Category Archives: Flowering Plants

A Short Excursion into the Rich Diversity of Blue Heron Environmental Area

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Blue Heron Environmental Area on Rochester Road is a place I’ve rarely visited. This special natural area was  purchased years ago by our Parks and Recreation Commission to protect a Great Blue Heron rookery that has since moved on.  The township has begun planning for the area’s future use, but for now it’s preserved as a beautiful green space with a large arc of wetland curving through a high-quality lowland forest. The fields outside the forest are planted by a local farmer which helps prevent the spread of invasive shrubs until future plans come to fruition.

Photos and text
by Cam Mannino

Until recently, I had only been in this forest to pull garlic mustard during spring volunteer workdays. But in early June, I was able to join our township Stewardship Manager Dr. Ben VanderWeide and his stewardship specialist, Grant VanderLaan, for a short exploration while they there were clearing invasive plants. What a great opportunity to share some of the special flowers, vivid dragonflies, and elder trees that inhabit this moist, shady world!

Escorted Along the Fields by a Fleet of Dragonflies!

While skirting the farm field near Rochester Road, I noticed a sunlit meadow to my right that was splashed with blossoms of native Daisy Fleabane (Erigeron annuus).

The sturdy, daisy-like faces of native Daisy Fleabane dotted a restored field at Blue Heron.

All along the field edges, dragonflies were patrolling, and occasionally dueling over, their territories. Blue Heron Environmental Area is ideal for these aerial wizards. In the open areas, they can scoop up mosquitoes, flies, midges or even moths and damselflies out of the air, while attracting a mate with their speed and skill. And once they do mate, the forest wetlands provide an ideal spot for depositing their eggs. Since walking humans stir up a lot of insects, they were also happy to accompany me along the field edge to harvest whatever I stirred out of the grass.

The Widow Skimmer female below (Libellula luctuosa) looks very like the male, except that her abdomen is black and gold while his is gray-blue. The male also has white patches beyond the dark brown ones on each wing. Widow Skimmers find shelter at night by hanging underneath overhanging leaves.

Widow skimmer female or juvenile 2 BHEA
The offspring of this  female Widow Skimmer (Libellula luctuosa) will resemble her closely, but with male juveniles,  the gold stripe on its abdomen will gradually fade to gray-blue.

Eastern Pondhawks (Erythemis simplicicollis) are fierce predators. They have long spines on their legs for grasping prey, which includes any insect their size or smaller – occasionally even other Eastern Pondhawks! These dragonflies are more likely than others to follow along as you walk in order to feast on swarms of insects. Eastern Pondhawks are “dimorphic,” meaning the male and female look very different as you can see below.

During maturation, this male Eastern Pondhawk’s abdomen slowly turned to blue-gray starting at the tip of his abdomen and ending at his thorax. This guy looks ready to take me on!

According to Dragonflies of the North Woods by Kurt Mead, female Eastern Pondhawks can mate multiple times in a day. Perhaps the female’s bright green color and striped abdomen, so different from the male’s, makes her more visible to possible suitors.

A female Eastern Pondhawk can lay up 2100 eggs per day. She releases them into the water by dipping her abdomen into the water in short intervals.

The Twelve-spotted Skimmer (Libellula pulchella) is a favorite of mine not only because of the alternating stripes on its wings, but because of the way it hunts. It sallies forth from a perch to snag its prey, and then frequently returns to the same perch repeatedly – giving amateurs like me multiple chances for a decent photo! All dragonflies are a challenge to photograph in flight, but particularly Twelve-spotteds since they fly in bursts of speed and can reverse direction in a flash.

The male Twelve-spotted Skimmer sometimes hovers over the female during egg-laying to prevent other males from harassing or mating with her.

The Common Whitetail (Plathemis lydia) below could be a female, but is more likely a juvenile, since they’re the ones that tend to head for fields and open areas, leaving the water behind once they emerge from their larval stage. Their appearance is not only identical to the adult female; it also closely resembles the female Twelve-spotted Skimmer. The only difference is that the yellowish-white stripes of the female/juvenile Whitetail form a jagged line down the sides of the abdomen (see below), while the side stripes of the female Twelve-spotted form a neat straight line. So needless to say, I always need a photo to decide which one I saw when a female of either species appears.

