Tag Archives: native species

Gardening with a Purpose

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from Detroit Lakes-Online, July 8, 2009

Increasing urban sprawl is creating more homes for people by taking away habitats for wildlife, forcing nature’s creatures to become vagabonds on the move or leaving them homeless on the streets.

In fact, according to The Biodiversity Project, a leading environmental advocacy group dedicated to conservation initiatives, one million acres of open space, including parks, farms and natural areas are lost to sprawl each year.

However, others are fighting to reverse this damage from development by providing food, water and shelter for evicted animals, transforming their own backyards into wildlife sanctuaries.

Detroit Lakes resident, Liz Ballard, lives in town not far from Highway 10. Entering her yard from the paved sidewalk one stets through an arch of native vines into a haven of ferns and wildflowers with birds chirping, bees buzzing and chipmunks running across the visitors’ feet.

Though Ballard said that she started her gardens when she moved into town for her own benefit as well — to use as an escape from the city.

“I’ve always been a country girl,” Ballard said. “I missed seeing the animals.”

National Wildlife Federation Ambassador for the Wildlife Habitat Program and sustainable garden landscaper, Mat Paulson, said that the trend of natural gardening is increasing in northern Minnesota as homeowners learn more about the many benefits.

Sustainable gardening attracts wildlife and also helps the environment reducing dependency on pesticides, improving air and soil quality and cutting down energy use on regular garden maintenance. Con

Paulson also said that natural gardening is beneficial for your pocketbook. As native plants and shrubs are already tolerant of Minnesota weather conditions, less care and cash needs to be placed towards watering and expensive fertilizers.

According to the National Wildlife Federation, attracting wildlife is a simple accomplishment:

• Food — This may include providing bushes with berries, flowers with nectar and pollen or supplemental bird, squirrel, and butterfly feeders.

• Water — There needs to be presence of standing water that wildlife can access for drinking and bathing. This can include seasonal pools, birdbaths, rain gardens or ponds.

• Cover — Wildlife need shelter from bad weather conditions and predators such as wooded areas, bramble patches, rock piles and roosting boxes.

• Places to raise young — Wildlife also requires special areas to bear young. Some examples include mature trees, dead trees, dense shrubs and nesting boxes.

Providing these habitat conditions will make your home a portal to the great outdoors. To learn more about sustainable gardening to attract wildlife, obtaining your backyard wildlife habitat certification and listen to Mat Paulson speak, attend the “Creating a Wild Backyard” workshop at Tamarac National Wildlife Refuge at 2 p.m. on July 12 at the visitors center.

Creating a Rain Garden

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columbine

columbine


Last wednesday I took a class entitled Creating a Rain Garden at the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens. It was a free class through their community horticulture program called GreenBridge. I hesitate for purely selfish reasons to talk about them, because they offer the most amazing classes free of charge and they fill up very quickly. Okay, there, I did it. You should definitely check out their classes. They have composting workshops, container gardening workshops, seed starting, etc. I will be taking their Edible Landscape class in June. I think all of the classes for the spring are filled up at this point, but you can get on their mailing list for future classes.

At the start of the class, we took a walk through the gardens. We walked through the cherry esplanade, which was in full bloom. The garden was closed to the public, so we were alone there at dusk. We passed through the lilacs and their perfume lifted me off my feet. We then walked through the native plant section of the garden, which is a nice, private section of the garden. There were lots of bunnies out and Robin, our teacher, said that there are wild dogs in the garden that come out at night, but are very shy. The walk was magical and now I have to figure out how to get a job there!

So what is a rain garden? A rain garden is designed to soak up rain water, especially from roofs, driveways, patios, etc. They look like a regular garden, but help to prevent valuable water from running off to the sewer system. You chose a site that has a slight downhill grade, or you dig a small depression that encourages the collection of rainwater. Many communities plant rain gardens in the green space between the sidewalk and the street. They cut the curb in front of the garden, which allows the rain running towards the storm drains to water the garden. If that isn’t clear, here is an example, which gives instructions as well.

One important thing to note about rain gardens is that they aren’t ponds, and therefore won’t attract mosquitoes. Sometimes they are filled with water after a rain, but other times they are dry. This requires plants that can handle both wet and dry conditions. That brings me back to one of my favorite topics…native plants! Native plants thrive in your area, which means they are adapted to live with the weather you get. (ie. temperature and rainfall) Once they are established, you won’t have to pamper them as you do with exotic species. You also have the added benefit of attracting loads of wildlife to your garden in the form of butterflies, bees and birds. And probably my personal nemesis the squirrel.

