraging us not to cut the grass. Instead, just let it go and see what comes up. They promise we might even be pleasantly surprised.
Turf grass has long been considered a waste of time and money, but ever increasing information points to extensive turf grass being extremely detrimental to native fauna from insects and pollinators to mammals, amphibians and reptiles that are losing habitat at an alarming rate.
Need proof? Check out my earlier article about why we need a whole lot less grass in our lives.
We can thank some folks in Great Britain at Plantlife for this little grass-cutting reprieve. In their own words: “Plantlife is a British conservation charity working nationally and internationally to save threatened wild flowers, plants and fungi . We own nearly 4,500 acres of nature reserve across England, Scotland and Wales. We have 11,000 members and supporters and HRH The Prince of Wales is our Patron.”
Talk about working to save native plants, Plantlife can boast some pretty serious achievements.
For example, Plantlife, with its HQ in Salisbury and field staff spread across Britain including national offices in Wales and Scotland, was instrumental in the creation of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation and is a member of Planta Europa, a pan-European netwok of more than 60 wild plant conservation organizations.
So Plantlife might have led the way, but now environmental groups, cities, towns you name it are jumping on board to declare May as No Mow Month to kick off spring and provide a healthy boost to native flowers and grasses, and the bees, butterflies, birds and other wildlife that thrive in more natural landscapes.
• If you are considering creating a meadow in your front or backyard, be sure to check out The Making of a Meadow post for a landscape designer’s take on making a meadow in her own front yard.
Letting areas of the yard go back to nature can result in native wildflowers springing up in places you would never expect.
Cities and towns take No Mow May to new levels
Here in Ontario, for example, a town outside Toronto, East Gwillimbury, is actually encouraging residents not to cut their grass to “ help support pollinators during this crucial spring period as they are seeking their first food sources of the season such as dandelions and other flowers typically found in lawns. This movement is important as research indicates a mass extinction of insects is underway. Of particular concern in recent years, is the decline of the bee population.”
Residents are asked to avoid mowing lawns until June with the goal of preventing disturbance of overwintering insects and amphibians that may be burrowed or hiding in leaves and lawns, and to increase food sources to pollinators.”
And, if that is not enough, they are turning it into a competition where residents sign up for the challenge, pay $5 and receive a lawn sign to “show neighbours” they are supporting No Mow May.
All the donations are going to the David Suzuki foundation Butterfly Way. The Butterfly Project has expanded to hundreds of communities throughout Canada with more than 1,000 volunteer Butterfly Rangers who, together with recruits planted pollinator patches in thousands of yards, gardens, schools and parks in 2021.
Greenpeace gives No Mow a boost
Even Greenpeace has jumped on board to promote the No Mow May Challenge. In an article on its website, Greenpeace points to why a flowering meadow is so much better than a well-mown lawn.
Greenpeace states: “By compiling several European and American studies in a meta-analysis, the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières has revealed that lawns create manufactured ecosystems with low biodiversity, a condition that worsens as the intensity of mowing increases. Lawns that are mowed more frequently are linked to a decrease in the number of invertebrates and have less plant diversity, while the presence of pests and invasive species goes up. We have every reason to think twice about our obsession with perfectly manicured lawns.”
Bee City USA joins in the No Mow May fun
In the United States, similar projects are underway. Bee City USA, an initiative of the Xerces Society, has been promoting No Mow for a number of years and report that in 2020, residents of Appleton Wisconsin, a Bee City USA affiliate, convinced their City Council to suspend their weed ordinance for the month of May. More than 435 registered property owners participated in the campaign and the local university joined in to study the results.
The Bee City USA website points out that the findings were very impressive. “Not only were the abundance and richness of bees higher in the yards of properties participating in No Mow May, but they were way higher. Participating yards had three-times higher bee species richness and five-times higher bee abundance than nearby parks that had been mowed.”
Getting back to Plantlife, the originators of No Mow May. The website reports that last year (2021) the conversion to wilder lawns resulting from the No-Mow approach, saw records of bee orchids, snake’s-head fritillaries and eyebrights. To further dru home the results, it Plantlife reports that a “three-acre meadow can be home to 9 million flowers producing enough nectar to support a half million bees every day.”
if that’s not reason to take a break from mowing in May, I’m not sure what is.
And don’t forget, Letting the grass grow is a big step in creating the perfect environment for fireflies to breed.
Okay so you just can’t live without a well-manicured lawn for a month. Maybe you are having a garden party or some important event that means not cutting the grass is not an option.
What else can you do if No Mow is a No Go
You can help pollinators throughout the spring and summer by:
Planting a specialized pollinator garden in the backyard. Look for a variety of native flowering plants, such as Asters, Bee Balm, Milkweed and Coneflowers, or other natives depending where you garden. Try to achieve varying bloom times that begin blooming in spring and continue through until fall.
Maybe you can find a small section of your yard that can remain uncut all summer long. Even a small area in an out-of-the-way corner of the yard left uncut can make a difference to pollinators, insects and other wildlife looking for natural habitat.
Consider decrease the mowing frequency throughout the summer. Let your lawn grow a little longer than normal, cut it higher when you do cut it and keep the mowing to only once or twice per month.
Mow at the highest setting. This allows low lying flowers to continue to grow and decreases re-flower time for those that are mown.
Tips to create a mini meadow-inspired garden
Creating a mini meadow garden in a sunny area of your yard is an excellent way to attract a variety of pollinators from bees to butterflies and everything in between.
Can I have a meadow garden in a small space?
A monarch works a sunflower in a naturalized flower border.
Just like you can create a woodland-inspired yard in today’s smaller urban backyards, so too can you find a sunny spot in your backyard to create a meadow-inspired garden that will bring you many of the same joys that a full-sized meadow offers.
That includes a natural, ever-changing planting with an abundance of colour and texture that is a magnet for birds, butterflies, bees and other pollinators.
In a small garden, you may not be able to have the meadow of your dreams, but with the right plants you can have one most gardeners only dream about. And creating it is relatively simple.
I have been working on creating a meadow-inspired garden across a small hill located at the back of our yard that gets strong afternoon sun despite being under the canopy of two old crabapple trees.
By transplanting native grasses such as Little Bluestem, Black-eyed Susans, Purple Coneflowers, native sunflowers and other meadow plants, I have been able to fill in a good portion of the hillside garden. I expect to see some positive results from my efforts this summer as the plants begin to grow in and take shape. More native plants and seeds will follow this season to help fill in any empty areas. I’m also counting on nature to do its thing as well to help me along the path to a lovely little meadow-inspired garden.
In their book, Garden Revolution, How our Landscapes can be a source of Environmental Change, Larry Weaner and Thomas Christopher, write: “Native meadow is likely the best answer to North America’s over reliance on lawn, a means of saving the enormous quantities of water, fertilizer, herbicides, pesticides, and fossil fuels annually invested in the cultivation of turf. Unlike shrublands and forests, meadows can be established from seed in a relatively short time to gravitate toward open space and expansive views, attributes not common in a forest or shrubland.”
The authors ask why, then, does grass continue to dominate our landscapes?
They point to the quality of seed that has been sold in the past to create these meadows and the desire by homeowners to have an instant meadow in a single season.
“Meadows can work, but only if the gardener selects plants and uses techniques that reflect the local habitats and ecological processes that will affect their survival and proliferation.This is why successful meadow will look quite different in different regions.”
Goldfinch works on a sunflower in a naturalized flower border.
For more on creating a naturalized meadow and wildlife habitat, be sure to check out my post Fields of Gold: Sunflowers and Goldfinches.
Their approach to creating a successful meadow is a fascinating look at working with nature using native plants and a more ecological approach. Although it is aimed at creating and maintaining large meadows with the least amount of work, their approach is certainly one that works in a mini meadow-inspired garden.
If you have visions for a larger meadow, Garden Revolution is a must read gardening guide to creating meadows and other inspirational gardens by working with native plants.
If you are interested in exploring this approach in greater detail, check out my more extensive post on Garden Revolution here.
• For more on creating a meadow garden, check out this comprehensive post on how Garden designer Angela den Hoede created one at her home.
• If you are looking for ideas on using low-growing ornamental grasses, be sure to check out my post on Five low-growing ornamental grasses.
The following, however, are some tips on creating your mini meadow-inspired garden.
A monarch takes a moment to work on the flower of the common thistle. Letting your meadow go a little “weedy” can attract some beautiful friends for a visit.
What’s the difference between a Meadow or Prairie garden?
Whether you choose a meadow-inspired garden or a prairie-inspired garden, the process is somewhat similar.
• If you want mostly colourful flowers, then a meadow-inspired garden is the direction you want to go. Use ever-blooming annuals to get your garden going. In fall dig them into the garden and replant for next year. Or plant your meadow with perennials that also flower generously (oxeye daisies, coreopsis and black-eyed Susans). Eventually a combination of the two will give you a good start on your continuous flowering meadow.
• If you are more a fan of grasses than you might want to lean to a more prairie look. Grasses rather than flowers hold centre stage in the prairie garden. In mid summer, however, the prairie leaps into bloom with wildflowers that complement the height and habit of grasses.
• A meadow planting is shorter than the prairie-inspired garden that features grasses like Big Bluestem, compass plant and others that can easily reach head height and beyond. If you still like the prairie look, there are plants that stay on the shorter side such as Prairie Dropseed, grama grass, foxtail barley, butterfly weed and blanket flower to name just a few.
• In a meadow garden, more attention will have to be paid to maintaining the existing flowers because these gardens tend to want to move toward grasses unless given proper guidance.
It won’t take long for pollinators like this native bumblebee to find your mini meadow.
Six steps to a Meadow Startup
Sally Roth, in her informative book Natural Landscaping: Gardening with Nature to Create a Backyard Paradise, provides the following steps to create a Meadow-inspired garden.
Strip or smother existing sod.
Till or turn the soil until it is smooth.
Water the area thoroughly with a fine to medium spray.
Wait for weed seeds to sprout. Slice off with the blade of a hoe, taking care not to disturbthe soil. Repeat as often as you have patience for.
Sow meadow garden seed.
Weed until meadow seedlings are well on their way.
For a fast Meadow mix from seed, Roth suggests the following plants be included
Baby blue eyes: (Nemophila menziesii) This delicate low-grower has charming blue flowers above a ferny foliage.
Bachelor’s-Buttons: (Centaurea cyanus) Branched and bushy plants with long-lasting blooms in blue, pink, rose, white and deep red-purple.
California poppy: (Eschscholia californica) Vivid orange flowers that form cups above lacy gray-green foliage. Pink and purple cultivars are also available.
Calliopsis: (Coreopsis tinctoria) A graceful, knee-high plant with abundant gold, russet, mahogany, or two-toned daisies and ferny foliage.
Corn cockle: (Agrostemma gitbago) Simple, silky flowers in vivid magenta-purple atop a branching midheight plant with grayish foliage.
Other plants to consider include: field poppy, Scarlet flax, Cosmos, Tickseed, sunflower.
If a more perennial style garden is more to your liking consider the following plants
Birdfoot violet, Black-eyed Susans, Bluets, Butter-and-eggs, Butterfly weed, Foxtail grasses, Goldenrods, Heath aster, Heliopsis, Little Bluestem, Moth mullein, New England Aster, Oxeye daisy, Panicled aster, Wild bergamot, Winged sumac and Yarrows.
If you are on the lookout for high quality, non-GMO seed for the Pacific North West consider West Coast Seeds. The company, based in Vancouver BC says that “part of our mission to help repair the world, we place a high priority on education and community outreach. Our intent is to encourage sustainable, organic growing practices through knowledge and support. We believe in the principles of eating locally produced food whenever possible, sharing gardening wisdom, and teaching people how to grow from seed.”
Tips to attract birds to your mini meadow
Remember to plant the flowers that set seeds that you know will attract birds later in the season. Both annual and perennial sunflowers (see story) are good for starters, as are cosmos and coneflowers.
Allow the “weeds” to take root. The seeds and or fruits of lamb’s quarters, pigweed, pokeweed and ragweed will attract a variety of birds.
Leave areas of the garden undisturbed as much as possible. These are excellent areas for birds to tuck their nests in to shrubby plants or even grasses.
Plant perennials that spread into large colonies to create cover for the birds.
Leave the leaves and don’t cut your meadow until spring or, if necessary, late winter so that birds can seek food and shelter in standing plants throughout the cold months.
Butterflies you may attract to your meadow-inspired garden
Depending on where you garden, you can expect to see many of the following butterflies in your mini meadow-inspired garden.
Buckeye
Cabbage White
Common blue
Common Sulphur
European skipper
Gray hairstreak
Indian skipper
Meadow fritillary
Monarch
Orange sulphur
Painted Lady
Pearly crescentspot
Red admiral
Red-spotted purple
viceroy
Zebra swallowtail
Much of the information from this article is from Sally Roth’s informative book Natural Landscaping. For more in depth information check out her gardening book.
How to attract Giant Tiger Swallowtail to your garden
The Giant Yellow Tiger Swallowtail is one of the largest butterflies in the United States and Canada. This “generalist” woodland butterfly is able to survive on a number of host plants in the wild and in our gardens. It is certainly among the most beautiful butterflies in our gardens.
If the Monarch is the queen of garden butterflies, the black and yellow Giant Eastern Tiger Swallowtails are surely the kings.
In our garden, Swallowtails are certainly more numerous than Monarchs during the summer. I see them fluttering about checking out our Coneflowers, Black-eyed Susans and any other safe flowering landing spot they can find. Some specimens are just spectacular boasting a wingspan of between 3.1 to 5.5 inches (7.9 to 14 cm).
The Giant Swallowtail is the largest butterfly in Canada and parts of the United States. In Canada, it is only native at the southwestern tip of Ontario but has been seen as far North as Winnipeg, Manitoba. In the north, they are common from May to September. In the eastern United States, the Tiger Swallowtail is one of the most familiar butterflies, but its range stretches from southern Vermont to Florida west to eastern Texas and the Great Plains.
Females are larger than males and Tiger Swallowtails in the south tend to be larger than those in more northern regions.
Male yellow Tiger Swallowtails have four black “tiger stripes” on each of its forewings. The females, which can be yellow or black, have wings with strong, almost florescent, splashes of blue running across the back end of its wings.
Swallowtails, unlike the Monarch butterfly that depends on milkweed as a host plant, are generalists although they like to lay their eggs on citrus trees in the south and the more common Hop tree and Northern Prickly Ash in more northern regions. Gas Plant and common rue (Ruta graveolens) are also two plants that the larvae use as a host plant.
The caterpillar will pupate in early summer into a well camouflaged chrysalis. After about 12 days, the butterfly emerges. A chrysalis that forms in late fall will not hatch until late spring preferring to overwinter in the debris of our gardens.
This is the reason we do NOT clean up our gardens in the fall or early spring.
Farther south in warmer climates, it’s possible to have three successful hatches.
A single green egg is laid on a plant prior to the birth of a small caterpillar. As the caterpillars age they turn green with two black, yellow, and blue eyespots on the thorax.
The caterpillar turns brown prior to pupating. It will reach a length of 5.5 centimetres (2.2 in). The chrysalis varies from a whitish color to dark brown. Hibernation occurs in this stage in locations with cold winter months.
How to attract Eastern Tiger Swallowtails to your garden
Although Swallowtails are primarily woodland butterflies, other common habitats include open fields, rivers, creek beds, roadsides and, of course, our gardens.
Attracting the giant butterflies to your garden is not difficult providing you ensure at least some of the contributing habitat factors – food for all stages of the butterfly from larvae through to adulthood, a source of shallow water or puddle, and some form of shelter such as a woodpile, tall grasses or bushes where they can disappear to at night.
Food for Swallowtail larvae
Both the caterpillars and the butterflies of both the Eastern variety and the Western variety of Tiger swallowtails can be considered generalists, feeding on a wide variety of plants.
Common host plants used are those of the families Magnoliaceae and Rosaceae, with species like the tulip tree (Liriodendron tulipifera), sweet bay magnolia (Magnolia viginiana) and wild black cherry (prunus serotina). Aspens, Alders, birches, cottonwoods and willows are also host plants in more northern regions.
The Spicebush swallowtail is very similar to the black Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, although it is actually mimicking a poisonous Piper Swallowtail.
But, plant a nice sweep of parsley in a quiet corner of your yard and you are instantly on the right track to attract black Swallowtail caterpillars. Parsley is one of the key host plants for the caterpillars that are also happy to dine on fennel, dill, Queen Anne’s lace and other members of the carrot family.
The butterflies themselves are not overly selective on what flower they will land on to get nectar.
Here are a few good choices that will give you bloom throughout the summer. Adult butterflies use a wide range of food sources, most preferring to nectar on plants with red or pink flowers. As mentioned earlier, purple coneflower Salvias and Black-Eyed Susans provide ideal landing areas for the large butterflies to enjoy a meal, but other nectar sources include:
Bee Balm (Monarda)
Blazing Star (Liatris spicata)
Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa)
Blanket flower (Gaillardia)
Joe-Pye Weed (Eupatorium purpureum)
Penta (Pentas lanceolata)
Garden Phlox (Phlox paniculata)
Why do Swallowtails use puddles?