A juvenile Common Whitetail is more likely to be found at a field edge than the adult female, though both look exactly alike during early maturation.

I came across two other interesting insects at the edge of the fields. Noticing delicate movement at my feet, I finally spotted a strange creature that is completely harmless to us humans, but quite a predator! A Hangingfly (genus Bittacus) does just as its name implies; it dangles beneath leaves by its looong front legs which have claspers to grasp leaves or stems for support. It uses its other four legs to snag any unwary insect passersby. It looks a bit like a Crane Fly but isn’t related.

A Hangingfly hopes to snag unsuspecting insects as it dangles from under a leaf.

And a Six-spotted Tiger Beetle (Cicindela sexguttata) showed up right where they always are – in a bright spot at the edge of a field or forest, its stiff, iridescent green wings shining in the sunlight.

A Six-spotted Tiger Beetle paused in a sunlit spot on an old log at the edge of a field.

Something New:  Restoring a Forest

A field now cleared of invasive shrubs that will eventually be restored to the forest it once was.

Have a look at the photo of the cleared, green field above.  Until two years ago, it was choked with Autumn Olive and Glossy Buckthorn, invasive non-native shrubs that quickly take over abandoned farm fields. A forestry mower took them down in the winter and the area was soon sown with native grasses and wildflowers. The stewardship summer crew treated the invasive shrub regrowth the following summer.

Often stewardship work in our township begins with this clearing process as the first step in turning a field back into a native prairie or savanna- but not so at Blue Heron.  When I visited, Ben showed me that the cleared field in the photo had originally been part of an earlier forest.

As you enter the woods, you can see a demarcation where younger, smaller trees give way to taller, thicker, older ones.  It’s likely that decades ago, the older trees,  many of which lean eastward,  had been reaching for sun at the edge of a farmed field . The bigger trees to the right in the photo probably grew back after the forest was originally cleared for farming in the 19th century. The smaller trees to the left probably sprouted after part of the field was no longer farmed in the second half of the twentieth century.

Older, larger trees on. the right were once leaning into the sun at the edge of the field when it was farmed years ago. Smaller trees beyond started growing when part of the farm field was abandoned many years later.

Stewardship plans include eventually planting native oaks in the open, cleared meadow  in order to restore more of the native trees that thrived here before farming began. I’d love to be around to see the restoration of a forest!

The Rich Diversity of a Lowland Forest

Blue Heron Environmental Area is a high-quality lowland forest with a curving arc of wetlands.

I’ve only explored a small section of the current woods at Blue Heron Environmental Area, but I’m already wowed. In the sources I used to research the plants I saw here, I  came across phrases like, “found only in high-quality wetlands,” or “found in high quality woodlands.” Because much of the forest has been undisturbed for a long time, Blue Heron provides high-quality examples of both.

Moist Forest Flora – and Some Rare Beauties!

As I stepped with Ben into the older forest, the shade deepened. Ben kindly took me to see a unique orchid. It seems that at one time, this natural area hosted two kinds of Ladyslippers. The more common, and still lovely Small-flowered Yellow Ladyslipper (Cypripedium parviflorum var. makasin) peeks out of the greenery beneath the tall trees. I love how the dark sepals form the purplish ribbons of the lady’s slipper.

The sepals of the Small-flowered Yellow Ladyslipper that once enclosed its bud look like the ribbons that wound around a lady’s leg to secure her shoe in ages past.

But there was once another orchid here which Ben and Grant haven’t yet spotted, the  rarer White Ladyslipper (Cypripedium candidum). Here’s a photo of one from iNaturalist.org taken by photographer Erin Faulkner. Note that the sepal “ribbons” are green with faint flecks of purple rather than the dark purple and bright yellow sepals of the Yellow Ladyslipper above.

Ben thinks the rare White Ladyslipper must have cross-pollinated with the Yellow Ladyslipper to create a hybrid at Blue Heron. Photo by Erin Faulkner (CC BY-NC)

Ben presumes that White Ladyslippers once grew in this natural area because here and there today grows a hybrid between these two native orchids. The hybrid wildflower at Blue Heron has the white “slipper” of the White Ladyslipper but the purple, sepal “ribbons” of the Yellow Ladyslipper. The two native Ladyslippers must have cross-pollinated and produced this special hybrid that Grant found. I’m so glad that I got to see several of them and am able to share one with you!