Okay, back to the rain garden…Think of the garden as a bowl, or as my teacher said, a pie plate. In the center of the garden, which is the bottom of the depression, you will collect the most water. You will want plants that can handle wet conditions. On the edges of the garden, there will be a slight incline, so the conditions will be dryer. You pick different plants for the dry conditions. Here’s a list of native plants that thrive in the different conditions in NYC. Actually these plants would be appropriate for most of the Northeast.

solomons seal

solomons seal


By the end of the class, I realized that I wouldn’t be able to handle the quantity of water that runs off my roof when it rains, so I’m going to concentrate on planting more native plants that require less watering. I think I may also plant around the tiny tree in the pit outside my apartment. Right now there’s just dirt around it. Other people could think about green roofs as a way to absorb rainwater and prevent runoff.

Here are some factoids to encourage you to think about rain gardens:
* In the summertime 40% of our water use goes to watering lawns and gardens. Rain gardens rely soley on rain, so they don’t waste valuable resources.
* Rain gardens allow 30% more water to soak into the ground than a regular lawn.
* 300 million gallons of sewer overflow (rain runoff mixed with good old regular sewage) are diverted to the Gowanus canal each year. Other overflow goes to Orchard beach, Jones beach and others, causing them to close due to unsafe bacterial counts. Euw!

Foraging with Wildman Steve Brill

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On Saturday my friend Alison and I went on a wild edibles foraging tour of Prospect Park in Brooklyn. Wildman Steve Brill was our very funny and knowledgeable guide. We had a big group of about 25-30 people and we raised eyebrows as we all bend down, picked some weedy looking plant and then put it in our mouths. I highly recommend any of Steve’s tours. I learned a lot about plants I’d never really taken notice of before. He shared tips for what part of the plant is edible, how to cook them, what time of the year you are most likely to find them, and their medicinal properties.

Here’s a list of what we found on Saturday. Alison took the notes while I took the photos. There was so much information, it would have been hard to do both!

1. Hedge Mustard
2. Poor Man’s Pepper
     a. good in stews and salads. Prevents cancer cells from developing.
3. Garlic Mustard
     a. very invasive! Eat a lot of it.
     b. Use it in pesto
     c. Root is also edible and tastes like horseradish
     d. Is in season well into May
     e. Flower bud looks like broccoli and the best flavor is when the plant is blossoming.
4. Lesser Celandine
     a. in the buttercup family
     b. eat it before it flowers. It’s toxic after it flowers.
     c. Best cooked w/ rice
5. Gout Weed
     a. Parsley and celery flavor
     b. Use it like parsley.
6. Kentucky Coffee Tree Seeds
     a. Seeds and green pulp are poisonous raw. Roast them about 1.5 hours at 300º. Grind them to       make decaf coffee.
     b. Can be added to hot chocolate and chocolate cake.
7. Star of Bethlehem
     a. Poisonous to eat
     b. Can be confused with field garlic. It has a distinguishing white stripe that field garlic doesn’t.
8. Japanese Knot Weed
     a. Related to rhubarb
     b. Peel the stem and eat it. Don’t eat the leaves.
     c. Makes a nice fruit compote. 1 part knot weed to 10 parts fruit.
     d. Short fat stems are optimal
     e. Has pretty, lacy flowers in the fall
9. Hercules Club (aka Angelica Tree or Devil’s Walking Stick)
     a. Shave the thorns off with a knife and steam the developing shoots like asparagus.
10. Red Bud Blossoms
     a. put them in salad or toss in batter and make fritters
11. Chickweed
     a. Eat leaves, stems and flowers raw or cooked
     b. Tastes like corn
     c. Loads of vitamins
     d. To cook: wash and chop into bite-sized pieces. Cook (steam the wet leaves) in a pot on low          heat until wilted. In a separate pot cook garlic in oil and toss together.
12. Mugwort
     a. It’s in the wormwood family
     b. You can make a tea to help with PMS
13. Field Garlic
14. Daylily
     a. Has tubers that look like potatoes.
     b. The leaves taste like green beans.
     c. You can eat the leaves, stems, tubers or flowers
     d. 1 in 50 people have digestive problems w/ daylilies. Gradually build up to eating them.
15. Sassafras
     a. Branches grow out at 45º angles from trunk
     b. Smells like root beer
     c. Wash the root, simmer for 20 minutes and chill the tea
     d. Can also use the cambium of the root as cinnamon
16. May Apple
     a. Poisonous except for the ripe fruit
17. Violet
     a. Use the leaves in salad
18. Burdock
     a. Delicious root. Cut the root razor thin on the diagonal, simmer it and put it in rice or a stew.
     b. Leaf has silver, hairy underside.

Native Plant Species

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bristly sarsaparilla

bristly sarsaparilla


The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at the University of Texas has a really great website that helps you find recommended species of native plants for your area. You select your state and then you can narrow your search by adding your light requirements, soil moisture and the types of plants you want (shrubs, trees, annuals, etc.) You can even select bloom times and colors. They even have a suppliers directory so you can find plant nurseries in your area. The Gowanus Nursery is located near me in Brooklyn and also has a nice searchable database. You can even look up native edibles!!