New England Aster, Aster novae-angliae

Tall and majestic, New England Aster rules the prairie in autumn.The deep blue to purple and sometimes pink flowers are highlights of the late season wildflower garden. Blooms late into the fall,well after the first frosts.This is a critical late season nectar source for butterflies, especially for Monarchs, as they stock up for their long migration to Mexico.

Ever dream of building a rustic cabin in an old forest surrounded by nature?  If so, then this is your dream project.  EnergyScapes was invited to join the design process before ground was broken last winter.  Before trees were cut and foundation dug, we salvaged blocks of frozen forest soil.  They are protected from construction damage and will go back in place once the structure is finished.  This was an undisturbed, diverse community of native plants called an oak opening.  More recently, as we began our work building paths, stairs, fire ring, and patio, we set aside more pieces of this matrix of roots.  Many of these are plants currently not available in the nursery trade.  As soon as we finish an area the transplants go back into the ground.

One of our challenges is to educate the other construction workers about the value of this diversity.  We must be vigilant about ensuring that silt fencing is repaired and that silt is removed that was covering the old forest duff layer.  We daily remove construction debris that finds its way out beyond the silt fence barrier.  We encourage drivers to unload their trucks at the front door and then move on down the entry drive to a gravel surface to park for the day.  There is a tremendous amount of congestion as we try to minimize the area of disturbance.

Another interesting part of the cabin is that its framing comes from a 19^th century factory.  Large, old growth white pine timbers hold the deck of planks used in the former factory floor.  It is an amazing process to watch modern carpenters working wood that was cut out of this forest at least one hundred years ago.  The stone we are using for the main patio is Chilton, which is quarried near Lake Winnebago on the east side of central Wisconsin.  This same formation, a 440 million year old dolomite, is what allowed the Door County peninsula to stand up to several glacial advances, and is the rock holding up Niagara Falls.

Return to our website in the future for updated photos of this project.  It is about three hours from our metro area, just an hour north of Eau Claire.  The cabin is at the end of a new road serving just a dozen families fortunate enough to be able to purchase a lot from what had been a Girl Scout camp until just five years ago.  They were based in the Chicago area and decided to shift their programming to more time interacting and less time driving.

Prairie Blazingstar, Liatris pycnostachya

This truly majestic plant sends up a spectacular spike of tightly bunched purple/pink flowers that never fail to elicit comment. Makes an excellent cut flower and holds its color well when dried.

You may have heard about a shrub or small tree called buckthorn.  This is a plant people love to hate.  Buckthorn was brought here from Europe by early settlers who thought it would make a great hedge plant.  In many ways, they were right.  It responds well to all pruning.  In fact, if you cut it to the ground, a single stem sprouts into dozens of new shoots.  Some older homes have nicely manicured hedges of this European invader.  Other estates may have former hedges that have missed pruning and now reach 30 feet or more.  A hearty shrub, the trunk of a buckthorn can grow up to 6 inches in diameter.

            Why is this shrub a problem? 

Buckthorn produces fruit that birds carry away.  As they pass it through their digestive system, the seed is stripped of inhibiting hormones and is ready to germinate as soon as it hits bare soil.  Thus, a single shrub can yield many thousands of new plants in just one growing season.

            Can buckthorn out-compete local native plants?

Yes, indeed it can. The reason buckthorn is so effective competing with native plants is that it secretes either a hormone or herbicide from its roots, like walnut, that keeps other plants from growing.  This leaves bare soil and a great opportunity for more buckthorn to continue expanding into a forest.  Cutting out buckthorn can release native plants that are alive underground, but with no visible foliage.  This is why it is important to not clear any woodland with machinery that tears out the roots of this bad invasive plant.  This uprooting process could destroy viable, old native plants that are not obvious.

            If I can’t grub it out, how do I control this vicious invader? 

There are a variety of control techniques:

1.      Girdling: use an axe to chop through the bark into wood all the way around each stem from ground up 3 inches. Leave stem standing to die over the next year.  This technique also leaves good perches, the dead branches, for song birds.

2.     Cut and Treat: cut the stems to ground and immediately paint on an herbicide- 15% solution of Glyphosate (the active ingredient in Round Up) will stop the sprouting of new shoots.  This technique is ineffective in spring, after the ground thaws and before leaves are full (March through June).