The hybrid Ladyslipper at Blue Heron has the white “slipper” of the White Ladyslipper and purple sepal “ribbons” of the Yellow Ladyslipper.

Also enjoying the beautiful forest floor, I noticed little yellow pom-poms on a stem growing in the mottled shade of a long, arcing marsh. Ben identified it as Tufted Loosestrife (Lysimachia thrysiflora), a species of Loosestrife I’d never seen before. Its clusters of tiny blossoms, called “racemes,” emerge from the middle axils of the long, graceful leaves like tiny fireworks. It’s described by a useful wildflower website, Illinois Wildflowers, as “found in higher quality wetlands.”

The yellow racemes (clusters of separate flowers) of Tufted Loosestrife catch the light and shine in the shade at the marsh’s edge.

Large areas near the marsh were carpeted with a calf-high plant I’d never before noticed on my hikes –  Richweed (Collinsonia canadensis). This member of the mint family produces a plume or spike of tiny yellow flowers in mid-summer, adding a spark of color to the dense shade when little else is in flower. Since I saw only its leaves, here’s a photo of the plant blooming by inaturalist photographer Sirruba.

Richweed, a native wildflower that creates colonies through its underground stems, called rhizomes. Photo by Sirruba (CC BY-NC)

Ferns Waving from the Forest Floor

The feathery fronds of a glorious variety of ferns sway above the ground near the marsh at Blue Heron Environmental Area. Ben  identified two for me and I spotted an old favorite as well. The Maidenhair Fern (Adiantum pedatum) is described by Illinois Wildflowers as “found in higher quality woodlands where the original ground flora is largely intact.” I saw its fan-shaped fronds spiraling out of the ground quite near the center of the marsh’s arc. It carries its spores in narrow bands on the underside of the leaflets near the tip. Each leaflet on the frond folds down slightly to partially cover the sporangia, the structures that carry the spores. They will eventually break open and release the spores to the wind.

Maidenhair Fern enjoys the humid shade of Blue Heron.

The Royal Fern (Osmunda regalis) produces a glorious, rising plume of infertile fronds that catch the sunlight and feed the plant through photosynthesis. The shorter, straight fertile fronds are thinner and produce yellow bead-like spores. The draining of wetlands around the world has had a big impact on Royal Ferns, so I’m happy to have seen so many here!

A Royal Fern near the marsh rises like a large, green bouquet rising from the moist forest floor.

All over the woodland grows an old friend, the Sensitive Fern, reportedly so-named because its fertile fronds wither at the first frost and arrive after the last frost. Its green, infertile fronds with their jagged edges feed the roots while the smaller fertile fronds eventually produce shiny, brown, bead-like sporangia that last through the winter before breaking open to release the spores. Sensitive ferns also reproduce by underground stems called rhizomes.

A Sensitive Fern unfurling its infertile, photosynthesizing fronds at Blue Heron. The infertile fronds produce brown beads  that carry the spores through the winter to be released the following spring.

Wet Woods Extras

A  High Bush Blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum), an unusual native plant that I’ve only seen before at Cranberry Lake Park, huddled under the shade of a willow on a hummock in  the marsh. When I got closer with my camera, I could see fruit just beginning to form. Native mining bees and bumblebees or non-native honeybees must have found the little white nodding blossoms and pollinated them as they foraged. Some lucky bird or mammal has a treat coming!

The petals of Highbush Blueberry blossoms have dropped and the fruit is forming.

Near the Blueberry bush, in a wet crevice of a moss-covered hummock, I spotted a tiny Wood Frog (Lithobates sylvaticus).  It must have hatched this spring from eggs quickly laid in a vernal pool back in March. Less than 2 inches long, it floated in the shallow water or rested on the moist mud as it explored its shady grotto.

A tiny Wood Frog in the moist mud within a hummock near the marsh
Healthy Little Saplings, a Majestic Beech and Some Colorful “Hangers On”

Among the mixture of maples and oaks, some trees that I see less often have also found a suitable habitat in the forest at Blue Heron. Ben told me of a large Tulip Tree (Liriodendron tulipifera) farther back in the woods that I’d missed. But I did see this little sapling of one springing up from the moist earth. I love how tiny saplings create such large leaves to capture as much sunlight as possible. Let’s hope it escapes the attention of foraging deer!