It is mostly males that gather at puddles either singularly or in numbers. These puddles can be formed in mud or damp gravel and are used by the butterflies to extract sodium ions and amino acids to aid in reproduction.
Females only occasionally puddle and most often are seen alone at the puddle.
In our garden, I like to use a very shallow hanging birdbath as a puddler for butterflies, but you can purchase commercial puddlers to accommodate the butterflies.
You can add some slices of fruit (bananas, oranges) to the shallow puddle to attract even more varieties of butterflies.
Three Ornamental grasses for the shade or woodland garden
Grasses for shade gardening are not always easy to find. Most grasses want full or at least part sun to be their best, but here are three that perform their best in shade.
This lovely little Carex holds its green foliage into the fall and through the winter in our back woodland garden where it grows among the birches in the birch grove.
Ornamental grasses have become an important element in most landscapes, but what do you do if your woodland garden is primarily a shade garden?
Finding grasses that do well in the shade is not easy. Most of today’s popular ornamental grasses – elegant Miscanthus, Pennisetums, Little Bluestem (Schizachyrium Scoparium) – all want and need full sun to look their best. Others want at least part sun to flourish in a landscape design. Bottlebrush Rye grass, Japanese Forest Grass and a variety of sedges are exceptions to this rule and actually prefer a shady landscape to perform their best.
Best shade-loving ornamental grasses
Let’s take a closer look at these three shade-loving grasses for the woodland garden.
The impressive inflorescenceof the Bottlebrush Rye grass is just one of its many attributes that make in a standout in the woodland or shade garden.
Bottlebrush Rye grass: A trusted woodland performer
Probably the best and most recommended native grass for the shade or woodland garden is Bottlebrush Rye (Elymus hystrix).
Although these large, native to parts of the Northeastern United States and Ontario, grasses can survive in full sun, they prefer to grow in shade or part shade where they can grow up to 3-feet-tall. The attractive grasses are hardy from zones 4-7.
Bottlebrush grass is easy to distinguish from other ornamental grasses because of its widely-spaced, open, spreading, long spikelets. As the seeds mature throughout the summer, the spikelets develop a lovely straw colour making it a strong fall performer.
Some of the stems can reach heights of more than 3-feet tall. The grass has a fibrous root system and spreads primarily by reseeding.
We are planning to use this grass in planters this summer to form a privacy-type hedge for native grass. I will report back on our success with this project over the summer months.
The arching –up to 12-inch leaves – are linear, smooth, with a grayish to dark green colouring.
Bottlebrush likes dry to medium soil and will grow in a variety of soil types from clay loam to a sandy loam.
This is one of the most shade-tolerant tall native grasses you’ll find that is a strong performer in most woodland situations whether it’s dry shade, or full sun with enough moisture. The long green inflorescences emerge on three feet all stems where they perform their best in part shade with moist, well drained soil.
The inflorescences that emerge in mid to late summer resemble bottle brushes, hence the common name “Bottlebrush.”
Bottlebrush Rye is classified as a cool season perennial, which means it will put on growth in spring rather than waiting until the hotter summer temperatures take root.
It is particularly suitable to a woodland garden and is perfect as a great low-maintenance accent or border plant.
You can find the grasses growing naturally in average to high quality woodlands and habitats adjacent to these woodlands. But they can also be found in many other less favourable woodland areas including rocky upland woodlands, woodland borders and along woodland paths as well as small meadows in wooded areas, and along shaded riverbanks.
Does Bottlebrush grass attract butterflies and pollinators?
Although grasses may not be the first plant that comes to mind when you think of butterflies and other pollinators, they can be important host plants and provide habitat for overwintering insects and other larvae.
Bottlebrush grass is actually the host plant for the caterpillars of a the attractive Northern Pearly Eye butterfly, Enodia anthedon. Don’t be surprised to see the caterpillars feeding on the plants foliage. It is also a host for the larvae of several leaf-mining and other moths as well as aphids and leafhoppers.
Several birds species are also attracted to the grasses seeds in the fall and early winter.
For more specific information on what fauna is attracted to the grasses, go to Illinois Wildflowers.
You might also like to read my post on Why we should leave our ornamental grasses standing all winter.
Another post of interest is Three of the best ornamental grasses for sun or shade.
Japanese Forest Grass (Hakonechloa) in fall colour in our Japanese-inspired front farden
Japanese Forest Grass is a real show stopper in the shade garden
Although not a native grass to the United States or Canada, Hakonechloa (Japanese Forest Grass) is a highly ornamental, warm season grass and a standout in any woodland or shady garden landscape.
We have it growing in multiple areas within our woodland, including in the front yard where it provides structure for the Japanese-inspired garden as well as along the path leading to our porch and front door.
Hakonechloa is the perfect addition to a shady area when you want to adds a real hit of glorious chartreuse colour to a full-shade area of the garden, where its graceful arching form lends a softness and elegance to the landscape and its yellow and green leaves are given the opportunity to really shine. It can handle part shade but will struggle to show its best colours in full sun.
This grass, native to eastern Asia, is extremely well behaved and one of the few grasses that prefers full shade. It never gets too high so it also works well in the front or middle of a large border.
It’s available both as a form as well as the even more beautiful all-gold variety. The yellow and green leaves turn red and purple shades in the fall before turning to the familiar winter tan colour where they continue to provide interest throughout the winter.
For more on Japanese Forest Grass and other stalwart grasses for your woodland, be sure to check out my post featuring Three of the Best Ornamental Grasses for the garden.
These small sedge grasses grow beneath birch trees and alongside the native grass Northern Sea Oats.
Pennsylvania Sedge: There’s a Carex to suit every need
Although still not widely known and certainly not used in great abundances in most landscapes, sedges offer the shade or woodland gardener the perfect opportunity to add grass-like foliage to your garden design.
In our garden, I’ve planted a number of variegated sedges around our birch grove to add interest in the space between the trees.
The sedge family of plants is quite large and needs further exploration, if you are looking to solve a specific problem.
One Sedge that needs highlighting when it comes to woodland gardening is Pennsylvania Sedge.
Pennsylvania Sedge sports fine textured leaves, that reach about six inches in height. It’s creeping habit make this sedge the perfect lawn alternative for dry soils in a woodland garden.
Given the right conditions, this solid green sedge that requires a well-drained soil, in light to full shade, will fill in to form a dense low-growing, maintenance free groundcover.
Other shade loving sedges include:
Appalachian Sedge – Carex appalachica: Forms a nice clump with narrow leaves only getting 6-8 inches tall. It is an appealing, all-green, shade to part sun-loving sedge that is quite appealing.
Bristle-Leaf Sedge – Carex eburnea: A fine-leaved sedge ideal as both a ground cover or lawn replacement in a shady area. Dark green, fountain-like clumps that reach between 6-12 inches are lovely additions to any landscape and they are soft to the touch making them family friendly. The individual tufts eventually grow together forming a thick carpet that turns a lovely tan colour in fall.
One of the best sources for information on native sedges is The Native Plant Herald from Prairie Nursery in Wisconsin. You can check out their informative site here.
The Hidden Kingdom of Fungi opens a secret world into our forests and homes
The Hidden World of Fungi is a book for those who want to dig deep into the fascinating world of fungi in the forests, in our homes, industry and even our bodies.
A detailed, scientific approach to the study of Fungi in our forests and our homes.
The Hidden Kingdom of Fungi takes readers into a secret world and traces the intricate connections between fungi and life on earth.
Along the way, author Keith Seifert, describes how these remarkable microbes enrich our lives: from releasing carbon in plants, to transmitting information between trees in the form of mycorrhizal fungi.
This book, from Canadian publishers Greystone, takes readers of Entangled Life and The Hidden Life of Trees into the world of Fungi in its more than 200 pages backed by scientific research and the incredible knowledge of author and fellow Canadian Keith Seifert, who has spent more than 40 years studying fungi on five continents. The Ottawa, Canada resident has researched microscopic fungi from farms, forests, food and the built environment, to reduce toxins and diseases affecting plants and animals.
In the book, The Hidden Life of Trees, the authors clearly connected the communication between our forest and backyard trees with the communication highway created by the mycorrhizal fungi buried beneath the soil.
In the Hidden Kingdom of Fungi, mycologist and author Keith Seifert takes the concept to a whole other level, describing in detail the process and the interdependency.
This book is for anyone who wants to explore deeply into the world of fungi, whether it’s the obvious forms that we see growing in the forests and in our gardens to the more hidden ones that live in our homes, bodies and farms.
Mushrooms and fungi in our forests
The importance of fungi in our forests and backyard woodlands can’t be underestimated.
In fact, the author points out that fungi are critical partners in the eventual success or failure of all forests. No matter how anemic the woodlot, in the autumn you will find mushrooms growing and throwing their spores into the wind. They are most obvious in fall, but no matter what time of year you are in a forest, you are surrounded by fungi that are hidden in plain sight.
As the author points out, fungi covers the outside of leaves and bark, hide inside leaf tissue or wind their hyphae around the roots of trees. They are always at work decomposing dead pockets of wood, in the soil breaking down plants.
Are fungi part of our lives?
From our forests, to industry and into our homes, fungi play a major role in our lives and our existence.
Readers will gain knowledge into where these fungi came from and how yeast, lichens, slimes and molds evolved and adapted over millions of years. Toward the end of the book, the author explores how fungi are being used to clean up oil spills and break down plastics.
The book even touches on the role fungi is playing a role in nuclear disasters such as the Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine.
The use of fungi to clean up or detoxify spills from mining disasters, accidents or simply heavily polluted areas is call mychoremediation, and it is being used by scientists around the world. Fungal mycelium absorption capabilities have been tested to be used to clean up after forest fires, nerve gas attacks and fuel spills in land and sea.
The author points to an oil spill in 2007 in San Francisco that used a combination of human hair and oyster mushrooms to mop up the spill.
Through research into fears that Ukrainians eating wild mushrooms in and around the Chernobyl fallout zone, researchers found that many mushrooms accumulated heavy metals (such as cesium 137) in their mycelium. The research showed that mushrooms could be cultivated to extract isotopes from the soil then harvested and incinerated for disposal.
It’s just one of many fascinating ways fungi could be used to change our world into the future.
Proven Winners 2022 Gardener’s Idea Book is another winner
Proven Winners has done it again with their free 2022 Garden Ideas booklet and download. The 42-page booklet is full of great garden tips and ideas to help you get the most out of your garden this year.
You can download your free copy directly from Proven Winners’ website
Proven Winners’ 2022 Gardener’s Idea Book takes a page or two from last year’s informative booklet and adds some interesting extras that are sure to pique your interest.
If you have not ordered your free printed copy, you can download the 42-page booklet just by logging in to the Proven Winners’ web site and going to the Gardener’s Idea Book download. There are a total of 14 excellent downloads on this web page, including this year’s Idea Book and last year’s outstanding Gardener’s Idea Book.
Other downloads include: A new Vision for Hydrangeas, PW perennials, Landscape Solutions for the South, and a new vision for Native shrubs. Some of the downloads are even available in French and Latin.
If you love the Proven Winner’s Idea Book, Check out my link to the 2023 Idea Book here.
Here is a link to the 2021 Proven Winners’ Gardener’s Idea Book.
Proven Winner’s 2022 Gardener’s Idea Book cover.
Like last year’s booklet that included a series of planted containers featuring outstanding combinations of Proven Winners’ plants, this year’s booklet follows up with 4 pages offering up tips on choosing container companion plants. Proven Winners provides valuable information on creating containers of plants that prefer similar growing conditions and plants with similar growth rates. Both features are important to get the most out of your containers. Not only do they provide a list of the plants along with images of what you can expect, Proven Winners’ experts also provide planting maps on how best to create the look.
If you are like me and depend on containers to add colour and interest to your garden, you will appreciate the ease of following these guidelines to create stunning containers for both sunny and shady areas.
The booklet also explores five tips for creating outstanding window boxes for shaded areas, and a separate feature about using window boxes around living areas such as decks and patios to create more cozy living areas.
It’s important to note that, although Proven Winners has outstanding plants and shrubs that can be real standouts in the garden, they are cultivated plants and therefore not native. As a result, these cultivated plants, while performing admirably when it comes to flowering or growth habits, are unlikely to provide wildlife with the same benefits as the species or native plants that the fauna has evolved with over centuries.
See my article on why we should use native plants in our gardens.
Proven Winners’ Gardener’s Idea book offers plans on installing a rain garden complete with planting suggestions.
Focus on Rain Gardens
Proven Winners explores one of the growing trends in natural gardens with a focus on building and planting a small rain garden. The rain garden plan provided in the booklet focuses on a shaded area along a driveway. How many of us have that exact problem, where water runs down between the houses in the long narrow strip separating the driveways?
Proven Winners’ booklet helps to provide a solution for the problem with this two-page feature that provides a simple construction plan along with a planting scheme and, of course, excellent photographs to illustrate the final look.
Tips on creating a DIY planter table
Other articles in the booklet include creating a planter table that centres around creating a living centre piece of flowers, herbs and vegetables. The large table with living plants running down the middle is an impressive creation and would provide a topic of lively discussion around the dinner table with friends.
A smaller, DIY planter table on a budget is a great project for either a smaller garden or a great option to introduce children to garden dining, as well as maintaining a small herb and vegetable garden.
There are other pages devoted to Proven Winners’ favourite social media gardeners including Laura LeBoutillier from @GardenAnswer and Jenny Simpson @gardeningwithcreekside.
Plenty of garden plans and illustrations
Several pages are devoted to creating new garden areas designed for specific results. All of the designs include complete planting guides as well as photos to illustrate the final result. Of course, they all feature Proven Winners product, but gardeners could easily swap out some of the Proven Winners suggestions for some of their own favourites native plants.
The individual gardens include a “summer sunglow” garden centered around a small shed or children’s playhouse that include plantings of coleus, verbena and Lemon Coral Sedum with grasses forming the backdrop.
A hummingbird garden design is provided in the Gardener’s Idea booklet.
A garden to attract hummingbirds
Other garden designs include a sun worshippers design, a garden for hummingbirds, a lush bold border and a border designed as a deer-friendly border for those of us who struggle with deer in our yards.
That’s already a lot of value packed in to the booklet, but it’s really only the beginning of the information provided to readers.
Tips to create your own Moonlit Garden
The four pages dedicated to a moonlight garden using primarily white and cream plants and night blooming flowers is full of great ideas. The impressive garden featured in the booklet is large, but downsizing the plan to include a smaller area of the garden, let’s say a corner or even just the area around your patio, is entirely possible and more likely a realistic goal for most homeowners.
Not only does a moonlight garden look great in the evening and is perfect for those who like to entertain, for wildlife gardeners the moonlight garden is ideal for attracting moths and bats to the garden.
To wrap it up, the booklet offers ideas and tips on using plants as a screen for unsightly views or privacy from your neighbours.
There are also pages focusing on gardening in arid spaces, and extending the life of your outdoor plants by bringing them indoors during the winter, and finally, an overview of Proven Winners’ newest introductions both perennials and shrubs.
In Conclusion: Proven Winners comes through again
Granted, the entire Idea Book is an advertisment for the company’s many plants and garden shrubs. Also, it should not be dismissed that none of their plants are natives, and the proliferation of cultivated garden plants is threatening the very existence of many of our native plants. Nevertheless, there still is a place in our gardens for these plants, especially the annuals that provide outstanding colour to our mostly-green woodland gardens. And, it’s not to say that just because these plants are non-native cultivars, they are of no value to wildlife such as pollinators, insects, etc. Many of these plants continue to attract hummingbirds and pollinators and quite possibly can be host plants for larvae. They just don’t usually do it as well as native plants.
So, by all means, use native plants whenever possible, but don’t be afraid to take advantage of the suggestions provided in the Proven Winners Idea Book and go with them.
I can almost guarantee that you will be impressed with the results.
Cornus Kousa: Outstanding tree and why you need to reconsider planting it
The Cornus Kousa is a spectacular accent or understory tree for the woodland garden. Although it is a spectacular tree in full bloom, it is native to China.
Consider starting with the native Cornus Florida
Without a doubt the most impressive understory tree in our woodland garden is the Cornus Kousa, but I urge gardeners thinking about planting one to reconsider.
It’s not that the Cornus Kousa isn’t spectacular in flower – it is.
It’s not that the fruit that follows is not impressive and a favourite of our local squirrels and chipmunks because they are.
And, it’s not because these elegant, horizontally branched trees are susceptible to disease and deer predation, because they are almost totally free of disease and other garden pests.
Sounds like the perfect tree, right?