The good news is that both of these first two techniques can be done in winter months, though you must switch to a different herbicide that is oil based rather than water soluble Glyphosate.  There are many shrub killing herbicides on the market, but be aware that most are far more persistent and potentially damaging to the applicator’s (your) health than Glyphosate.

Next step after tackling the larger stems is to control any new seedlings.  This can be done by hand pulling seedlings 1 to 2 years-old with minimal disturbance to the forest soil.

After removing buckthorn, what can I do to replace its privacy screen?

There are many wonderful native shrubs that thrive in the same habitat as this invader.  The list includes all serviceberry (Amelanchier, spp.), nannyberry (Viburnum lentago), gray dogwood (Cornus racemosa), fragrant sumac (Rhus aromatica), black chokeberry (Aronia melanocarpa), bladdernut (Staphlea trifoliata), elderberry (Sambucus pubens), ironwood (Ostrya virginana), blue beech (Carpinus caroliniana), and the evergreen hemlock (Tsuga Canadensis) or balsam fir (Abies balsamea).  It is always best to start with smaller transplants for ease of getting the new plants established, especially after buckthorn removal.  Please contact EnergyScapes, INC. if you are considering a buckthorn clearing operation.  We have experience with phasing in the clearing and planting of replacement shrubs to retain privacy.

            If you put the effort into removing buckthorn from your property, you will be making an important step toward helping preserve our native woodland diversity.

Sisyrinchium montanum, Blue-eyed Grass

Blue-Eyed Grass is not actually a grass, but rather a member of the Iris family, closely related to Blue Flag or Wild Iris. They start opening their blossoms in early June and continue to show through June. Since we experienced a cold spring, we got to see the beautiful blossoms into July this year. Blue-eyed grass is not only a popular easy-to-grow wildflower for the garden, but the birds like to eat the seeds too. It adds a touch of whimsy to the garden!

What have you been doing with your time this spring?

Staying indoors, with a warm blanket in front of a cozy fire?

Yes, it has been cool.  March was ten degrees colder this year than last. 

Today, I toured nearly a dozen of our past projects looking at what would be our next steps to maintain them.  Several things struck me.  Most obvious is how delayed our flowering is, because the soil is still cool.  Another is how pervasive garlic mustard has become, and once it finds your yard, how hard it is to eliminate.

Learn more about Garlic Mustard

If you are not already aware of this pest, just remember that biennials die after flowering in their second year of growth.  This means they produce copious quantities of seed to replace the dying parent.  Burdock is another introduced pest plant that is also a biennial.  If you are able to interrupt the flowering before seeds mature, you can eventually eliminate the pest.  Right now is a great time to survey your land looking for its distinctive white blossoms.  It can be anywhere from 6-30″ tall when flowering.  Pull them up, shake soil off the roots and you can let them just decompose or puree them into a salsa.  If you leave soil on the roots and rains keep them moist the flowers will continue to mature seed, even though it was uprooted.  Another bad side effect of this noxious plant is that it releases a fungicide from its root system that prevents important soil plant collaboration via mychorrizae.  Many evergreens rely on this extension of their root system using this fungus.  The garlic mustard destroys this, causing even mature trees to begin declining.

On our tour, we also saw many delightful native plants that are still thriving despite this onslaught of wierd weather and the pressure of invasive exotic plants.  One that is just past its prime is hepatic.  There are two common species here, either round or sharp lobed (referring to the tips of the foliage).  At this point, most flowers have faded and you will only see large clumps, 6-12″ across, of the foliage.  Here are some images taken a couple of weeks earlier this spring.

We are enjoying how busy this spring has been.  As the weather warms up, requests for EnergyScapes services have increased dramatically.  Remember, one of the best times for planning revisons to your garden is the fall and early winter.  Then, we can take time and give your design more focused attention.

Douglas Owens-Pike

EnergyScapes, INC.

Hepatica americana 

Found in EnergyScapes demo garden, this native has blue, pink or white flowers that bloom briefly in early May. The distinctive leaves with their 3 round lobes persist all summer. Hepatica refers to the liver-like shape of the leaves. Ancient herbalists believed that the shape of a plant determined its usefulness, as this one for treatment of liver disease.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of wandering my yard looking for new shoots emerging. The prairie smoke and pussytoes are greening up.

Praire Smoke in full bloom April - June, beautiful purple/pink color is on the way!

Pussytoes will fully bloom in April - June. This charming garden bloom is right around the corner!