A tiny Tulip Tree will have to survive foraging deer to reach its adult size.

I did find an impressive American Beech (Fagus grandifolia) reaching up to the sunlight with its smooth, gray bark. Wildlife love the plentiful beechnuts that this tree will send rattling to the earth. And according to the Trees of Michigan Field Guide by Stan Tekiela, the seedlings and saplings that manage to take root can survive in the shade for years waiting for other trees to fall, giving them the sunlight and space they need. I’m hoping for a grove of Beeches – a new favorite of mine.

A huge American Beech made its way up into the sunlight in the forest at Blue Heron.

A tiny Swamp Oak (Quercus bicolor) must have begun its upward journey from the forest floor when the acorns dropped last fall. Swamp Oak acorns usually come in pairs and sprout shortly after falling, according to Stan Tekiela. If one survives hungry birds and animals, it grows more quickly than most oaks. And it could live for up to 300 years,  according to Wikipedia. Good luck, little oak!

Leaves of Swamp Oaks are dark green above and lighter below – hence its species name, “bicolor.”

What first appeared to be some sort of fungus had sprung up around a large fallen oak in the woods.  But it wasn’t a fungus; it was a parasitic plant commonly called Cancer Root or Bear Corn (Conopholis americana). It’s an underground plant that consequently can’t photosynthesize sunlight. Instead it feeds off the roots of woody plants, especially oaks and beeches. This interesting pinecone shape is the flowering stem of the underground plant which grows on the roots about four years before producing these flowers that can grow as high as 8 inches. I’m continually amazed by the variety of ways that nature has found to sustain life.

Cancer root or Bear corn draws its sustenance from the roots of trees since the plant is underground and can’t photosynthesize. These are its flowers.

Imagining Blue Heron’s Past, Protecting It Today and Restoring It For the Future

A section of the long crescent of marsh at Blue Heron Environmental Area.

The distant past of this striking lowland forest can only be imagined. Before farming began here in the 1800’s, an old growth forest probably stretched out from its present site across where Rochester Road is now and beyond. Gray wolves probably roamed the area, keeping a healthy deer population in check. Those White Ladyslippers may have bloomed in profusion in an open wet meadow pocket, since non-native plants had not yet been introduced to the ecosystem.

Today Blue Heron is a special natural area preserved by the Parks and Recreation Commission and the residents who support our parks. The old growth forest is gone, but large trees from the 19th century still stand tall among the wetlands shading a forest floor full of native plants. Thanks to our stewardship program, garlic mustard and other invasive trees, flowers and shrubs – some brought early on by European settlers, others unwittingly planted in our gardens or along our streets – are being removed from our parks and controlled in a variety of ways,  including prescribed burns. As a result, our heritage of native plants can begin to reassert itself, providing a healthier, more productive habitat for native wildlife.

And for those of us who want to pass that heritage on to future generations, we can dream of young children wandering among tall oaks and waving native grasses that were restored to Blue Heron Environmental Area by people in our time who valued the gifts of the natural world. What a legacy, eh?

Cranberry Lake Park: Spring Music in the Wetlands

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In spring, nature generously replenishes the multitude of Cranberry Lake Park’s wetlands. Besides the lake itself, shady woodland ponds and pools glitter through the trees along nearly every trail at Cranberry. All of which makes me happy, because being near water is the surest way to find wildlife and interesting plants.

Photos and text
by Cam Mannino

I seek out wet places whenever I go visit our parks since so much goes on around wetlands. Right now, ferns unfurl and spring wildflowers emerge on the sunny or shady edges of trails. Birds sing and chatter from within or just outside of the wetlands, as they forage, perform for mates, challenge others for territory or simply celebrate the sun after a cold rainy night. Throughout the park on three spring mornings, glorious music kept me company as nature’s virtuosos joined in a  spring chorus.