Just one big problem – and it’s a problem many of our most visually pleasing and impressive plants and trees have in common, – it’s not native to North America. Its home is in China and other parts of Asia where, I am sure, it is a favourite food source for their native insects, caterpillars, birds and mammals. In fact, you will often find the plant referred to as the Chinese Dogwood.
Our mature Cornus Kousa in full bloom among the ferns. To the left is a Cornus Florida and the small mound in the centre is a variagated Cornus Mas.
The difference is, their local fauna has grown up and adapted to Cornus Kousa and, as a result, are able to use it as a host plant, a food source and provider of habitat.
With all that said, I have two massive Cornus Kousa trees growing in my yard and absolutely treasure them for their mid-summer display of large, cream-coloured flowers that bloom for months during the summer followed by bright red eatable raspberry fruit that eventually get picked off by red squirrels, grey squirrels and chipmunks.
Be sure to read my detailed look at the Six best Dogwoods in my garden.
More of my posts on Dogwoods
For more information on Dogwoods, please check out my other posts listed here:
Dogwoods: Find the perfect one for your yard
Flowering Dogwood: Queen of the Woodland garden
Bunchberry: The ideal native ground cover
This graphic was produced by Justin Lewis and shows the benefits of planting a native dogwood over a non-native.
So, when I say “reconsider” planting one of these small, but impressive trees, what I really mean is before you plant one, make sure you’ve already planted the equally beautiful (some would say more beautiful) native Cornus Florida or Flowering Dogwood.
In fact, the combination of the Cornus Florida and Cornus Kousa growing alongside one another is an impressive site that creates an outstanding blooming period beginning in May with the native dogwood and continuing into late summer with the Kousa dogwood.
Cornus Kousa in full bloom among the ferns.
In our woodland garden there is also a couple of early blooming native Redbuds growing with the two dogwoods creating a a truly dramatic spring show. A multi-stemmed serviceberry is also beginning to make its presence known in the grouping that grows out of our massive fern garden. Be sure to check out the full story on our fern garden.
Our native Flowering Dogwood blooms about a month earlier than the Kousa and on mostly bare branches which make its bloom even more impressive than the Kousa dogwoods. It is also a host plant to a huge variety of insect larvae and caterpillars as well as a favourite haunt of native birds including the elusive bluebird and the cardinal, just to name two stalwarts.
Be sure to check out my full story on the Flowering Dogwood (cornus Florida).
An example of Cornus Kousa fruit (raspberry like) ripening on the tree.
But back to the Cornus Kousa. And why it is such an outstanding landscape plant either used as a specimen or as an understory tree in the woodland or shade garden.
Cornus Kousa has more of an upright habit, making it a little better suited to smaller or more narrow properties.
Close-up of ripening bright red fruit of the Cornus Kousa.
How to grow Cornus Kousa
The Cornus Kousa grows in zones 4 through 9 and likes a rich, well-drained acidic soil and adequate precipitation to look its best.
Chinese Dogwood is a multi-stemmed deciduous tree with an expected growth of between 25-40 feet (8-12 m) tall at maturity, with a spread of about 25 feet. If left natural, it has a low canopy with a typical clearance of about 3 feet from the ground. It grows at a medium rate, and under ideal growing conditions should live for 40 or more years.
Cornus Kousa’s best features
Cornus Kousa’s most prized feature is its horizontally-tiered branches along with its showy clusters of white flowers (actually bracts, the flowers are contained inside the four bracts) held upright atop the branches in late spring through summer depending on its location in the garden. The Cornus Kousa flowers are more pointed than the native Flowering dogwoods more rounded ones.
It has bluish-green deciduous foliage that turns an outstanding brick red in fall. It does best in full sun in cooler climates to partial shade and will not tolerate standing water. Cornus Kousa is also resistant to the dogwood anthracnose disease making it popular in areas that experience outbreaks of the fungus disease that can be fatal to the trees.
How to prune Cornus Kousa
This low-maintenance tree should be pruned sparingly after flowering to maintain its horizontal branching that looks at home in any Japanese-style garden as well as a traditional woodland. It’s also a good idea to mulch around the extensive root zone to protect the tree’s roots from drying out.
Hybrids offer best of both
The popularity of the Cornus trees have prompted Rutgers University to create a host of hybrids between Cornus Kousa and Cornus Florida, selected for their disease resistance and flower appearance.
Some of the popular cultivars include: Beni Fuji with deep red-pink bracts, Elizabeth Lustgarten and Lustgarden Weeping notable for its smaller size and weeping habit, Gold Star a slower growing tree with a broad gold band on its leaves and reddish stems, Satomi with deep pink bracts and leaves that turn purple to deep red in fall.
Flowering Dogwood: The queen of the Woodland garden
The flowering dogwood is an icon of the American landscape with its spectacular spring flowers followed by red berries that birds cannot get enough of as they ripen.
The Flowering Dogwood (Cornus Florida) combines everything a gardener could want in a backyard tree.
If you are lucky enough to live in a region where you can grow this iconic native American flowering tree, whether it’s in your front as a specimen tree or as an understory tree in the backyard woodland or shade garden, you should waste no time sourcing one or even several for your front and back gardens.
In our backyard woodland garden, we have several that fill the garden with showy spring flowers followed by berries in summer and outstanding fall colour.
Flowering Dogwood (rubra) in bloom in the spring garden.
Its native range is New England south to northern Florida, west to the Mississippi and even beyond. In Canada it finds its range in Southern Ontario’s Carolinian zone.
In the cooler growing zones found in Northeastern U.S. and parts of Canada in zones 5-6 for example, Dogwoods can take more sun than the hotter zones farther south where they are best grown in light to partial shade.
Travelling through the Great Smokey Mountains and along the Blue Ridge Parkway in early spring is perhaps the ideal way to experience magnificent Flowering Dogwood and Redbuds both in full bloom along their still-bare branches.
The Flowering Dogwood grows to about 30-35-feet tall in the wild (often smaller in gardens) with a spread that is about two-thirds or almost equal to its height. It’s a wide spreading mounding tree with branches that can droop right to the ground if left to grow naturally. It likes to grow in partial shade to full sun and prefers moist to dry woodsy loam to a clay-loam.
Flowering Dogwoods flowers from March, April and May followed by clusters of 3-5 red berries (or drupes) from August through October – that are highly favoured by birds and other mammals. It is the queen of the Carolinian forest and and is at home growing in zones 2 through 9. Its mottled bark creates winter interest to the already elegant, horizontal branching of our native tree.
A cultivar of the Cornus Florida complete with pinkish flowers shades a blue jay stopping by at the bird bath.
Be sure to check out my extensive article on the Six Best Dogwoods for the Woodland Garden.
More of my posts on Dogwoods
For more information on Dogwoods, please check out my other posts listed here:
Dogwoods: Find the perfect one for your yard
Cornus Kousa: Impressive non-native for the woodland garden
Bunchberry: The ideal native ground cover
Pagoda Dogwood: Small native tree ideal for any garden
Cornus Mas: An elegant addition to the Woodland Garden
The tree’s branching habit of stretching right to the ground suggests that it wants to protect its roots from harsh sun and other root-zone incursions, so it’s a good idea to provide some protection around the tree’s root zone.
A heavy mulch around the root zone will help to hold moisture as well as protect it from direct sun and the damage lawnmowers create when working closely to the tree’s trunk. Do not pile the mulch up around the trunk of the tree. Leave a well stretching several inches to a foot or two around the tree to limit disease and insects.
Our native dogwoods do suffer from disease including Anthracnose, which can take root after a long rainy, cool spring. Anthracnose can attack the flowers and leaves of the tree all summer long and, can eventually kill the tree if it persists for several seasons.
If planted in a location, preferably as an edge-of-the-woods tree, where it gets morning sun to burn off the moisture and dew from the flowers and leaves, Anthracnose is unlikely to be a problem. Ideally, the tree should be planted where it can get afternoon shade to help it escape the extreme heat.
The Flowering Dogwood has dark red to purple fall colour. In spring it makes a great companion for Witchhazel, Redbud and serviceberries as well as the non-native asian relative the Cornus Kousa.
Cherokee Chief is a particularly nice cultivar with a pinkish flowers colour. Some cultivars are available with a darker red colour but the native still stands out best with its white to cream-coloured flowers.
Native Cornus Florida on the left in full flower and the non-native Cornus Kousa on the right. Graphic designed by Justin Lewis.
What’s the difference between Cornus Florida and Cornus Kousa?
It’s important to note that the native Flowering Dogwood is not the same as the non-native Cornus Kousa, which is a popular dogwood sold at many local nurseries.
Although the two understory trees share many similarities – including large white flowers followed by red fruit – their differences are so widespread that they are really not interchangeable in the landscape.
Where they do stand out in the landscape is when you can combine them for early spring flowering in the native dogwood, through summer and late summer flowering by the non-native Cornus Kousa. The combination brings the woodland to life in an elegant display of gorgeous dogwood blooms that last almost throughout the gardening season.
A dogwood berry hangs on as fall approaches.
• Where the native dogwood flowers in spring into early summer, the Cornus Kousa flowers pick up where the native ones begin to die out and offers flowers into late summer.
• Where native dogwood flowers grow more or less on bare branches that really show off the flowering bracts, Cornus Kousa flowers later in summer after the leaves fill out on the tree providing a beautiful showing but not quite as impressive as that offered by the native Flowering Dogood.
•Where native dogwood’s fruit is more like a drupe in clusters of 3-5, Cornus Kousa tends to put out singular fruits that look like raspberries.
• Where native dogwoods grow in a mounding, horizontal habit, Cornus Kousa tends to grow in a vase shape that eventually sends out horizontal branching if left untrimmed.
• Where the native dogwood is susceptible to disease and deer predation, Cornus Kousa, is more or less free of these problems including Anthracnose.
• Where the native dogwood is a magnet for local wildlife both as a host plant for larvae and insects through to providing an excellent food source for birds and other mammals, Cornus Kousa is neither a host plant for native caterpillars and insects, nor are its berries a great source of food for birds. Some birds and mammals (Squirrels and chipmunks) will eat the fruit but its certainly not their first choice.
• Cornus Florida supports up to 117 moths and butterflies, whereas Cornus Kousa is not known to support any in the larval stage.
• Cornus Florida also supports close to 100 birds from caterpillars that use the tree as a food source, while Cornus Kousa is not known to support any birds as a larval host.
Dogwood flowers from a pink cultivar are actually bracts that unfold to reveal the true flowers seen here in the greenish pinkish interior of the four bracts. A cluster of berries form after the flowering is complete.
How to water a Dogwood tree
Since the dogwood grows in a very horizontal fashion it has a very wide “drip zone.” And, because this drip zone extends out so far from the trunk of the tree, it serves little to no purpose watering the tree close to its trunk.
Look up to establish how far the tree’s branches stretch out from the main trunk and use that as your watering zone for the tree. Slow, deep waterings are necessary to keep the soil around the tree’s roots cool and moist. An all-day drip being moved around a mature tree throughout the day would be ideal during hot, dry periods with low rainfall.
Smaller, or newly planted trees would need less watering, but be sure to water deeply around the entire perimeter of the tree.
Flowering dogwood bud in early fall.
How to prune a flowering dogwood
The dogwood is a slow growing tree that tends to self prune over time. Deadwood can be cut out as it appears, but it’s important to maintain the tree’s elegant horizontal branching habit rather than try to shape it into something it does not want to be.
If grass is growing under the tree (never a great idea, better to have either living, or bark mulch), it’s best to limb up the tree as it grows and then maintain it by pruning the trees outer branches lightly to reduce the weight of the branches laden with flowers.
Try not to heavily prune the tree by taking out large branches because you will be removing the best attributes of the tree – primarily its spring flowers. It is best to just remove the smaller outer branches to reduce the weight and thus help to keep the skirt of the tree high enough to walk under.
I always prefer, if possible, to plant the tree in an area where it can take on its natural shape and not be severely pruned up.
If you are unsure how to get the most out of your dogwood, it’s probably best to hire a well-respected pruning expert to maintain the shape of these trees. Ensure the tree company is familiar with pruning ornamental trees and not just one that specializes in removing trees or large dying branches.
Cornelian Cherry: Elegant addition to woodland garden
Cornus Mas is the perfect replacement for the overly common Forsythia. It’s early spring yellow blooms flower at about the same time as Forsythia but the small tree offers much more architectural elegance in the landscape than the straggly-look of the Forsythia.
Consider replacing Forsythia with Cornus Mas or Spicebush for spring colour
It’s hard to imagine why homeowners choose to grow a Forsythia bush when a Cornelian-Cherry dogwood (Cornus Mas) is a much better choice in every way, shape and form.
In other words, when it comes to shape and form, Forsythias fall short in every way.
Imagine a small rounded tree with horizontal branches sporting elegant yellow bunches of flowers that eventually give way to bright red fruit or drupes. Now, compare that to a scraggly green bush that needs constant pruning, which is all homeowners are really left with after the forsythia blooms in early spring.
There is no competition.
While the over-used Forsythia has a straggly, vase shape that is not particularly pleasant after its brief early spring blooming period, for some reason it continues to dominate the suburban landscape over the inherent beauty of the Cornelian Cherry’s early-spring clusters of yellow flowers.
Right about the same time as the forsythias are blooming, the bare branches of the Cornelian Cherry (Cornus Mas) are covered with delicate yellow blooms giving the already elegant dogwood an even more beautiful look in the woodland landscape.
Native Spicebush is an even better replacement for Forsythia
An even better choice than Cornus Mas to replace forsythia is our native Spicebush – often referred to as the “Forsythia of the wilds.” Not only is it covered with soft umbel-like clusters of yellow flowers in early spring like Cornus Mas, Spicebush is an excellent plant for native wildlife, including pollinators and native mammals.
The flowers are followed by aromatic glossy red fruit, and its leaves turn a colourful golden yellow to light up our gardens and lowland woods where it likes to grow in the wild. It is a host plant for both the Spicebush swallowtail and Eastern Tiger Swallowtail.
It grows to between six and twelve feet tall in sun, part shade and full shade making it the perfect under story addition to our woodland. It is not particular about soil feeling at home in dry, moist or wet soil.
The flowers of the Cornus Mas are quite small (5-10 mm in diameter) with four yellow petals, that are produced in clusters of 10-25.
For more information and excellent photos of more mature specimens, check out the Seattle Japanese Garden website.
Be sure to check out my earlier post on Six Dogwoods for the Woodland Garden.
More of my posts on Dogwoods
For more information on Dogwoods, please check out my other posts listed here:
Dogwoods: Find the perfect one for your yard
Flowering Dogwood: Queen of the Woodland garden
Cornus Kousa: Impressive non-native for the woodland garden
The variegated Cornus Mas stands out among the sea of ferns with its brighter foliage that helps it look like its almost in flower all summer long.
Maybe homeowners are unaware of the Cornelian Cherry, or, maybe, the additional cost of the dogwood is too much compared to the inexpensive forsythia shrub.
Trust me, however, if you are looking to take your woodland garden to another level, while still maintaining that early spring shot of bright, cheery yellow in the landscape, the Cornelian Cherry is a much better choice over the old-fashioned forsythia.
To be fair, forsythias are classed as a shrub, whereas the Cornelian Cherry falls into the category of a small tree.
Still, I would think the two plants serve much the same purpose in most landscapes – to add early spring colour in an otherwise drab garden.
The competition ends quickly when, after the forsythia stops blooming and the homeowner is left with nothing but a scraggly green bush.
In the meantime, the Cornelian Cherry’s flowers slowly turn to bright red berries throughout the summer months. Add to that the fact that these red berries are spread along the elegant, horizontal branches of the small dogwood tree.
And, if that is not enough, our variagated Cornus Mas grows up through our massive ostrich ferns brightening the lightly shaded corner of our garden.
The delicate branches of the Cornus Mas rise above the tall ostrich ferns in early summer.
When does Cornelian Cherry flower?
In warmer areas, the Cornelian Cherry can bloom as early as February, but in colder climates (zones 5-6) you can expect yellow blooms in late March or more likely into April and May.
Where does Cornelian Cherry grow?
Growing in zones 5-8, in full sun to partial shade, Cornus Mas is native to Southern Europe and Southwestern Asia.
Can you eat the cherries?
The edible fruits or drupes (fleshy fruits, with a single hard stone, like cherries) are red berries that ripen in mid- to late summer, but are mostly hidden by the foliage. The fruit is edible, olive-shaped and about ½ inch long, they have relatively large stones when ripe and often described as a mix of cranberry and sour cherry. It is primarily used for making jam but also has a reputation in some parts of the world as a fruit used for distilling vodka.
Do birds eat the fruit?
Birds and mammals are also attracted to the bright red fruit that is very tart, but attractive to birds and squirrels as it ripens and falls to the ground.
How to propagate Cornelian Cherries?
Cornelian Cherries are easily propagated from cuttings, but can also be grown from seed.
Are there cultivars of the Cornelian Cherry/Cornus Mas
There are at least three different cultivar available including:
• Aurea that has yellow leaves and flowers with red fruit in late summer.