Many shrubs and trees have swollen buds and the aspen trees are just beginning to open their catkins. That tree should be in full bloom later this week. This photo shows the flowering catkins, but we won’t see them for another few weeks. It’s something to look forward too! The temperature was in the fifties. Far cry from the snow falling today, but we have to try to see the beauty in all these miracles of nature, even when it seems to be going against our idea of how spring should appear as April arrives tomorrow.

This photo shows the flowering catkins, but we won’t see them for another few weeks. It’s something to look forward to!

I also noticed a problem in my front lawn, the spidery web of snow mold. There are two species found in our lawns in the far north. They are gray and pink, easily distinguished by their color tone. They appear in early spring as the snow is melting, but develop in the fall, especially when snow covers turf grass before the ground has frozen.

Gray snow mold (also called Typhula blight) is caused by Typhula spp., while pink snow mold (also called Fusarium patch) is caused by Microdochium nivalis. One way to minimize this problem is to mow your lawn very short, before the first snows fall in October. If you discover this growth on your lawn this spring, just gently rake through the old grass blades to allow the wind and sun to dry out that soil. You should not need to apply any fungicide.

For more information go to:

http://www.extension.umn.edu/yardandgarden/ygbriefs/p320snowmolds.html

This is another reason for us to be reducing the amount of turf grass in our yards. By establishing a diverse community of native plants we can avoid these problems with maintaining turf. I will be reviewing Douglas Tallamy’s Bringing Nature Home in a future blog entry. His book details the benefits of supporting a diverse array of plants, that support insects that either become beautiful butterflies or provide food for the song birds we love to attract to our yards. His research documents how little value introduced plants, commonly used in our landscapes, provide to preserve this link of the food chain.

Get out there and enjoy spring, even if it means building a snow friend today.

“Behind all this, some great happiness is hiding.” Yehuda Amichai

People keep talking about spring arriving and I believe it to be true today. Now, I am able to see the majority of the ground in my back yard, instead of the layer of white that has been there since early December. Yesterday it was still all snow.

Another sure sign is the robin bathing in our backyard pool. I have an old branch arching over from the ground into the water, so the birds can move up or down that branch to get the water depth they prefer for bathing. Providing water is one of the best ways to attract birds. It doesn’t require an elaborate recirculating stream to be effective. Just a simple basin that you can rinse and refill daily is all that is needed for hours of fun watching which species come and how they interact at the pool. It is important to keep plenty of open space around water so that birds are less vulnerable to preying domestic cats.

EnergyScapes designs every site with surface water flow in mind. We harvest runoff from building roofs and paved surfaces, guiding it toward temporary pools. These simple basins fill with the runoff and have no standing water two days after a rainfall event. While they are commonly referred to as raingardens, in this season they are both collecting snowmelt and allowing it to slowly percolate into the ground. This is a big difference from all that runoff immediately ending up in storm pipes that ultimately erode streams and cause flooding in this season when most ground is frozen.

Here you see a few views of how the raingarden is working in this season. It is next to our office building in SW Minneapolis. The snow is slowly melting off the roof, running across paved surfaces and then enters the depression we dug. Prior to removing this soil, the water would have been standing on top of the cement walks. So, people would walk on the soil to stay out of the water and their shoes would get muddy. Now, you can see the walks are clean and dry. Water is running into the depression and soaking in, not overflowing onto the pavement.

We look forward to showing you the progression of blooms in this rain garden as the growing season progresses. Note that while this is a large office building, the rain garden scale fits the space available. It was only dug about six inches below the existing sidewalks surrounding the raingarden. We would love to work with you designing and installing your very own. It will benefit our environment while you enjoy the beautiful blooms and the birds and butterflies attracted to those blossoms and seed.

This morning I awoke to clear skies, an orange sun peaking over the horizon, frozen slushy snow, lots of icy puddles, and dreaming about a design Heather and I are working on. It is a tough site. We need to accomplish quite a few goals in a small space. In my dream it was simplified to a path crossing the garden from public walk to front door. Decided to write some broader goals for paths and thought it might interest folks reading this blog.

Garden paths carry us through lush meadow, dark forest, over dangers to an ideal destination where we have time to relax, settle-in, enjoy the view, meditate, release our cares, appreciate the beauty of all the diversity of life surrounding us, leaving with the knowledge that we may return to this sacred spot again any time.

May you find just such a path in your travels today or sometime soon. If you can’t find it, call us and perhaps we can work together to help you create one.