An Eastern Bluebird (Sialia sialis) found this insect larva where a wetland meets the eastern meadow at Cranberry Lake Park

After serious downpours, though,  it helps to know the trails well enough to avoid being confronted by a calf-deep small pond! Dr. Ben VanderWeide, our township Stewardship Manager, has kindly created a map of my meanderings at Cranberry Lake Park. This route generally can be done with dry or at least only moderately damp feet. So daub on a bit of bug repellent and don some waterproof footwear as we head out to the sights and the special spring sounds of rain-soaked Cranberry Lake Park.

CLP_Update2017_BlogHike
Spring 2020 hike at Cranberry Lake Park. You can also explore this park on our interactive park map at https://bit.ly/3g0GaRs.

Heading North Accompanied by Bird Song

The north trail from the farm site strewn with apple blossom petals

Seeing that the water on the short trail out of the parking lot was ankle-deep and impassible, I headed across the cut grass toward the red-and-white chicken coop that is part of historic Cranberry Lake Farm. I turned onto the trail that looked as if a wedding had just ended, as it was strewn with fallen apple petals. High overhead, the sweet, whistling song of a male Baltimore Oriole (Icterus galbula) celebrated the blue sky morning with a joyful noise!

A male Baltimore Oriole greeting the morning with his high, flute-like song.

Across the way, a bit further on, I paused to listen to a male Yellow Warbler (Setophaga petechia) repeating his quick “sweet, sweet, I’m a little sweet” song. He was deep in the greenery so I waited and watched. Finally I resorted to playing the warbler’s song on Merlin, Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s very useful bird ID app. I don’t use it often to flush out birds because it can stress them. So I played it only once. And out popped the Yellow Warbler to check out the competition.

A Yellow Warbler male pops out of the greenery.

He hopped about a bit for a minute or two and then went back into the greenery and continued to sing. I was relieved that he seemed to have decided that the bird on the app was no match for him!

Tracking West Across a Meadow

I turned left at the round turkey brooder building and headed back west toward the Shagbark Hickory Lane.  Oops – the trail was flooded here too, but luckily, the maintenance crew had set up a boardwalk along the edge which, though a bit askew, provided relatively dry footing.

Along the east-west trail nearest to the farm, a wooden platform provides dry footing after a night of rain.

As I walked into the meadow, I noticed a large insect bumbling about among the dandelions on the trail. I’m so glad I stopped for a closer look! A Snowberry Clearwing Moth (Hemaris diffinis) trundled its hefty body from one dandelion to the next. The non-native dandelions provided the nectar that morning, though I’ve seen Clearwings (there are two kinds around here) most often on native Bee Balm (Monarda fistulosa) when it blooms later in the summer. These moths, which look so much like bumblebees, fly during the day, but if they find a good nectar source, they can forage in the evening as well. So check out bumblebees on your flowers and see if you can spot one of these moths!

A Snowberry Clearwing Moth can easily be mistaken for an oversized bumblebee! 
The Snowberry Clearwing Moth sipping nectar from a dandelion.

Dandelions were also being visited by a green florescent native bee. I’ve learned not to attempt identification of native bees. According to Doug Parsons, director of the MSU Bug House, you really have to be an expert who has both the insect and a magnifying glass in hand to positively identify them.But I do love to look for these small, solitary, native bees!

A native bee making the most of early season dandelions.

Wild bees hadn’t yet discovered the modest wildflowers of Wild Strawberry (Fragaria virginiana) when I saw these tiny blossoms down among the tall grasses of the meadow.  I imagine hover flies and bees will show up once a few more flowers emerge. If the plant is fertilized, it will set a tiny fruit which no doubt some bird or animal will get to before I do!

Wild Strawberries in the south meadow at Cranberry Lake Park

A Gray Catbird (Dumetella carolinensis) chatted its conversational song in the bushes at the back of the meadow. Catbirds held their loud “conversations” all over the park one morning, combining whistles, squeaks and bits of other birds’ songs. Finally this one emerged into a Wild Cherry tree (Prunus serotina) where I took a quick shot before he sailed back into the shrubbery to sing some more.

A Gray Catbird sang its long song full of trills, chirps, whistles and such from among the blossoms of a Wild Cherry tree in the meadow.

The vigorous breezes of a beautiful spring morning drowned out my recording of this male. But a Catbird I heard last year at Bear Creek Nature Park’s Center Pond will give you a feel for the long, complicated phrasing of its song. On this recording, Green Frogs (Rana clamitans) provide backup percussion from the water below!