• Golden Glory which is grown for its abundance of yellow flowers, followed by shiny red berries.
• Variegata grown for its variegated leaves that help light up shady areas of the garden. It also sports the glossy red fruit in late summer.
Pagoda Dogwood: Shade-loving native tree for woodland, wildlife
The Pagoda Dogwood or Cornus Alternifolia is a small native tree or shrub that is perfect for a woodland garden and vital to native wildlife, including birds, caterpillars, insects and mammals. It’s also an elegant, multi-layered tree with a beautiful horizontal habit that works as well in a woodland garden as it does in a Japanese inspired garden.
My love affair with dogwoods actually had its roots not with the showy Flowering Dogwood, but with a lesser known native dogwood – Cornus Alternifolia.
You may know it as Pagoda Dogwood or Alternate-Leaved dagwood if you know it at all. Trust me, if you don’t already know about Cornus Alternifolia, you need to get to know this outstanding little gem of a dogwood. My first experience with it was in our previous home where I planted it outside the office window where I could admire it and its avian visitors spring, summer, fall and throughout the winter.
When we moved to our current home more than 23 years ago, the first tree/shrub I planted was another Pagoda Dogwood, and it continues to impress me to this day with its longevity and strong presence in the garden throughout the seasons.
Be sure to read my article on six of the best native dogwoods.
The native to the Carolinian forest is not always the showstopper, taking a back seat to the more showy Flowering Dogwood, but it’s like a younger sibling fighting hard to unseat Cornus Florida for top spot in the forest.
Cornus Alternifolia (Pagoda Dogwood) is a semi-colonizing 25-foot tall shrub or tree with a strong horizontal layering habit, that spreads by both seeds and layering. It grows in partial shade to full sun in moist, well-drained rich loamy, slightly acid soil.
This little chipmunk wasn’t waiting around for the birds to help themselves to the berries of the Pagoda Dogwood in the backyard. She searched out the ripened blackish berries as soon as they were ready for eating.
How big do Pagoda Dogwoods get?
Cornus Alternifolia or Pagoda Dogwood is a small tree or shrub reaching anywhere from 15-25 feet tall with an impressive spread of between 12 to about 32 feet.
Is the Pagoda native to areas of Ontario and the United States?
It’s native to Ontario and Northeastern United States and elsewhere including parts of the upper Midwest and even into parts of Minnesota.
How can you tell a Pagoda Dogwood?
In nature, you can spot a Cornus Alternifolia by its characteristic horizontal branching habit, creamy umbrel-style flowers, black berries and deeply veined, ovate leaves that turn a lovely shade of redish, orange in fall. Also, its Latin name is derived from the alternate position of the leaves on the stems.
Without a doubt, however, its most impressive feature is its truly elegant horizontal branching habit that gives the tree its beautiful shape in the woodland garden and makes it a valuable addition to a Japanese-style garden.
More of my posts on Dogwoods
For more information on Dogwoods, please check out my other posts listed here:
Dogwoods: Find the perfect one for your yard
Flowering Dogwood: Queen of the Woodland garden
Cornus Kousa: Impressive non-native for the woodland garden
Our Pagoda Dogwood in full bloom. Each of these florets will form berries that are particularly attractive to a host of birds from Bluebirds to Cardinals. The berries start off green and eventually turn a blackish-blue as they ripen.
When does the Pagoda Dogwood flower and produce berries
The Pagoda Dogwood’s creamy, umbrel-like flowers bloom from May through July depending on location, followed by clusters of black fruit in July that attract a host of birds from the Eastern Bluebird to Scarlet Tanagers just to name a few. Chipmunks and red squirrels are also regular visitors and will strip the berries as fast as they ripen.
Pagoda Dogwood berry clusters are loved by both birds and chipmunks in our yard.
What is a Pagoda Dogwood’s Lifespan?
Our original Cornus Alternifolia is still doing well after more than 23 years in the garden. It’s no surprise that it is still gracing our woodland considering the longevity of these tough little trees. Pagoda Dogwoods can live between 50 - 150 years old so there is a good chance it will still be around for a few years yet. A second Pagoda Dogwood was planted a few years ago in the understory of two very old crabapple trees located not too far from the original Pagoda.
What birds are attracted to the Pagoda Dogwood?
The list of avian visitors is almost endless and include the highly sought after Eastern Bluebird, a variety of Vireos and Thrushes as well as Cedar Waxwings, Gray Catbirds, Cardinals, Scarlet Tanagers, Eastern Kingbirds, Rose-Breasted Grossbeaks and Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker.
Our original 23-year-old Pagoda Dogwood in spring bloom showing off its multitude of blooms. The umbrel-type, creamy flowers are not the show stoppers of the more showy Flowering Dogwoods, but they hold their own in the woodland as a lovely understory tree.
The same 23-year-old Pagoda Dogwood in its fall coat.
Is Cornus Alternifolia a host plant?
The Pagoda, like most native plants, is a host plant to a number of Lepidoptera (caterpillars or larvae of moths and caterpillars) including: The Fragile Miner Bee, Summer Azure butterfly, the impressive Cecropia Moth, Fragile White Carpet Moth and Unicorn Caterpillar.
What Native bees does Cornus Alternifolia attract?
The spring and summer flowers provide nectar and pollen for a number of our native bees including: The bright flourescent Sweat Bees, Miner Bees, Masked Bees and Hover Flies.
What other species is the Pagoda Dogwood related to:
Dogwoods represent a large species ranging from the impressive and equally beautiful Flowering Dogwood (Cornus Florida) to the diminutive Bunchberry (Cornus Canadensis) with its familiar dogwood flowers in minature form growing in large swaths as a ground cover. Other related species include: Red-Osier Dogwood, Rough-leaved, Grey, silky and Round-Leaved.
What cultivars are available for the Pagoda Dogwood?
Using the native, non-cultivar or species tree/shrub is always a solid choice if you want to attract or provide food for the largest variety of wildlife in your garden. There are, however, popular cultivars of Cornus Alternifolia if you are looking for specific traits in the plant.
Golden Shadows: This brightly-coloured variety (zones 3-8) from Proven Winners sports variegated leaves that help the plant stand out in a shady area of the garden where it reaches heights of 10-12 feet with an equal spread. The highly successful company describes the plant as: “bright yellow with a splotch of emerald green in the cenre, taking on pink tones on the new growth in cool weather. Spring sees the plant graced with lacy white blooms. Beneath all this beauty lies a tough North American native that can grow in many difficult conditions; Golden Shadows Pagoda Dogwood is especially noteworthy for its ability to thrive in light shade, its bright foliage bringing colour and beauty to otherwise dim sites.”
C. alternifolia 'Argentea' is known as silver pagoda dogwood and is similar to Golden Shadows but sports a green and white variegation rather than the green and gold.
Cornus controversa: Sometimes called the Wedding Cake Tree, it is a spectacular, extremely showy giant pagoda dogwood with a mature height of 60 feet. When this tree is in flower it is simply a spectacular site. Grows in zones 6-9 and is the winner of the prestigious Award of Garden Merit from the Royal Horticultural Society.
Six Dogwoods for the Woodland Garden
Six Dogwood species that make their home in our Woodland garden. From the ground cover Bunchberry, to shrubs and small understory trees like the Pagoda Dogwood and Cornelian Mas. Dogwoods offer great alternatives and are a valuable addition to any wildlife, woodland garden.
Ground covers, small shrubs and trees for everyone’s taste
If you’ve been following this blog, you’ll know that I have a soft spot for Dogwoods – big and small.
I consider them to be the perfect genus providing everything from the perfect ground cover for shade, to shrubs and mid-size trees that create an anchor for the understory layer. Add to this, outstanding spring flowering followed by a profusion of berries that birds, butterflies, native bees, chipmunks, squirrels and a host of other mammals can’t get enough of, and you’ve got yourself the perfect group of plants for the woodland/shade garden.
Oh, and throw in some spectacular fall foliage just to round out the reasons every garden needs to have plenty of Dogwoods.
Buying plants from local nurseries is the common method of obtaining these plants, but be aware that many of Dogwoods have been cultivated and may not provide all the benefits that the straight species provide to our native wildlife.
This flowering dogwood shows off its splendid fall colours in the back garden.
This article should help provide readers with a better understanding of the various dogwoods available. Most of the links in the article will take you to more extensive posts I have written about the individual plants, trees and shrubs.
It’s always best to use a native variety which are more beneficial to local birds, insects and pollinators.
Our Woodland garden boast six varieties of Dogwood. Let’s start with the smallest.
This detailed native dogwood poster is best viewed on a tablet or desktop and was created by Justin Lewis
Cornus Canadensis: A native ground cover for a shady area
Often called Bunchberry (link to my story on this native ground cover) or creeping dogwood, this perennial creeping rhizomatous ground cover grows 3-6 inches high and is topped by a blossom that looks very much like a miniature version of the familiar Dogwood tree (Cornus Florida) blossom. The flower cluster, held on a short stalk just above the leaves, resembles a singe large flower.
Not unlike the tree form of Dogwood, the flower is followed in the fall by a cluster of bright red berries surrounded by wine-red foliage.
More of my posts on Dogwoods
For more information on Dogwoods, please check out my other posts listed here:
Dogwoods: Find the perfect one for your yard
Flowering Dogwood: Queen of the Woodland garden
Cornus Kousa: Impressive non-native for the woodland garden
Bunchberry: The ideal native ground cover
Bunchberry in bloom in the woodland garden.
It grows in sun, part shade to full shade in zones 2-6 and likes to grow in a cool, damp acidic soil. It will often form clonal colonies under pine trees. Amending the soil using peat moss and mulching with pine needles yearly is a good idea if you plan to grow this ground cover.
Bunchberry can be found growing wild in coniferous and mixed woods, cedar swamps and damp areas across North America to Greenland and northeast Eurasia.
Although it can be hard to find at most regular nurseries, higher-end nurseries in the growing zones will either carry it or can often obtain it for you.
Ontario Native Plants now carries the plant in limited quantities so put in your order early to ensure you can get some. If you are in Ontario, be sure to check out my full story on Ontario Native Plants.
This is a new addition to our Woodland garden. I earlier experimented with it in three very different spots in the garden, but all three plants failed. I now have several plants growing on the side of our property in an area where they should thrive.
The Pagoda Dogwood in bloom with its creamy white flowers that are followed with an abundance of berries that birds and other wildlife love.
Cornus Alternifolia: Perfect small tree for the woodland/wildlife garden
This common under story species that is often called Pagoda Dogwood (Link to my full story) is the tree/shrub that got me started down the Dogwood trail. We planted one at our former home right outside the office window and I absolutely loved that small tree. It was also the first tree we bought when we moved to our current home 23 years ago. That tree has become known as our “Africa tree” because of its flat-topped appearance and the fact the deer have eaten it so perfectly from the bottom up.
The tree’s attractive horizontal branching habit creates a lovely tiered look as it ages. Large clusters of cream flowers appear in spring or early summer (very unlike the familiar Cornus Florida bracts) followed by dark blue-black berries by mid summer. What’s not to love?
It grows to about 20-30 ft tall high, preferring moist soils in partial shade. Unlike other native dogwoods, this species has alternate rather than opposite leaves, hence its name. They grow naturally in rich, deciduous and mixed woods, in zones 4-8 often found on forest edges, along streams and on swamp borders.
The bracts of the Cornus Florida Dogwood are beautiful even from below.
Cornus Florida: Crown jewel of the Carolinian forest
In my opinion, the Flowering Dogwood (link to my post on best Carolinian under story trees) is the queen of the under story trees in a Carolinian Woodland setting.
Here is a link to my full story on the Flowering Dogwood or Cornus Florida.
The horizontal branching of the Cornus Florida shows off its spring bracts above the blue jay.
When it comes to the perfect tree, it’s a tough one to beat. Its spectacular in spring flower but still stunning when not in flower. Cornus Florida grows to about 20-40 ft as a single or multi-trunked tree with outstanding showy, white and pink spring blooms, with a horizontal branching habit, red fruit and scarlet autumn foliage.
Flowering Dogwood beginning to take on its fall colours.
The flowers, which are actually bracts, can grow to 3 inches wide and attract butterflies and bees. The fast-growing trees prefer partial shade but can tolerate full sun if they are kept moist. They are native to the eastern United States and the Carolinian Canada Forest in southern Ontario and throughout zones 5 through 9. Although they may seem like the perfect tree, they are subject to anthracnose – a fungal disease that causes leaf spotting and twig dieback. Diseased twigs and branches should be pruned off and disposed. Ensuring good air circulation to keep the foliage dry and maintaining moisture in the soil throughout the summer will help reduce exposure to the fungal disease.
The bright red fruit of the Cornus Kousa.
Cornus Kousa: Popular non-native with spectacular summer show
A close second to the native Cornus Florida is the Kousa dogwood, which also goes by the names of the Chinese, Korean and Japanese dogwood. One of the advantages this tree offers over Cornus Florida is the fact it is resistant to the common dogwood anthracnose disease. As a result, it is being used more and more as an ornamental tree in areas where the disease is common.
The Kousa dogwood is a plant native to East Asia but is widely available where the Florida Dogwoods grow. It’s upright habit, later-flowering (about a month later) and pointed rather than rounded flower bracts makes it an ideal companion to the Flowering Dogwood.
Be sure to check out my full story to get much more detailed information on the Cornus Kousa Dogwood.
Although it can be incredibly showy in its own right, the Kousa dogwood tends to flower after the leaves come out rather than the Florida Dogwood that blooms prior to the tree leafing out, Combine both trees in your understory and you have glorious Dogwood flowers from late spring well into summer. Both species have a number of cultivars that include variegated leaves that add to their showiness in the right situations.
Cornus Mas: Early yellow-flowering tree for the shade
Often referred to as the Cornelian-cherry dogwood, this family of dogwood is native to Southern Europe and Southwestern Asia. It can be grown as a small tree or medium to large deciduous shrub with small yellow flowers produced in clusters along the branches either in late winter or more likely early spring in North America.
Here is a link to my full story on Growing Cornus Mas in the woodland.
The fruit has many uses including as an herb and is used widely for jams and and in some European countries distilled to make vodka. In the Woodland, the large oblong red fruit is a favourite of many birds and mammals.
In my garden, the Cornus Mas is one of the earliest flowering trees that blooms alongside the forsythia. I suspect many people mistake the small tree for a forsythia bush.
In our garden, we have a variegated form that grows up through our large ostrich ferns, and provides a spot of colour is a sea of green. The Cornus Mas in our garden is a small tree/shrub and is one of the few variegated plants in our entire Woodland garden.
Cornus sericea: Popular red-twigged shrub ideal for winter interest
Commonly named the Red-osier Dogwood, it is probably one off the most common shrubs in garden landscapes providing much-needed winter interest for gardens, especially when planted in large clumps. Often mistaken for the popular Asian equivalent Cornus Alba, with its variegated leaves which is seen in gardens everywhere.
Cornus sericea is native throughout parts of North America from Alaska east to Newfoundland.
In the wild, it most often grows in dense thickets in very moist areas. Our native species have dark green leaves that turn bright red to purple in fall. The spring flowers are creamy clusters and the fruit are a cluster of small white berries.
These Dogwoods not only look good, the native varieties provide multiple sources of food for backyard birds. While I get great enjoyment from my bird feeding stations, providing natural food sources to our feathered friends is always the goal we should aspire to in our gardens.
I have written a comprehensive post on feeding birds naturally. You can read about it here.
If you are interested in exploring Dogwoods further, check out Dogwoods: The Genus Cornus. This is another outstanding gardening book from Timber press.
More links to my articles on native plants
Why picking native wildflowers is wrong
Serviceberry the perfect native tree for the garden
The Mayapple: Native plant worth exploring
Three spring native wildflowers for the garden
A western source for native plants
Native plants source in Ontario
The Eastern columbine native plant for spring
Three native understory trees for Carolinian zone gardeners
Ecological gardening and native plants
Eastern White Pine is for the birds
Native viburnums are ideal to attract birds
The Carolinian Zone in Canada and the United States
Dogwoods for the woodland wildlife garden
Bringing Nature Home by Douglas Tellamy
A little Love for the Black-Eyed Susan
Native moss in our gardens
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Now you can turn your yard into a Certified Firefly Habitat
Now homeowners, groups and organizations can get their properties certified as Firefly habitats and purchase a sign to announce their commitment to ensuring firefly habitat.
What you can do to save fireflies
Fireflies should not just be a childhood memory when we sat out on the porch and watched fireflies flicker all around us.
And they don’t have to be. Even if you live in the heart of an urban area you can take steps to make fireflies a part of your life again.
Or, maybe fireflies never stopped being a part of your life. Maybe you have been doing everything right and still enjoy plenty of the little insects lighting up your summer evenings.
Either way this is good news for you.
Firefly Conservation and Research, an organization committed to saving fireflies worldwide, has just announced a new program for homeowners and other groups such as schools to have their properties approved as “Certified Firefly Habitats.”