By now regular readers know that I’m quite fond of the Eastern Towhee (Dumetella carolinensis) –  probably because its song was one of the first ones I learned to recognize.   A male perched in a small tree invited a nearby female to appreciate his rendition of  “Drink your teaaaaa.” She listened politely nearby. I was surprised to learn from Donald W. Stokes’ A Guide to Bird Behavior, Vol.2 that Towhees make their nests on the ground like many sparrows. Once the nest is built, both adults become more secretive. The male stays away until the eggs hatch. At that point, he returns to feed both his mate and the young and continues helping the female with caring for the young from then on. So look for them in spring before they start nesting! [Click on photos to enlarge; hover cursor for captions.]

A Trip Down Hickory Lane

An old farm lane lined with Shagbark Hickories runs near the western boundary of the park.

A wonderful row of Shagbark Hickories (Carya ovata) line the western edge of the park. I love strolling along this dappled lane. The ground is  mostly firm underfoot and birds dart back and forth across the trail, forage along its edges and sing from the wetlands and fields off either side. Each spring I try to resist taking another photo of the large, almost rococo design of the Shagbark’s leaf buds. I failed to resist again this year.

The elegant design of an opening Shagbark Hickory leaf bud.

Ahead of me, I saw a Gray Catbird shoot across the trail and disappear. But as I got closer, I had the chance to watch it balancing on a twig over a large puddle to forage repeatedly for some kind of insects or larvae in the water. Once it had gathered a number of whatever it was, it jumped in for quick dip, ruffled its feathers and took off again.

A Gray Catbird foraging for insects or insect larvae in a large puddle next to the Hickory Lane.

Wild Geranium blossoms (Geranium maculatum) added dashes of lavender along the shady lane – some still in perfect form, others having served as a meal for the larvae of some hungry insect. A little damage to a blossom or leaf can mean a well-fed caterpillar to nourish a hungry baby bird. So holes here and there on plants are fine with me!

Two other native wildflowers graced the shade of the Hickory Lane. A cold snap had just ended, so the Trillium (Trillium grandiflorum) looked a bit beyond its peak bloomBut the buds of Solomon Seal (Polygonatum biflorum) had just formed beneath its leaves when I lifted its stem for a peek.

An adult Eastern Chipmunk (Tamias striatus) zipped across the path and froze when it saw me. I snapped my photo of the crouching little critter and waited. It dashed off and disappeared down a hole.

An adult chipmunk who’d taken its  young out on a foraging expedition.

Just as I lowered my camera, three baby chipmunks came tumbling onto the path, jostling each other as they raced after their parent and dove down the same hole. I wish I’d been fast enough to get you a photo of the babies, but alas, no. But I’ll include below one of my favorite baby chipmunk photos taken at home a few years ago.

A baby chipmunk about the size of the three I saw dash into a hole on the Hickory Lane at Cranberry Lake Park

Several metallic green Six-spotted Tiger Beetles (Cicindela sexguttata) darted down onto the path under the hickories. They can commonly be found in patches of sunlight at the edge of wooded areas. Despite their ferocious name and appearance, they don’t bite humans unless we handle them, and even then it’s an unnoticeably mild pinch, according to Wikipedia. Small caterpillars, ants and spiders, though, find them ferocious predators!

The Six-spotted Tiger Beetle is iridescent green with six white spots around the bottom edge of its abdomen.

On the Trail to the Lake Accompanied By Birdsong and an Amphibian Chorus

In the center of the park, several trails converge in a small meadow.  The one that heads out from the Hickory Lane and east to the lake was my choice. In the short video below taken on a glorious May morning, I spun around slowly where the trails converge, trying to record the bright blue sky, the fresh greenery and the birdsong soundtrack that was making me smile.

The background music was partially provided by a robust male Rose-breasted Grosbeak (Pheucticus ludovicianus) singing his lyrical song that is similar to the Robin, but a bit sweeter. I wondered if he was establishing territory because I’d seen an older male singing nearby a few days before. I’m betting that the younger male’s elegant pink ascot and vocal ability won him the territory and a mate – unless experience counts with Grosbeak females. The older male looked like he’d seen a few seasons, but he was a vigorous singer as well!  [Correction!  The bird on the right is actually a male juvenile who has not yet finished molting into fully adult male plumage!  The telling field mark is the white eyeline and white feathers at the neck.   And the one the left is in his second or older year!   Thanks to Ruth Glass, local birding authority, who set me straight on this!   I’m learning all the time from readers of the blog!]

Near a wetland on the north side of the lake trail, I heard a quick song that I didn’t recognize. Ah! I spotted a small, bright yellow bird with a black mask and a fancy black necklace – the Magnolia Warbler (Setophaga magnolia). I actually heard two of these warblers on the way to the lake, but only one stopped hopping from limb to limb long enough to show me how beautiful he was. He’ll nest farther north in dense forests of spruce or hemlock.

The Magnolia Warbler actually nests in conifers and spends winters in the American south.

Deep within the shrubbery of every  moist area along this trail, I could hear the “witchedy witchedy” call of the Common Yellowthroat (Geothlypis trichas), but I have yet to see one this spring! I waited, watched, but no luck. I’m sure I’ll catch sight of one before long since Yellowthroats raise their young here. But for now here’s an earlier photo of another lovely masked bandit. I think he throws his head back farther than any other bird that I’ve seen – and his whole body vibrates with the song!

A Common Yellowthroat singing “witchedy, witchedy, witchedy” from a shrub near a wetland.

Warblers are challenging subjects for us amateur photographers. They’re tiny, they rarely stop to pose and they arrive when the trees are leafing out! So I was happy to catch a quick photo of a Black-and-white Warbler (Mniotilta varia) as he busily spiraled around a trunk near the lake. It’s easy to mistake this little bird for a White-breasted Nuthatch (Sitta carolinensis) or even a Brown Creeper (Certhia americana) as they circumnavigate trees. Theoretically, this little warbler breeds here, but I’ve only managed to spot one during spring migrations.

A Black-and-white Warbler spirals around a tree searching for insects with its slightly curved beak.

As I approached the lake, I heard an amazing chorus of amphibians singing.  It wasn’t any frog song that I recognized,  so I was puzzled. Eventually, a herpetology authority, David Mifsud of the Michigan Herp Atlas, helped me out. I hadn’t recognized the mating calls of the American Toad (Anaxyrus americanus)!

American toads were chorusing their mating song in Cranberry Lake.

I come across single toads in the park periodically, as I did with the Toad above last year at Bear Creek Nature Park. But I’d never before been in the audience as they sing for the females! The water out at the edge of the lake was rippling with their activity. Straining for a sighting, all I could see was a periodic flash of what appeared to be white skin thrust out of the water. I still don’t know if I was seeing toads mating or a fish catching a mouthful of courting toad!

The song was mesmerizing as one toad started the swelling sound, followed by others, until the trills died down. And then after a brief pause,  another round began. It reminded me of the buzz of cicadas on a summer day. Listen!

In the shade at the edge of the lake,  some Ostrich Ferns (Matteuccia struthiopteris) emerged from the moist earth and were unfolding from their parchment-like covers.  Ferns seem almost other-worldly to me, since,  like mosses, they are ancient. Fossil forms of early ferns appeared on earth almost 400 million years ago, long before dinosaurs roamed the earth about 200 million years later! Look at the brown cauls that cover the Ostrich Fern before it opens and then its unfurling green stem with a deep U-shaped groove, a hallmark of this native fern.

Ostrich Ferns unwrap from their brown coverings as they emerge.

You can see why they are also called “Fiddlehead Ferns,” can’t you? And here were a few a bit farther along in their growth. When the sun shines on their unfurling fronds, they just glow!

Ostrich fern “fiddleheads” beginning to unfold into the plumes for which they are named.
Fronds of Ostrich Fern glowing in the sunlight

One Last Encouraging Song to Carry Home

A wet, somewhat battered Northern Cardinal singing with abandon

Since I knew the alternate trails would be too wet to traverse, I re-traced my steps back up the trail, down the Hickory Lane and out to the road. When I entered the parking lot, I was greeted by the cheerful whistle and “cheerups” of a Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) who’d seen better days. After some rainy, cold nights and perhaps an itchy case of mites, he seemed to be having the avian equivalent of a tough day. Despite that, his song was as upbeat and vigorous as ever. I listen entranced and never thought to record him, but luckily I had recorded another male singing the Cardinal’s ebullient spring song back in April.