For homeowners who want to bring back fireflies to their properties, the program will guide you to create the right habitat to encourage fireflies and encourage you to reach the goal of creating a Certified Firefly Habitat.
And, for those homeowners or groups who have already been working hard to create these favourable habitats, they are more than welcome to share their hard work with neighbours in the form of a sign that can be displayed on your property.
Check out my earlier post on attracting fireflies to your backyard.
How to get your Certified Firefly Habitat
Make a firefly haven in your own yard and join the thousands of others who have done the same. Join individuals and organizations who have committed to providing the essential elements needed to create and sustain a healthy habitat for adult and larval fireflies.
Proudly display this sign to demonstrate your commitment to protecting firefly habitat. The sign is made of recycled aluminum, is easy to read and waterproof. The size is 9″ x 12′′. “Made in the USA.” Exclusive.
The organization behind the habitat certification
Firefly Conservation & Research is a nonprofit organization founded in 2009 by Ben Pfeiffer, a firefly researcher, and Texas-certified master naturalist with a degree in biology from Texas State University.
Ben points out that fireflies need protection now. “Across the United States and worldwide, rapid and large-scale changes to our lands and watersheds mean fireflies are losing the habitats they once knew. Every step we can take to protect land for the fireflies to thrive is a step towards a literally ‘brighter’ future for new generations to enjoy,” he writes on his website Firefly.org.
“Join us in our mission to help to certify habitats, backyards, and nature preserves to provide a permanent place for fireflies to exist,” he adds.
• If you are considering creating a meadow in your front or backyard, be sure to check out The Making of a Meadow post for a landscape designer’s take on making a meadow in her own front yard.
“The Certified Firefly Habitat program is a first of its kind certification program to address the issues leading to declining habitat for fireflies. Ben will teach participants how to curate their habitat so that it provides all of the elements needed for fireflies to establish an existing and growing population on their land.
Those wishing to start the certification program will be asked to provide the following elements on their land:
Providing undisturbed cover for adults and glowing larvae
Encouraging plant diversity to preserve soil moisture
Reducing Light Pollution
Restricting Pesticide Usage
A certification guide will be available for you to download to help guide you in this process. This checklist will help you meet all the requirements necessary to provide firefly habitat.The guide will also teach you about:
The Firefly Life Cycle
What kinds of fireflies you are protecting
How habitat degradation and loss affect fireflies
What invasive species do to firefly habitat
Methods to manage your habitat from surveying methods, documentation, putting up protective barriers to prevent trampling.
Other insightful and creative ways to protect fireflies beyond just your land.
Wild Bergamot: Easy-to-grow native wildflower and pollinator magnate
Wild Bergamot is a valuable native wildflower that should be in every garden, both for its beauty and its importance to wildlfe from native bees to moths and butterflies.
If anyone needs an example of a native wildflower that combines beauty, vigour and is a magnate for pollinators, they need look no farther than Wild Bergamot.
Add to that the fact, Wild Bergamot is one of the easiest wildflowers to grow, combining masses of beautiful purple blooms that last from mid to late summer.
Wild Bergamot, sometimes referred to as Bee balm, is a name that’s also given to the red species of bergamot in the eastern U.S.
The multi-branched, clump-forming perennial has flowers that are normally in 1 terminal cluster, subtended by many small leaves. Floral tubes are about 1.5 inches long and end in two lips – the lower broad and recurving, the upper arching upward with stamens prodruding in lavender, lilac, or rose.
Be sure to check out my complete article on the 35 best wildflowers for the woodland garden.
What to plant with Wild Bergamot
The plants, often called Horsemint, work nicely with yellow flowers like Black-Eyed Susans, tall tickseed, goldenrod and yarrow, as well as Smooth Oxeye daisies, Purple Coneflower, Joe Pye Weed, Whorled Milkweed, Michigan Lily, Culver’s root and Flowering Spurge. Tuck them in alongside both Little and Big Bluestem, where the purple flowers are striking against the bluish foliage of the native grasses.
How to grow Wild Bergamot
Monarda Fistulosa is an easy-to-grow, 2-4-foot tall colonizing shrub that is as happy spreading by seed as it is by underground rhizomes. Grow it in full or partial sun, in moist to slightly dry soil in sandy loam or even clay loam.
Native wild bergamot is an excellent plant to attract a host of pollinators from native bees to butterflies.
When does Wild Bergamot bloom
Depending on where you are located, Wild Bergamot’s soft mauve or purple flowers will provide multiple blooms in the summer months, as early as May in some areas but primarily June, July and August, just when butterflies, moths, hummingbirds and and native bees need them most.
What flowers are related to Wild Bergamot
Wild Bergamot is closely related to pollinator standouts Scarlet Beebalm, Spotted Beebalm and the hybrid Purple Beebalm
Wild Bergamot’s leaves and flowers have a sweet fragrance and are actually edible. The flowers can by used both as cut flowers and in bouquets.
Powdery mildew can be a problem so it’s best provide water at the root zone rather than using overhead watering systems that tend to leave water on the leaves.
What pollinators does bee balm attract?
Don’t be surprised to see Ruby-Throated Hummingbirds flocking to your Wild Bergamot for a never-ending supply of nectar.
The Hummingbirds will be joined by Sphinx moths (often mistaked for Hummingbirds) a host of butterflies including those in the swallowtail family, Cabbage whites and skippers, including the Silver-Spotted skippers.
Native bees – including the Dufourea Monardae, a North American species of sweat bee in the Halicidae family – the Bumble bees, Sweat bees, Leaf-Cutters and Miner Bees are also attracted to the plants, which are members of the mint family. Hover and Bee flies as well as Vespid Wasps are also regulars to the plants.
What eats Wild Bergamot
Don’t worry if you see some of the leaves being eaten. A number of moths, including the Raspberry Pyrausta, Hermit and Gray Marvel moths use the plant as a host plant in their larvae stage.
The Horsemint Tortoise Beetle is a regular at the dinner table where they eat bergamot and other members of the genus Monarda.
In conclusion: A native wildflower we all need to grow
Native Wild bergamot is one of the real winners in the world of wildflowers. Every garden needs to grow at least one clump of these valuable landscape plants that offer long-lasting beauty in combination with a benefit to wildlife that is hard to underestimate.
Three great woodland gardens in Canada
Canada boasts its share of woodlands both in its National Park system as well as its extensive series of provincial parks and conservation areas, but it’s the public gardens that makes areas from east to west that makes it a tourist destination. Check out three of Canada’s finest woodland gardens and public gardens.
Canadian Travel Destinations: Put Hamilton and Toronto Botanical Gardens and Stanley Park on the list
The Royal Botanical Gardens is a gem in the heart of one of Canada’s most highly populated areas – less than an hour outside of Toronto and about the same distance to the Niagara region and the U.S. border.
The five cultivated garden areas, including the outstanding sunken rock garden and tea house, and its impressive rose and iris collections, get much of the publicity as the gardens come into bloom over the course of the summer. Although these more formal gardens are impressive, it’s the more wild, Woodlands and natural areas of the gardens that are slowly gaining recognition in social media circles.
Maybe it’s the bald eagles, ospreys and massive herons (both Great Blue and Great Whites) that have returned to the area after years of being absent. Maybe it’s the beavers that seem to pose for nature photographers, the coyotes, foxes or friendly chickadees that don’t miss a chance to land on visitors’ outstretched, seed-filled hands. Maybe it’s the massive boardwalks that take you through the heart of marshes, the spring ephemerals that brighten the woodlands in spring, or the spectacular colours of the woodland garden in the fall.
It’s probably a combination of all of these natural features that are getting the attention of nature lovers looking for an experience in the outdoors, away from the worries of Covid.
If you are looking for more travel destinations, check out my article on Five of the best Woodland Gardens to visit in the United States.
I’m lucky to live just 15 minutes from The Royal Botanical Gardens, or the RBG as locals call it.
A Cherry Tree in bloom at the Royal Botanical Gardens Arboretum, one of several gardens at the southern Ontario tourist destination.
The Royal Botanical Gardens is massive: 5 cultivated Garden areas, 27 kms of nature trails, 2,500 plant species, 2,400 acres of nature sanctuaries and 300 acres of cultivated garden.
Several years ago, I was part of a group of five photographers lucky enough to work with the RBG to create photo cards and posters of its outstanding gardens. In those days, the natural areas were less known but still offered nature photographers and lovers a taste of what was to come.
Today, the “Woodland gardens and nature trails feature more than 27 km of nature trails and include four main trailheads, as well as two canoe launch sites,” the gardens’ website states.
“The 1,100 hectares is dominated by 900 hectares of nature sanctuaries enveloping the western end of Lake Ontario. These lands form a Nodal Park within the Niagara Escarpment World Biosphere Reserve (UNESCO) and the heart of the Cootes to Escarpment Ecopark System. With more than 750 native plant species, 277 types of migratory birds, 37 mammal species, 14 reptile species, 9 amphibian species and 68 species of Lake Ontario fish, the area is an important contributor to ecosystems that span international borders.”
Here are a few areas to focus on:
The graphic above shows the extensive trail system through the woodland and over marshes via an extensive boardwalk system.
Trail Destinations: Hendrie Valley is home to lots of interesting trails and lookouts! Here are 5 key destinations marked by number on the map above.
1) South pasture swamp: An oasis for endangered species, this spring-fed oxbow pond is home to beaver, muskrat, Virginia rail and wood duck. Work to restore this site began in 1994 as part of Project Paradise.
2) Grindstone Creek: With three pedestrian bridge crossings and a creek-side trail, the valley provides an intimate connection with the creek. Seasonal fish spawning runs include herring and spottail shiner in the spring and salmon in the fall.
3) Snowberry Island: Halfway along the Grindstone Marshes Boardwalk, Snowberry Island sits five metres high in the floodplain. Named after a species of plant that grows there, the island is a block of uneroded creek valley soil called a knoll.
Grindstone Creek Delta: Located at Valley Inn trailhead, it’s both the site of an ambitious restoration project and stop-over point for migratory waterfowl. More than 100,000 Christmas trees form the foundation for the restored river banks of Grindstone Creek — these protect the marsh areas by preventing carp from entering.
An example of the boardwalk through the trails of the Royal Botanical Gardens.
The Royal Botanical Gardens on the Hamilton/Burlington border is truly a weekend travel destination for anyone living within a few hours of the massive gardens. It is truly a family destination with a host of kid-friendly features and activities.
For garden lovers, the RBG is much more than a weekend travel destination. It’s actually an ideal base to explore all that the Niagara Region – featuring wine country, picturesque Niagara-On-The-Lake and the Falls (one-hour away) – and the metropolitan city of Toronto (an hour away in the other direction), has to offer travellers.
The Woodland Walk and Bird Habitat gardens that greet visitors to the Toronto Botanical Gardens and Edward’s Garden in the heart of Toronto.
Toronto Botanical Garden’s Woodland Walk and Bird Habitat
About an hour’s drive down the highway from Hamilton/Burlington’s RBG is Toronto’s own Botanical Gardens and Edward’s Garden, located in the heart of the city.
Here you will find a wonderful Woodland and bird garden introducing you to the much larger and more formal Edwards Gardens operated by the Toronto Botanical Gardens. Edwards Gardens, that sits adjacent to the Toronto Botanical Garden, is a former estate garden featuring perennials and roses on the uplands and wildflowers, rhododendrons and an extensive rockery in the valley. On the upper level of the valley there is also a lovely arboretum beside the children’s Teaching Garden.
The Woodland Garden design combines a native woodland and prairie garden, providing a year-round habitat for birds and other wildlife.
The garden’s roots go back to 2009, when staff together with numerous volunteers and members of the industry came together to begin working on the garden.
Many of the plants are native to the Canadian Carolinian Forest. (see my earlier article on the Carolinian Forest). The space is an evolving garden, being planted over several years, that will “serve as an outdoor classroom to educate, both passively and actively; to promote sustainability, conservation and biodiversity; and to showcase horticulture.”
A few highlights from the TBG website:
This garden invites and welcomes the public and members into the gardens of the Toronto Botanical Garden and Edwards Gardens. It is a reflection of the beauty and gardens that lie beyond the parking areas.
The garden helps beautify the typical urban landscape at the intersection at Lawrence and Leslie.
Native plants–where possible–have been carefully selected to reflect the Carolinian Forest, providing food and shelter for birds and other wildlife
A natural wood chip path leads the visitor from the busy intersection through the dappled shade of the open woodland to the masses of perennials, ornamental grasses and other seasonal plants in the Entry Garden.
Stanley Park is an impressive example of a natural woodland garden.
Stanley Park: Canada’s ultimate woodland garden
I have had the good fortune to spend a day at Vancouver’s spectacular Stanley Park several years ago. It was a misty morning adding to the mystery of this wonderful landscape.
We visited Stanley Park many years ago and I don’t remember much accept that it was one of the highlights of my life and probably, together with a visit to Butchart Gardens in Victoria, B.C., turned me into a woodland garden enthusiast. There is something about the landscapes of the pacific northwest that you just can’t help but fall in love with.
If you travel to Canada’s far west, try to take in Vancouver Island’s Butchart Gardens. A spectacular 55-acres of sunken gardens boasting 900 plant varieties, 26 greenhouses and 50 gardeners, Butchart has enjoyed more than 100 years as a must-see garden near Victoria, B.C.
Salisbury Woodland Gardens located within the massive Stanley Park is a an attractive green space, planted in the mid 1930’s to serve as a public recreation area as well as shelterbelt for Stanley Park Golf Course. The woodland contains many native and exotic trees and shrubs. Winding footpaths take visitors through the garden over brooks.
The woodland, which has been undergoing renovation since 2006, was designated as a County Biological Heritage Site in 1993 for its epiphytic flora. Wildlife includes birds such as kingfishers, treecreepers and woodpeckers. The site also supports colonies of pipistrelle bats, dragonflies and butterflies such as orange tip and peacock.
In conclusion
The public gardens, as well as the national and provincial parks, and conservation areas in Canada provide visitors with incredible experiences in nature. As Covid winds down and families look to escape either on quick weekend vacations or day visits, these gardens and natural areas offer some of the safest ways to plan a vacation.
Gardener’s Supply Company: Success grows out of passion to improve the world
Gardener’s Supply Company is a United States based garden nursery that operates a web based on-line store and printed catalogue. The company is employee owned and goes to great lengths to promote its mission to make the world a better place through gardening.
What makes Gardener’s Supply Co. so special?
Growing a garden takes time, patience and a love for what you are doing and trying to accomplish. For many, it’s a family affair where we work together for years to create the landscape of our dreams.
Over time and hard work, our gardens take shape and that dream becomes a reality.
I can’t help but think the same sense of accomplishment of creating that garden of our dreams is the same feeling staff of Gardener’s Supply Co. (Link to website) experiences with their genuine success. Since 2009, the Burlington, Vermont company, that has become synonymous with gardening at its finest in the United States, has been 100 per cent employee-owned.
Why should we care?
Like we gardeners in our own yards, staff are passionate about ensuring the commercial and mail-order garden nursery grows into a success. The company’s impressive website clearly illustrates both a love for everything gardening and a wish to share that enthusiasm and success with gardeners.
“Through employee ownership we remain passionately committed to our founding vision – to spread the joys and rewards of gardening, because gardening nourishes the body, elevates the spirit, builds community and makes the world a better place,” the website states.
A mail order and shopping website just for gardeners
Unlike other massive mail-order firms that offer everything you can think of including gardening accessories, Gardener’s Supply Co. (link to Website) is focused on one thing – gardeners.
Being co-owners means that staff:
care deeply about our customers and their successes in the garden;
sustain a vibrant focus on gardening;
support a strong social mission;
take care of our communities and one another;
and work hard to safeguard the increasingly fragile planet we’ve been entrusted with.
Okay, their hearts are in the right place, but how can they help us and our gardens?
Just one look at their website and I think most would agree that this is no ordinary commercial gardening on-line store and website.
For example, these five galvanized planting pots (above) combine rustic and modern, are the perfect addition to a patio or deck.
Offering everything from essential garden tools to unique garden implements, many that are designed and manufactured in their own facilities, Gardener’s Supply is a website that helps us take our gardens from the ordinary to the exquisite. And it’s not just the products being offered on the website or through the printed catalogue, the garden information on their website is a fount of knowledge for both new and seasoned gardeners.
Browsing the site is akin to wandering through your favourite mega garden store without the crowds.
You will find areas featuring garden supplies obviously, separate areas on Planters and Raised Beds, Yard and Outdoors, Indoor Gardening, your home and kitchen accessories as well areas that focus on seeds – everything from vegetable seeds to seed starting supplies, grow lights and stands.
There is also a separate area just for gift ideas.
Gardener’s Supply on a mission to improve the world
But it’s their focus on creating a better world that is hard to ignore
On their website they provide visitors with the causes the company believes in.
“We’re on a mission to improve the world through gardening. We stand up for our beliefs, give voice to those who can’t, and serve as an ally to gardeners everywhere.”
Just a few of the areas they focus on include: Pollinator protection, youth gardens, soil regeneration and fighting hunger.
Gardener’s Supply helps the hungry
A Garden To Give program, where the company encourages gardeners to grow extra vegetables to donate to the needy through Ample Harvest, is just one example of where the company takes action. Their garden nursery in Vermont also includes raised gardens where all the produce is donated to the needy.
Gardener’s Supply helps pollinators
The company’s extensive information about pollinator protection shows that they are not just paying lip service to the protection of pollinators and not just honey bees.
Gardener’s Supply helps children
When it comes to kids and gardening, Gardener’s Supply not only runs a Kids Club at three of their facilities but provide further information about the importance of gardening for Youth.
(If you are interested in getting your children or grandchildren involved in gardening, be sure to read my article on Why kids need more nature in their lives.)
Back to products, accessories and other fun stuff.
Woodland/wildlife gardeners will first want to go directly to the Yard & Outdoors tab and head over to the Backyard Habitat area of the website where they will find separate areas on Bee Bug & Butterfly Habitats, Beekeeping Supplies, Bird Baths, Bird Feeders, Bird Houses and Songbird Tweets.
The Acorn Bird Feeder alone is simply outstanding.
Much of what they offer is of the highest quality, especially the items they design and build right in their own workshops. They may not be the most inexpensive items you’ll be able to find, but the high quality turns many of the items into garden works of art, or, at least, items you will enjoy for years to come and possibly pass on to your children or family members.
For wildlife enthusiasts, Gardener’s Supply Co. offer a range of bird baths including ones made of copper, butterfly houses, a butterfly puddling stone, oriole feeders, elegant bat houses and hummingbird feeders just to name a few of the treats for woodland/wildlife gardeners.
The home decor tab features everything from boot trays to keep the mess outside, to furniture that helps to bring the outside in. There’s even a heart-shaped concrete table top planter ideal for a miniature succulent display.
I could tell you all about the site, but it’s best that you check it out for yourself.
Does Gardener’s Supply Co. deliver all over the United States?
Yes, Gardener’s Supply Co. delivers to all 48 states contiguous states. (For information, check out the specific information on their website.) Shipments to Alaska, Hawaii must travel by 2nd Day Air (select FedEx - AK, HI). Orders shipping to U.S. Territories travel by parcel post (select USPS-International) and will arrive in two to four weeks.
Note: At the present time, Gardener’s Supply does not ship to addresses outside of the U.S. and its territories including Canada and the United Kingdom.
Five of the best woodland gardens in the United States
Five of the best woodland public gardens in the United States you need to visit. It might be a mini vacation or just a drive down the road, but it’s the perfect time to plan a garden destination vacation. Here are five of the best.
Garden destination vacation is perfect for landscape design ideas
Now that we have hopefully seen the end of the worst Covid can send our way, more and more people are planning family vacations.
Many may hesitate to board a plane or cruise ship for a traditional vacation, but may be open to the idea of a driving or mini weekend vacation, especially one that involves being safely outdoors in nature.
Now is the perfect time to consider planning a garden destination vacation by visiting one or more of the many public gardens that offer a safe, outdoor experience where you can explore some of the best garden designs and take home a wealth of knowledge and ideas to use in your own gardens. Garden destination vacations can be as simple as a self-guided walk in the woods or as entertaining and informative as signing up to have a professional guide lead you through the garden experience.
I’ve put together a list of five of the best woodland gardens in the United States to get readers thinking about visiting a local or nearby garden, either as a weekend adventure or as a side excursion during a traditional week-long vacation. There are gardens stretching from New England to Texas and a few in between.
If you are looking to travel to Canada for vacation, be sure to check out Three of the Best Woodland gardens in Canada.
Native Plant Trust (New England Wildflower Society) owns and operates Garden in the Woods, an outstanding natural woodland garden that offers visitors both spiritual and educational experiences just 20 miles from Boston.
How close is Garden in the Woods to Boston?
Garden in the Woods is a 45-acre, magical woodland that showcases the natural beauty of both the New England landscape and, most importantly, its native wildflowers, plants and trees. It’s open to the public through October, if you want to explore the colours of fall while visiting Boston.
Located about 20 miles west of Boston, (in Zone 7A) the massive, naturalistic woodland sculpted by retreating glaciers into eskers, steep-sided valleys, and a kettle pond, is the result of an incredibly dedicated group of individuals who make up the New England Wildflower Society now called Native Plant Trust.
Why should families make Garden in the Woods a travel destination while in the Boston area?
That’s a question I asked Uli Lorimer, Director of Horticulture, at Garden in the Woods.
“Garden in the Woods offers visitors of all ages the opportunity to immerse themselves in the habitats and plants of New England. Exposure to nature, to insects, birds, and the diversity of plant life is crucially important for young children if we hope for them to become the next generation of environmental stewards,” he explains. “The displays include common plants as well as rare, threatened or unusual plants giving the visitor an in depth experience with the diversity of life found in New England.”
What makes Garden In The Woods and its facilities so special to visitors?
“A visitor will immediately sense that this garden is different from other botanical gardens. The way in which the plants are displayed and the experience of walking the trails, the seamless way in which visitors transition from one “garden room” to another is what adds to the unique character of Garden in the Woods,” explains Lorimer. “We offer a wealth of education classes alongside engaging interpretation, affording visitors a chance to learn and grow as they stroll the garden. At our gift shop and plant sale yard, visitors can take home a plant or two to introduce into their own gardens or a tasteful gift, book or memento of the day.”
How can woodland gardeners get the most out of a visit to Garden in the Woods?
“Woodland gardeners are our favorite!, Lorimer explains.
“In order to get the most out of visiting a garden in the Woods, a visitor would need to plan a trip in spring, summer and fall, as the displays and seasonal highlights change. Spending at least 3-4 hours will allow the visitor enough time to leisurely stroll the trails, take notes of the plants and planting combinations they see, to engage with one of the friendly horticulture staff and to feel relaxed and inspired. We strive to offer for sale most of the plants that can be seen in the gardens which helps visiting gardeners act on their new ideas,” he explains.
Uli Lorimer
Special Event: Garden in the Woods is home to a nationally accredited Trillium collection which we celebrate every spring with Trillium Week. This year Trillium Week will be from Monday May 9th through until Sunday May 15th. There will be special garden tours, drop in workshops as well as an evening event planned around the joy of growing Trilliums. Please check out our website https://www.nativeplanttrust.org/events/trillium-week-may-9-15/
Harvard Magazine describes the gardens perfectly: “This “living museum” offers refreshing excursions through New England’s diverse flora and landscapes: visitors may roam woodland paths; explore a lily pond alive with painted turtles, frogs, and dragonflies; or take the outer Hop Brook Trail.”
Garden in the Woods serves as New England Wild Flower Society headquarters
The sanctuary serves as the headquarters of the New England Wild Flower Society who also own the property along with six other botanical reserves in Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire. The Society is probably best know for the fact it produces more than 50,000 native plants annually, grown mostly from seeds found in the wild.
This incredible woodland is, as Harvary Magazine points out in an article: “proof of the Society’s mission to conserve and promote regional native plants to foster healthy, biologically diverse environments.”
In the garden visitors often describe as magical, you’ll find a naturalistic plant collection that showcases New England native plants with complementary specimens from across the country.
Finding inspiration in Garden in the Woods
If you garden in the Northeast part of the United States, this is the place to find inspiration for your own garden and a new appreciation for the varied plant life of the region.
Offering an extensive list of educational classes and field studies to go along with the information provided on its website on ecological gardening, the Woodland garden and website is a must for serious Woodland gardeners and native plant enthusiasts.
“Plants are the foundation of all life. No matter what you want to conserve, whether the interest is in birds, bats, or bugs—they all depend on plants,” executive director Debbi Edelstein told Harvard Magazine. “But people tend to overlook them. People see something green and think it’s good, but they don’t really see the roles that very special individual species play in making everything else healthy.”
Visitors can opt for guided tours through themed plantings including a rock garden, coastal, and meadow gardens as well as the extensive woodland garden.
Early spring (May 5-11) is definitely Trillium time at Garden in the Woods, where they can show off the 26 different trillium species to visitors.
The woodland garden’s peak bloom is in spring and early summer, with the meadow putting on its best show in mid-to-late summer with its abundance of bee balm, Culver’s root, lobelia, and black-eyed Susan, to name just a few of the native species, In the fall, native grasses take the spotlight in the meadow garden along with asters and goldenrods.
One need only look at the extensive trail system on the website to appreciate the vastness of this incredible jewel. If you are thinking about going, you can download a map showing Garden in the Woods’ extensive trail system to plan out your visit before you even leave your home.
If the seafood, Red Sox or tourist attractions in the Boston area are not enough to get you to make Bostonyour summer destination, surely Garden in the Woods will be the attraction to get garden tourists outside to experience nature and scoop some ideas for their own gardens.
For more on this spectacular garden destination, check out the article in Harvard Magazine on Garden in the Woods.
Garvan Woodland Gardens is a destination the entire family will enjoy from children who will be attracted to the Adventure garden, to adults enjoying the outstanding gardens and unique features.
Garvan Woodland Gardens: A must visit for the whole family
Garvan Woodland Gardens, the botanical garden of the University of Arkansas, ( zone 6B, 7A) has a mission to preserve and enhance a unique part of the picturesque Ouachita Mountains of Southwest Arkansas.
Its success stems from the perfect combination of beautiful gardens, elegant structures and landscaping details that celebrates the natural beauty of the Woodland Gardens: featuring a canopy of tall pines that provide protection for delicate flora and fauna, gentle lapping waves that unfold along the 4.5 miles of wooded shoreline, and rocky inclines.
Woodland gardeners will be particularly attracted to the Hixson Family Nature Preserve encompassing 45 acres of natural Ouachita woodland, nestled under a towering canopy of oak and cypress trees, while kids will want to spend time at the Evans Children’s Adventure Garden.
A garden for the kids
Families with children will undoubtedly gravitate toward the Evans Children’s Adventure Garden that offers 1.5 acres of fun tied into natural outdoor education at its finest.
(Here is a link to my article on why kids need more nature in their lives)
The interactive garden features more than 3,200 tons (or 6.4 million pounds) of boulders positioned to encourage exploration of the natural environment. Add to that a 12-foot waterfall that cascades over the entryway and an easily accessible, man-made cave, where children can discover “ancient” fossils. The garden also features a bridge constructed from wrought-iron “Cedar tree branches” and a maze of rocks that lead down to a series of wading pools.
Parents can enjoy a bird’s eye view of their children at play from a 450-foot long, 20-foot tall elevated walkway that also provides scenic vistas of Lake Hamilton and the surrounding woodlands.
Garden beginnings
The Garvan Woodland Gardens, a gift from local industrialist and philanthropist Verna Cook Garvan, also provides visitors with a location of learning, research, cultural enrichment, and serenity in addition to a place to develop and sustain gardens, landscapes, and structures of exceptional aesthetics.
From the dynamic architectural structures to the majestic botanical landscapes, Garvan Woodland Gardens offers breathtaking sights (and fantastic photo opportunities) at every turn.
Hixson Family Nature Preserve
The Hixson Family Nature Preserve encompasses 45 acres of natural Ouachita woodland where visitors can take in the more than 120 species of birds, including bad eagles, pileated woodpeckers and the diminutive tufted titmous along with the long list of fauna that call the woodland home. (Check out this link on attracting the Tufted Titmouse to your garden.)
The Birdsong Trail is a 1.9 mile Birdsong Trail offers resting benches for watching the birds feed at special stations and enjoying some of the best vistas of Lake Hamilton in Hot Springs.
Visitors to the preserve learn about the woodland environment from educational displays placed along the adjoining Lowland Forest Boardwalk – where visitors learn about the environmental benefits of trees and forest cover.
The woodland refuge, nestled under a towering canopy of oak and cypress trees, is also home to the Shannon Perry Hope Overlook, a secluded site for reflection.
Don’t miss out these features at Garvan Woodlands
Millsap Canopy Bridge: Stretching two stories above the forest floor and spanning 120 feet, the serpentine-shaped Millsap Canopy Bridge is one of the most exciting pedestrian structures in the region. Its gently curved walkway winds through a woodland paradise of pools, cascades, and verdant plantings nestled in a ravine christened Singing Springs Gorge. Seasonally, the site offers a showy display of cinnamon ferns, Tardiva and oak leaf hydrangeas, delicate dogwoods and a collection of heat-tolerant rhododendrons.
The Perry Wildflower Overlook: provides sweeping lake views on the 1,500 square-foot flagstone terrace overlooking a one-acre planting of more than 40 different varieties of wildflowers, with new ones added each spring.
Bob and Sunny Evans Tree House: The new centerpiece of the Children's Garden, The Tree House is suspended within a group of pines and oaks, bending easily between them. The theme is the study of trees and wooded plants, drives both the form and program of the structure. The tree house is part of an ambitious plan to bring children back into the woods, the tree house uses a rich visual and tactile environment to stimulate the mind and body, while accommodating the needs of all users.
The Garden of the Pine Wind is a four-acre, majestic rock and stream garden. Voted the 5th best Asian garden in North America in 2012 by the Journal of Japanese Gardening, it offers a quiet place for contemplation and meditation. Approximately 300 varieties of Asian ornamental plants can be viewed here – including 60 types of Japanese and other Asian maples and Oriental dogwoods. In springtime, more than 40 giant-flowered tree peonies and hundreds of azaleas complement the maple collection’s attractive foliage.
The Joy Manning Scott Bridge of the Full Moon is one of the most recognized and most photographed features of the gardens. Considered the focal point of the Garden of the Pine Wind, the spectacular 11-foot-high, self-supporting structure echoes the ancient stone bridges of western China, where native stone was laid by hand in rustic patterns.
Sugg Model Train Garden: is a popular feature with the young and the young at heart. A big draw with model train enthusiasts,
the layout consists of 389 feet of track and 259 trestles and encompasses three independent operating loops. A freight or passenger train runs on the lower outer loop while a train hauling cars operates on the lower inner loop.
Garvan Pavilion: is an architectural masterpiece that stands as the centerpiece of the 210-acre botanical garden. The stunning open-air redwood and sandstone structure features a one-of-a-kind, faceted steel and glass ceiling centered around a classical oculus. This traditional ‘window in the ceiling’ serves as the focal point of a flower-like composition unfolding overhead. A wonderful complement to its woodland surroundings.
Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center and woodland garden in Texas is a must for gardeners looking to experience shade gardening at its best.
Lady Bird Johnson: A celebration of native wildflowers
Lady Bird Johnson Texas: Visitors to the Lady Bird Johnson gardens in Texas (zone 8) will marvel at the numerous examples of shade tolerant plants and other wildflowers in this peaceful, nature inspired garden that includes a stream compete with native fauna and flora.
But for Woodland gardeners, the garden offers a perfect place to ponder the subtleties of the woodland with its many shapes and textures among the wildflowers, vines, layers of trees and shrubs.
The garden is the ideal place for inspiration as well as specific ideas on what plant communities work well with one another. The garden’s website points out that the “Woodland Garden features Hill Country woody plants, many arranged based on the occurrence of plant communities in nature.”
It is also quick to point out that the garden “is also a great classroom for gardeners and homeowners to learn about shade gardening, or planting for low-light situations within a landscape.”
The gardens also feature an area of chalky limestone that supports sumacs, snowbells and the rare Texas madrone.
The garden hosts a number of activities throughout the year including seminars on birding in Texas, native orchids, ecology based landscaping, collecting and processing wild seed, botanical illustration and watercolour, wildflower research and even fitness, which we all know is an important aspect to gardening.
I highly recommend readers to check out the gardens informative website (see above), especially the area on wildflowers.
Spring is spectacular in the English Woodland Garden at the Missouri Botanical Gardens when 300 rhododendrons bloom alongside 100 flowering dogwoods.
Missouri Botanical Gardens: A St. Louis refuge
St. Louis Missouri Botanical Gardens and the woodland garden: Maybe it’s the natural sound of the babbling brook sparkling under a canopy of trees along the shaded pathway that stops you in your path as you stroll through the Cherbonnier English Woodland Garden (zone 6). If it’s spring, however, it’s more likely the more than 300 rhododendrons and azaleas, and 100 dogwoods in full bloom that will get your attention.
Even a single flowering dogwood is a stunning addition to any garden, but 100 dogwoods under planted with hundreds of blooming rhododendrons and azaleas is enough to stop anyone in their tracks. Stunning is an appropriate description of the garden in mid April when it is at its prime viewing.
And if that is not enough, add to the scene clusters of wildflowers, hydrangeas and perennials providing surprising splashes of color throughout the seasons. It’s not hard to see why this stunning garden is a favourite refuge during intense St. Louis summers.
Visitors can follow the meandering brook along a winding path of stepping stones, taking in the streamside plantings of primroses, ferns, cardinal flowers, and ground orchids, as it flows under several limestone bridges and into the Japanese Garden lake by way of a waterfall.
The English-style garden – with its informal display of botanical treasures from around the world – started as 1.5-acres but has expanded to the present-day size of nearly 3.25 acres.
The garden is intended to showcase plants from all over the world, rather than focus exclusively on native plants and features.
Rather than focus exclusively on native plants, the garden’s focus is to showcase – in its distinctive three vegetative layers making up the woodland canopy – plants from all over the world.
“First is an upper canopy provided by trees such as oaks (Quercus sp.), maples (Acer sp.), ashes (Fraxinus sp.) and tulip trees (Liriodendron tulipifera). Some of the most impressive specimens include Pumpkin Ash (Fraxinus profunda, formerly Fraxinus tomentosa), Swamp White Oak (Quercus bicolor) and Pin Oak (Quercus palustris). The middle layer contains smaller trees such as redbuds, fringetrees and witchhazels, as well as shrubs including hydrangeas, viburnums, beautyberries and camellias. The lower layer is filled with ferns, wildflowers, and herbaceous perennials, such as meadowrues, bishop’s hats, and foam flowers. The intent of horticulture staff is to “work in ‘garden rooms,’ with clusters of the same or similar plants to draw people from one room to the next,” according to Enkoji,” states the gardens website.
What to watch for in the woodland garden
• A second water feature is a bog display of plants that thrive in wet soils or aquatic habitats.
• A bronze sculpture of the Three Graces by Gerhard Marcks (1889-1981). In Greek mythology, the Three Graces were lesser gods of Olympus, daughters of Zeus and Eurynome.
•The garden also features the Mary Phelan Memorial Birdbath, created from a naturally concave piece of lava rock from the Seattle, Wash. area.
An impressive 100-acre woodland and natural area that has undergone a successful rewilding since 1988.
The Chicago Botanical Garden: A woodland rewilded
Chicago Botanical Garden is proving that a woodland cut up by development and highly fragmented, located in an urban area can be revived through careful management.
The impressive 100-acre woodland and natural area (zones 5b-6a) has undergone extensive ecological restoration since the efforts began in 1988, transforming a formerly degraded oak woodland remnant into a natural treasure. It is home to five community types and a startling amount of plant and animal diversity.
“Our ecologists, along with dedicated volunteers, have worked for decades on repairing and restoring this woodland habitat. In 2013, these efforts were recognized with a “Gold Accreditation” from the Chicago Wilderness Excellence in Environmental Restoration Program,” reads the gardens website.
Spring ephemerals kick of the wildflower display. Throughout the seasons visitors can enjoy the nature trail to experience fall color as well as explore the many birds and wildflowers that call the woodland home. The woodland garden has become important for school groups and adults to benefit from outdoor nature education, including school field trips, Nature Preschool and camp programs, as well as nature walk, birding, plant ID, nature study, and photography classes.
Keeping to the educational focus of the woodland garden, staff encourage visitors to consider restoring their own properties by showing them how they can create woodland gardens in suburban or even urban areas.
I encourage all readers to check out their website at McDonald Woods for invaluable information on establishing or rewilding their properties back to woodlands.
In addition to the Woodland garden, Chicago Botanical Garden offer a number of gardens areas featuring: native plant garden, prairie garden, naturalized garden, Japanese garden, sensory garden, heritage garden and many more.
This free garden offers visitors an opportunity to explore an eight-acre woodland garden and native plant habitat.
Morse family Woodland Garden, Georgia
Morse Family Woodland Garden - Georgia: Woodlands Garden is an eight-acre garden and native plant habitat near downtown Decatur in Atlanta, (zone 7b-8a) with a mission to preserve the woodland garden as an urban sanctuary for educating and engaging the community in the natural world.
It’s the result of a land donation in 2003, by the Morse family who donated 7 acres of greenspace to become a public garden. A one-acre parcel was added to the site and today the free garden is open to the public – at no charge – to explore the historical Morse garden and an educational native plant garden which envelope visitors into the appealing, diverse plant world of the Georgia Piedmont.
Visitors can explore a winding network of mulched trails meandering through the woods and explore the plants native to the Georgia Piedmont region. Here they will see some incredible Champion Trees like the Bigleaf and Cucumber Magnolias or the Devil’s Walking Stick.
“The core of the 8 acres surrounds the previous home site, which is now a grassy lawn where the Heritage Garden can be found. In the Heritage Garden, visitors will find Dr. Morse’s original camellia collection, ornamental Japanese maples, and the all ages Children’s Natural Play Area. The staff and volunteers provide educational opportunities to learn more about the importance of native plants through workshops and signage, while also maintaining a balance of focusing on the space as an urban sanctuary full of natural serenity.”
In conclusion: Garden destination vacations open up a new world of travel
Finding a family vacation that is relatively safe from the dangers of contracting Covid is becoming more and more difficult. It’s always a good choice to choose a destination that offers low density, primarily outdoor activity in a natural environment.
Garden tourism destination vacations offer a safe vacation experience for gardeners and some even offer specific activities for children. Woodland destinations give families an opportunity to explore outdoor education while breathing in fresh air and relaxing in the serenity only nature can provide.
You don’t have to go to public gardens to experience nature. A state park and conservation lands can offer many of the same benefits in a less organized and focused way.
Whatever you choose, it’s time to take a long walk in a woods, whether it’s a managed woodlot aimed at providing the best woodland garden experience in a defined space, or a more natural experience in a state park.
Why do I smell skunks in mid February?
Why am I smelling skunk every night when there is still snow on the ground? Chances are you are experiencing a female skunk sending a strong message to an amorous male looking to mate or quite possibly two males letting off a little steam over the chance to mate with a female.
Why are we seeing and smelling skunks in the middle of February?
The ground is covered with two feet of snow and skunks seem to be everywhere – we see them roaming through the back and front gardens and smell them on a nightly basis.
What gives?
Turns out female skunks are down right stinkers when it comes to fending off amorous male skunks looking to mate, and all this takes place in mid February right around the time of Valentine’s Day.
That explains the nightly smells we get sitting in our family room – not enough to suggest a full-fledged unleashing of the musky odour experienced when one of our striped friends unleashes on an excitable canine – but enough to get your attention. Especially if it’s right outside the door.
A skunk looking for food in the early evening in the garden. I was out hoping to get a photograph of a fox and the skunk showed up instead with its beautiful tail.
The mating season brings out more of these solitary, elusive animals as they look for partners to begin families. It’s a time when male skunks are more active asserting dominance over other males, while females skunks, who are either not ready to mate or choose not to with a particular male, use their musk glands to fend of advances. These encounters cause both the males and females to spread small amounts of musk – just enough to make us take notice.
You may also be getting a slight odour from under your shed or deck where they are living. Be sure to give them plenty of space and move slowly around them, but they are harmless and very beneficial so it’s much better to learn to live with them than have them removed.
This mid-February odour is not near as strong as you will experience when skunks are killed along the road or when they use it in self defence after being frightened by a neighbourhood dog.
Be prepared for a skunk spray. Check out my post on what to do if your dog or family member has been sprayed by a skunk.
What are skunks’ breeding habits?
Female striped skunks give birth to kits in early spring around April and May after mating in and around mid February. Females can breed in their second summer and give birth to as many as four to seven babies. Older females can come into estrus earlier than younger female skunks and may have litters earlier in spring. Following a sixty-day gestation period, the kits are born in shallow dens or, more likely, under sheds or decks in our yards.
Born blind and deaf and sporting short, fine fur, babies are nursed in the den for about six weeks before venturing out of the den for short excursions with mom. The young skunks are usually weaned from their mother by two months of age.
By fall, the family members have gone their separate ways, travelling as far as 50 kms but usually no more than 5-10 kms, looking for new territory.
Skunks and Great Horned Owls: A deadly combination
We’ve lived in our current home for almost 25 years and have only experienced skunks in the past few years. Where did these skunks come from?
Although we live in a heavily forested area surrounded by conservation lands where you would expect to be living with skunks, up until recently they were nowhere to be seen. I firmly believe that the reason we are experiencing more skunks in our neighbourhood is the result of a severe decline of the Great Horned Owl – skunks’ greatest natural predator.
Typical neighbourhoods offer a cornucopia of food for these shy, inquisitive animals in the form of unprotected garbage cans and pet food left out on decks and back patios. Acres of manicured grass provide skunks with an abundance of grubs, other insects and even mice, just to name a few.
Coyotes, foxes and other predators know enough not to tangle with skunks and will not prey on them unless they are desperate, but Great Horned Owls’ lack of smell allows them to prey on skunks.
This makes the Great horned Owl the primary predator of striped skunks. Although skunks can weigh up to three times more than a typical Great Horned Owl, the deadly talons of the owls make them efficient killers of skunks, whose only real defence is their ability to spray the strong sulphur musk. The owls’ huge, deadly talons combined with their ability to squeeze up to 500 pounds per square inch, means this crushing grip will often kill larger prey like skunks instantly.
The fact that skunks like to travel at night, just when the Great Horned Owls are on the prowl, makes them easy prey. In fact, it is reported that one owl nest contained the remains of nearly 60 skunks.
With an average life span in the wild of between 5-15 years, a Great Horned Owl can certainly do its part in keeping neighbourhoods free of skunks.
That’s good a good reason to do all you can to encourage Great Horned Owls to your neighbourhood. The best way to accomplish this is not to cut down dead trees, especially those that are large enough to provide habitat for these large owls. See my earlier article on the importance of leaving snags in your garden.
Bunchberry is the ideal woodland ground cover
Bunchberry or Cornus Canadensis is the perfect ground cover for the woodland garden. It is happy in a moist, acidic soil growing in a coniferous or mixed forest. The small, ground-hugging dogwood looks great in spring summer and fall complete with perfect little flowers and bunches of bright red berries.
Cornus Canadensis has a place in every woodland garden
I’m not sure when I fell in love with Dogwood, but one look at the garden in spring and there is no denying that dogwoods take centre stage in our woodland garden.
Several Flowering dogwoods (Cornus Florida), a couple of magnificent Kousa dogwoods (Cornus Kousa), and a lovely Cornus Mas or Cornelian Cherry bloom along with Redbuds and Serviceberry in a delicate display of pinks, reds and airy white-flowering trees.
There is one, however, critical dogwood species (members of the Cornaceae family) that has been missing in action in our garden and that is Bunchberry.
Bunchberry is a stunning native Woodland ground cover
Bunchberry (Cornus Canadensis) is the perfect ground cover in the moist woodland garden, whether in late spring to early summer when its attractive white bracts and greenish to purplish flowers are in full bloom against shiny green leaves, or later in summer and fall with its stark red cluster of berries and more muted purple to red leaf colour brings the woodland floor to life in a riot of colour and texture.
We know that most dogwoods are small trees or shrubs, but this plant is a low, creeping perennial that grows mostly in moist coniferous to mixed forests, clearings and boggy areas. Bunchberry can have 4 to 7 leaves, though it typically sports six in a terminal whorl with one to two leafy bracts below those leaves.
The semi-evergreen, 2-8 centimetre long leaves, like most dogwoods, have prominent parallel veins. The white flowers are, in reality, a set of four white bracts surrounding a tight pincushion of tiny greenish-white to purplish flowerlets in an umbel cluster.
Looking for more information on ground covers? Please check out my other posts on ground covers I use in the woodland garden.
• What is the easiest ground cover to grow?
• Three great ground covers for the woodland garden.
• Creeping thyme as a ground cover
• Snow in summer ideal for hot dry areas
• Moss and moss-like ground covers
When do Bunchberry flower and set fruit?
If you have never seen this often over looked native ground cover, think of the beauty of a flowering dogwood tree growing just a couple of inches off the ground in large, spreading flowering mats complete with its showy flowering bracts that bloom in late spring through early summer depending on growing conditions.
The impressive bracts and flowers are followed by bright red bunches of fruit in late summer and fall, which is where Bunchberry obviously got its name.
That’s, in essence, what the bunchberry provides gardeners. Not to mention its inherent benefits to local wildlife, including birds, mammals, butterflies, insects and bees.
Can you ask for more in a native ground cover?
For more on using Bunchberry as a groundcover, check out this Pacific Northwest landscaping plan that uses bunchberry.
These images show the beauty of the Bunchberry (Cornus Canadensis) either as individuals, in a large drift of in late summer when the berries emerge.
In fact, according to the highly informative site Tale of the Dogwood: “The flowering shoots (of Bunchberry) often cover large areas with up to 300 flowering shoots per square meter. With an average of 22 flowers per shoot, bunchberry often has 6,600 flowers in one square meter. (10-11 square feet).”
More of my posts on Dogwoods
For more information on Dogwoods, please check out my other posts listed here:
Dogwoods: Find the perfect one for your yard
Flowering Dogwood: Queen of the Woodland garden
Cornus Kousa: Impressive non-native for the woodland garden
Pagoda Dogwood: Small native tree ideal for any garden
Cornus Mas: An elegant addition to the Woodland Garden
Why do Bunchberry flowers explode?
And if that’s not exciting enough, the flowers have been known to “explode” when a certain size insect lands on them.
Tale of the Dogwood explains that: “Exploding flowers may enhance insect pollination in two ways. First, exploding flowers limits pollinators to those insects that are heavy enough to trigger open the flowers. Large insects readily move between inflorescences whereas smaller insects (e.g., ants and small flies) are ineffective pollinators because they rarely move between inflorescences. Second, most of the large insects are voracious pollen eaters. The explosive flowering disperses the pollen over the body of the insects and imbeds it deep in their hairs where it is hard for them to gather it to eat.”
Even if a full understanding of the whole explosive nature of the flowers is of little interest, You have to admit that it’s pretty cool to have thousands of exploding flowers in your backyard!
I’m proud to say that this impressive ground cover is no longer absent in my garden. Thanks to Ontario Native Plants, I purchased a number of Bunchberry plugs late last summer and got them into the ground in time to get them started.
The plugs of this lovely woodland ground cover were planted in our shady side yard on a slight slope among the wild violets, and I am looking forward to seeing how they come through our difficult winter and begin putting down roots this growing season.
How to plant bunchberries
I planted the bunchberries in a shady area of the yard near some young pines a spruce tree and under a maple. I added a little acidifier to the planting holes and topped them with some pine needles. In spring I’ll sprinkle a little more acidifier on the soil and add more pine and spruce needles to help maintain a slightly acid growing medium.
They will be growing amid wild violets and I’m hoping to add some maindenhair ferns to complement the low-growing ground cover.
A couple years back, I tried to get three clumps of bunchberry started, but after moving them to different parts of the garden, (I must stop movng plants around every spring) the plants just disappeared. I’m not sure if they died as a result of my moving them around or improper growing conditions. Although these plants are farely common in nature, they do require specific growing conditions to be their best.
I have no plans to move these new plants, and hope that they will feel at home in the mostly shady, damp soil.
These slow-growing herbaceous perennials grow to between 10-20 cm (3-8 inches) in height as they form large clonal colonies in carpet-like mats of green leaves that, in the fall, turn a beautiful shade of red to compliment their red-tinted veins.
When does Bunchberry fruit and is it edible
Flowers appear in late spring from May through to July followed by fruit that can appear from late July into October. The berries are edible but are best left for the birds and other garden wildlife that depend on the berries to help get them through tough winters.
The drupes (fruit) start off green, turning a bright red as the clusters mature throughout the summer. Each fruit is about 5mm in diameter and contain one or two ellipsoid-ovoid shaped stones which can be planted as a method of propagation.
Where does Bunchberry grow?
Given that Bunchberry is a tough perennial ground cover found in low, almost sub- to sub-alpine areas, in most parts of Canada and the northern United States including Colorado and New Mexico all the way to Greenland, I’m confident these young plants will come through winter raring to set roots come spring.
Bunchberry’s vigour is also evident considering it’s native to Japan, North Korea, northeastern China and parts of Russia. Those countries offer pretty extreme conditions for this lovely little ground cover to call home.
Soil conditions for growing Bunchberry
They grow in poor to medium soil that can be moderately-dry to wet, but they prefer a moist, acidic soil.
Cornus canadensis likes cool, moist soils to prosper. It grows in montane and boreal coniferous forests, where it is often found growing along the margins of moist woods, preferably among cedars and on old tree stumps, in mossy areas, and among other open and moist habitats.
Try growing Bunchberry in an old tree stump
Here is an idea readers might want to trying this summer. I plan to get an old hollowed out tree stump, fill it with a rich, acidic soil and plant a bunchberry into the rotting tree stump. I’m hoping to possibly use it as a small breeding ground for additional plants that spread by rhizone.
Are Bunchberries edible or poisonous?
You may be wondering if the bright red berries of the Bunchberry are poisonous – they are not poisonous. In fact, because they are hard and a little bitter they are best left for birds and other wildlife.
The showy red, fleshy fruit turns bright red in summer and enjoyed by a host of birds and other wildlife. The seeds are mostly dispersed by birds who are often found feeding on the fruit during their fall migration. But it is also a food source for deer and moose, bears and hares as well as smaller garden wildlife species.
According to the website Adirondacks Forever Wild: Bunchberry is also used by some song and game birds. The fruits are eaten by Veeries, Ruffed Grouse, Partridge, Philadelphia and solitary Vireos, Warbling Vireos and White-throated Sparrows.”
Bunchberry flowers also attract butterflies but do not attract deer or rabbits. Deer will eat Bunchberry foliage but it is not one of their preferred food sources.
Bunchberry fruits are eaten by black bears (if they are part of your garden guests) and small mammals including chipmunks, cottontails, martens and Snowshoe Hares.
Western or Alaskan bunchberry is also a showstopper
Often mistaken for Cornus Canadensis, Cornus Unalaschkensis (western cordileran bunchberry or Alaskan bunchberry) is another stunning carpeting woodlander.
In the the informative, Gardening with Native Plants of the Pacific Northwest, authors Arthur R. Kruckeberg, and Linda Chalker-Scott describes Western buncherry as “a 6-inch-high circle of broad leaves supports a single dogwood “bloom,” a singular pattern often repeated in great swaths on the forest floor.”
They go on to explain that the “English rock gardener Reginald Farrer speaks highly of the North American species calling it much superior in showiness to the European C. suecica.”
What to plant along with the bunchberry
The authors advise that the: “dwarf dogwood should be given preeminent placing in shaded portions of the garden, under azaleas or vine maple. They like an acid, gritty soil, somewhat damp for most of the year.”
In conclusion
Woodland gardeners who are lucky enough to be able to grow dogwoods, know that you can never have enough of these important family of shrubs and understory trees. Add to this, the magnificent, carpeting qualities of the Cornus Canadensis and its western and european counterparts. These are a must for any woodland gardener.
Plant them in already-growing mats or clumps and let the rhizomes run, or get some seed and plant them in acidic damp soil to establish your own patch of this perfect, woodland ground cover.
Little Bluestem is BIG winner in 2022
The native perennial Little Bluestem is an outstanding, little-used prairie tallgrass that has its place in naturalized gardens as well as more formal beds. It’s an important grass for native wildlife including butterflies and insects and provides a food source for our native songbirds.
Why native Little Bluestem was picked best perennial
Little Bluestem has been picked as the top perennial for 2022 by the Perennial Plant Association, finally getting the respect it deserves as an all-round performer combining a rugged toughness that shines in both dry average and wet soils, in sun and part shade and, above all else, is native in zones 3-9 throughout Canada and most of the United States as far south as Mexico.
What does winning top perennial mean to gardeners?
Being a native grass not only means Little Bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium) will grow well in most locations, local wildlife will depend on the plant for a number of factors, including providing a food source and habitat for insects, butterflies, pollinators and small mammals.
Two elegant, upright clumps of Little Bluestem in our front garden shows the flowering part just beginning to emerge across the top of the grasses growing on the edge of a dry river bed and blending nicely with the large drift of Black-eyed Susans.
In fact, Little Bluestem acts as a larval host for as many as nine skipper species of butterflies including the common wood nymph (Cercyonis pegala), Dakota skipper (Hesperia dacotae), Leonard’s skipper (Hesparia leonardus), and a host of others. And, if it’s home to these skipper larva, it is also a good source of food for birds, especially in spring when they are feeding their nestlings the tiny caterpillars.
Grasshoppers are also attracted to the grassy foliage providing a late summer source of food for backyard songbirds.
A dew-covered skipper on a grass blade in early morning.
Native bunch grasses, like Little Bluestem, are also valuable in the wildlife garden because they provide winter habitat for insects and wildlife including female bumble bee queens that nest at the base of the grasses where they find much needed protection from heavy snow and freezing temperatures until they can once again emerge in spring.
Gardeners will also appreciate this mid-sized plant’s extremely low-maintenance characteristics, its drought-tolerance and ability to perform well in poor soil. Maintaining this grass could not be easier. In late spring I just cut the remaining grasses down and put them into the open compost where nesting birds have the opportunity to use the soft grasses for nesting material.
Unlike some grasses that grow strong, thick stems, Little Bluestem is extremely easy to cut down.
• If you are considering creating a meadow in your front or backyard, be sure to check out The Making of a Meadow post for a landscape designer’s take on making a meadow in her own front yard.
• Looking for some low-growing ornamental grass ideas? Check out my post on Five low-growing ornamental grasses.
How deep do Little Bluestem roots grow?
Little Bluestem’s drought tolerance comes from its extensive and extremely deep root system that makes it perfect to use in a xeriscape application. Traditional grass has a root system that may reach anywhere from an inch or two to three or four inches into the ground. Little Bluestem’s fibrous root system digs down to 5½ feet deep in search of a water source, making it not only drought resistant in even the driest of areas but also an important plant to use on slopes to reduce erosion.
The importance of using native plants in your garden cannot be underestimated. This article digs deeper into why everyone should be using more native plants in their garden.
These plants can be grown from seed but is best grown from divisions. There are several popular cultivars available bred for more intense colours but native gardeners know that sticking with the native species plant is always a wise choice.
Little Bluestem’s coppery-bronze grasses shown in the fall.
My clumps of Little Bluestem have been growing in poor sandy soil on the edge of our dry river bed for more than ten years on the edge of the garden where it gets buried every winter in snow and residual salt from the road, and it continues to perform.
And if that’s not enough, the changing colours of the grasses throughout the seasons provides year-round interest. Emerging as a soft, blue-green elegant grass with a lovely upright habit, the grasses take on a deeper bronze-rusty tone in late summer that persists for most of the winter.
In late summer, usually in about August, small, whispy purplish-bronze flowers emerge an branched stems that stand above the grass foliage. These fluffy, silvery seed heads are pollinated by the wind but often persist into winter where they add to the attractiveness of the plants and provide a food source for birds.
Little Bluestem is shown here in its late-summer, fall flowering stage.
Little Bluestem is pest free and deer resistant
And did I say it’s relatively pest and disease-free. It certainly is not at all enticing to our local herd of deer that I can say have never nibbled on our two large clumps of Little Bluestem that’s lived in our front garden for as long as I can remember.
The blue summer foliage works well as a medium-sized backdrop in both formal and native meadow gardens and combines nicely with Black-eyed Susans, coneflowers and grey-toned foliage where its elegant, fine-textured foliage forms dense, upright mounds that will eventually reach about a foot in diameter and never dominates the landscape.
This is a dominant, warm-season grass in the tallgrass prairie region that is adapted to hot, dry conditions that grows mostly from June through September reaching four to five feet tall in late summer.
Native grasses Little Bluestem sits alongside Northern Sea Oats in our window box acting like thrillers by providing vertical elegance.
Can I use Little Bluestem in containers
I have experimented with using divisions from my Little Bluestem plants to use as thrillers and fillers in my container gardens for a year or two before eventually transplanting them into the garden.
I’ve even used them in our window boxes to add an elegant, low-cost thriller. The plant’s slender grass blades add an elegant touch to the planters and can be easily transplanted to the meadow garden in the fall where their winter interest can be further appreciated.
Little Bluestem growing in our front garden in a rocky dry river bed alongside common milkweed and drifts of Black-eyed-Susans.
In conclusion
Little Bluestem deserves a spot in everyone’s garden, whether it’s a more formal design or an expansive native tallgrass prairie meadow. It should not matter that it is the perennial of the year, but earning this distinction should go a long way to introduce this useful grass to the masses.
Go ahead and try one of the many cultivars available, but make sure you plant the native species to ensure your garden and the wildlife that live in it gets the most benefits from this impressive native plant.
Check out these links below for more information on cultivars of the native plant.
Standing Ovation Little Bluestem
Links for other best plant, shrub and tree choices for 2022
• At this Proven Winners link you will find the company’s “new for 2022“ plants, shrubs etc as well as downloadable Brochures for both the United States and Canada. The page includes downloadable PDFs of New Shrubs varieties, new annuals and new perennials. In addition, There are photo libraries, and regional garden trials to check out. Proven Winners have great products but they are not natives so consider the potential negative affects that planting an abundance of these flowers and shrubs might have on your garden’s wildlife. Many are good for wildlife but likely fall short compared to the native variety.
• If indoor plants are your thing, here is a link from Architectural Digest of the best plants for 2022.
• Check out this informative article from Pennsylvania Garden Writer George Weigel for the best new shrubs for 2022.
More links to my articles on native plants
Why picking native wildflowers is wrong
Serviceberry the perfect native tree for the garden
The Mayapple: Native plant worth exploring
Three spring native wildflowers for the garden
A western source for native plants
Native plants source in Ontario
The Eastern columbine native plant for spring
Three native understory trees for Carolinian zone gardeners
Ecological gardening and native plants
Eastern White Pine is for the birds
Native viburnums are ideal to attract birds
The Carolinian Zone in Canada and the United States
Dogwoods for the woodland wildlife garden
Attract Juncos: Habitat might convince Snowbirds to stay all year
Dark-eyed Juncos are common visitors to our gardens, especially in winter when these sparrow-sized birds are scene looking for seed on the ground beneath our feeders.
You have to admire the Slate-coloured, Dark-Eyed Junco. While many of our backyard birds are flying south to the Southern United States, Mexico and Central America, these spunky little birds think -15C (5F) and three feet of snow is paradise.
Compared to their traditional breeding grounds in the deep Boreal forests of northern Canada where a high percentage of them spend their spring and summer breeding months, I guess the freezing temperatures and blizzards of Southern Ontario and north-eastern United States feel quite balmy to them.
These hardy, ground-feeding members of the sparrow family, with a slate-coloured top and white undersides, seem happy enough to scrounge on the ground under our bird feeders for scraps left behind by Cardinals, Blue Jays, Woodpeckers and a host of other more fussy birds that unwittingly share their discarded seed with the Juncos at our our feeders.
And if you provide the right habitat, including their favourite native plants, roosting locations, a fresh source of water and a good source of food, you may be able to convince these little guys to stick around your woodland year round.
How long do Juncos live
No one said their lives were easy, but they have been known to survive in these harsh conditions for up to 11 years of age. Experts predict a life span of between 3-11 years depending on climate conditions, predation and other factors.
Digital painting shows a male Slate-coloured, Dark-eyed Junco perched on a branch during a snowstorm.
How did Juncos get their name?
Their name is derived from the Latin word juncus which is Spanish for “rush.” The dark-eyed junco’s latin name (Junco hymelalis) actually means winter junco from the Latin work hyemalis which translates “of the winter.”
Juncos are ground feeders so leave your leaves
In the fall and especially the spring, you’ll most often see these ground-feeders rooting through the fallen leaves looking for insects to feed nestlings. Leaving your fallen leaves is critical for ground-feeding birds like Juncos. Here is an earlier article on why we should be leaving our leaves where they fall.
Actually these birds are quite widespread and are found throughout the north America from Alaska to Mexico, California to New York and from one end of Canada to the other. You can expect to find them in coniferous and mixed forests, but they are just as happy in scrub land along rural roadways and, of course, flitting about in the lower shrubbery of our woodland gardens.
They certainly are not flashy birds and often go unnoticed in the garden accept when they briefly flash their white outer tail feathers thought to confuse predators during an aerial attack.
How did Juncos earn the name: Snowbirds?
Juncos, are also lovingly known by many as snowbirds, since they seem to appear along with the first snowfall of the season. Apparently, even famed birder John James Audubon called them the snowbird.
I like to think that they earned their name before the term “snowbirds” was popularized by Canadian seniors heading south in winter. I think their colouring earned them the name “Snowbirds.” The Junco’s slate-coloured plummage on their backs (the males are darker than the females) and white undersides are often associated with the leaden stormy skies of winter above and fresh snow below. That’s a much nicer interpretation than a bunch of us old Canadians heading to Florida, considering few Juncos even make it that far during migration.
While these hardy little birds are more than willing to take on our frigid temperatures than most birds, not all dark-eyed Juncos arrive from the depths of the Canadian northern forests. In some areas they are year-round residents.
In fact, in our Southern Ontario woodland, Juncos are year-round visitors. Although some of them choose to stay year-round, there certainly is an influx in fall as winter approaches. They are also more noticeable as their activity picks up during or immediately after a snowstorm.
This little female Junco searches for seeds under native Northern Sea Oat grasses. These little birds will even spend the night tucked into the grasses to escape cold winds.
In the more northern areas of the U.S. in New England and Minnesota, for example, early migrants start arriving as early as August but the more northerly birds don’t start their overnight migrations until late October and November. By December the migration is completed but some birds who migrated into parts of Ontario and the northern states may move farther north in particularly bad winters.
At our hopper feeders and tray feeder, Juncos tend to go after the black-oil sunflower, that are easily cracked with their stout, light pink bills. If given the chance, though, they are not opposed to stealing suet from the larger woodpeckers and blue jays if the suet feeders are left unattended.
In our neck of the woods, the slate,dark-eyed Junco dominates, but you may not know that there are actually two species of Juncos in North America and seven sub-species. The two species are the Slate-coloured, dark-eyed that make up about 99 per cent of the birds in North America, with a small number of yellow-eyed Juncos taking up residence in South-East Arizona. the Oregon dark-eyed Junco is the other dominant sub-species found mostly in Western United States. It sports a dark hood, a brown back and rufous flanks. Others include the Pink-Sided Junco and the White-Winged dark eye junco.
Junco on a pine branch in mid summer. Although many migrate farther north for summer, a percentage of them stick around if they can find good habitat in our woodland gardens.
In our garden, the Juncos like to hang out in groups of anywhere from a few individuals to as many as 30. these groupings or small flocks feed over a territory of about 10 acres in the wild, a smaller area if food is abundant at backyard feeders.
This winter I have noticed that the Juncos are particularly attracted to our DIY heated bird bath. Without a doubt they are the most regular visitors to the bird bath – either coming down to get a drink of water or occasionally stopping by for a quick bath. My DIY heated bird bath was a simple and inexpensive project that has not only improved habitat for our local birds, but also helped to bring them in close to our home and provided me with opportunities to photograph the birds up close.
Every flock has a dominance hierachy with adult males at the top, followed by juvenile males, adult females followed by young females. Although this sounds potentially cruel, male juncos tend to stay in more northern areas to stay close to their traditional mating territories, while females migrate further south for better food sources. Females also don’t need to return to defend the breeding rounds until later in the spring so, can afford to migrate further south.
And, no need to feel sorry for the males having to tough out the colder temperatures. Juncos have their own way to deal with the cold by adding close to 30 per cent more feather weight to prepare for winter. These members of the sparrow family are between 5-6 inches and way in at about 1/2 an ounce to 1 ounce. They will also team up with flock mates in particularly harsh temperatures, seeking cover in thick evergreens, tucked into tall grasses or brush piles to get protection from the winds.
I often see them going into our cedar hedge throughout the day and into the evening. Lately, during a heavy cold spell and high snow cover, I’ve noticed them hanging out in our wood pile that has a nice layer of fall leaves providing a solid roof covering in some areas. During heavy snow, Juncos will often tuck into the small chambers formed inside tall ornamental grasses. Just another good reason to leave your ornamental grasses standing throughout the winter, waiting until later in the spring to cut them down.
Where do Juncos nest?
As spring rolls around, males begin attracting a mate with their calls – a musical trilling of between 7-23 notes that lasts a couple of seconds at a time and is repeated over and over for up to half an our, often from a high branch.
The pairs are monogomous for that breeding period, but females will pick a new mae each breeding season. The female chooses the nest site and constructs it over a period of three to seven days, before laying 3-6 eggs. In woodlands, nests are typically either on the ground or near the ground, on a rockface or possibly in cavities of an uprooted tree. In more urban areas, Juncos may choose to build their nest in hanging baskets, on light fixtures, in the eves of buildings or on window ledges.
Incubation takes about two weeks and both parents feed the babies for about 14 days in the nest and several weeks after they fledge. Male Juncos will aggressively defend the nest against marauding birds during this time. Their alarm call sounds more like a scene out of star wars, with a buzzy Que, que que que call. In flight, you might pick up a soft, buzzing trill.
Presently, it is believed that their are 200 million breeding birds with roughly 80 per cent breeding within the boreal forest. Although, like all songbirds, their numbers are in decline, they are not listed as a conservation concern.
Nevertheless, it is imperative that gardeners continue to restore the native habitat for Juncos and other native birds.
Although Juncos are primarily seed eaters, about 75 per cent of their diet consists of seed either wild or provided in our feeders, they will shift their diets primarily to insects (beetles, moths, caterpillars etc) during the breeding and nest-rearing periods.
If you are looking to plant native to provide them with a natural seed sources, consider Goldenrod, chickweed, sorrel and lambs quarter.
Looking to attract more backyard birds?
How to attract the Tufted Titmouse
How to attract Goldfinches and other cool facts