I stood quietly and just listened to him for a few minutes before I left. And in these difficult days when grief, fear, and anger move in waves across our world, a battered bird still sang. It felt like a model I should try to follow. No matter what life throws at you, that scarlet messenger seemed to say, sing on! I mean to try. I hope you do, too.

Worried About the Planet? Let’s Make a Difference One Garden at a Time.

Education, Flowering Plants, Insects, Invasive Plants, Prairie Restoration, Wildlife, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

It’s admittedly a worrisome time for those of us  who love our small, blue planet. Devastating fires, raging floods, 30 billion fewer birds in the last 50 years, a UN report that 100 million species of plants and animals are at risk of extinction within decades. According to Eduardo Brondizio at Indiana University, half a million species have “insufficient habitat for long-term survival.” Their best hope is restoration of their habitat.

Text and photos
by Cam Mannino

Aha! Now here’s something you and I can do something about! And we can do it without leaving home, or participating in protests or influencing recalcitrant politicians. We can enrich the habitat right beyond our kitchen windows. And it won’t take sacrifice – in fact, it’s rewarding! It won’t take giant sums of money or raising taxes. All it takes, dear kindred spirits, is adding native plants to our gardens and yards – as many as we can plant each year. By doing so, we can make a HUGE difference to the survival of species. Stick with me here. The news keeps getting more hopeful as we move along.

Is Your Yard Full of Non-native Plants?  Mine Is…

I’m betting your garden is a lot like mine – filled with non-native trees, grass, shrubs and flowers that evolved in distant countries.  I’m thinking of common garden plants like Lilacs (Syringa vulgaris) from the Balkans in Southeastern Europe, Forsythia (Forsythia intermedia) from eastern Asia,  or Vinca (Vinca minor) from Europe, Africa and Asia.  Take a short world tour in this slideshow and discover where a few of our most popular garden plants originated. [Use pause button for time to read captions.)

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Our non-native, international gardens look lovely;  butterflies sip nectar from the flowers and insects never leave a hole in the leaves.  The turf grass looks like a seamless green carpet if we fertilize it and water it regularly.  So what’s the problem?

Well, in their homelands, our non-native plants were not a problem.  They did just what nature asks plant to do – pass on  the sun’s energy (through photosynthesis) to all the other organisms in their habitat that can’t do that.  In its native Europe, invasive Phragmites (Phragmites australis subspecies australis), for example,  supports over 170 insect species. But not here! Here the invasive, non-native grass crowding every wet roadside supports only 5 species – and it’s been here for centuries!

Burning won’t kill phragmites! Here, we’re using controlled burning to remove dead Phragmites that was treated in fall 2014. We remove dead material in the hope that native plants may emerge.

Problem: Our Gardens are Missing One Essential Feature – Plentiful Caterpillars

Now you may be thinking, “Caterpillars eat holes in leaves! The lack of caterpillars is not a problem!!!” Well, actually, it is. Like me, you’ve probably always thought of your garden or lawn as an artistic or decorative enterprise. And it should be! We all need beauty around us. But nature needs our garden flowers, grasses, shrubs and trees to be productive, as well as beautiful. Our yards also need to nourish creatures large and small who live around us. The sad truth is that  most of our gardens are green, colorful food deserts that leave nature hungry and malnourished. Luckily, we can easily change that!

Insects: “The Little Things that Run the World”

Insects, including butterflies, moths, and many other pollinators keep an ecosystem fed. They really are, as the famous biologist E.O. Wilson said, “the little things that run the world.” An insect’s chubby caterpillars chewing and hunching along a plant stem provide essential food for the whole web of life. Birds stuff them down the scrawny throats of baby birds; caterpillars are soft and filled with the fat and protein nestlings need. Adult birds snag insects from the air, pluck them off the ground, and snatch them from leaves. They even spend winter days probing loose bark looking for frozen insect eggs or caterpillars to get the protein that helps keep their small bodies warm on icy nights.

Without enough caterpillars, birds won’t lay a full clutch of eggs in the spring. Their  young will not be as large and healthy. And they need a lot of them! Chickadees, for example, need 6,000 to 9,000 caterpillars to raise their clutch of nestlings! Caterpillars are simply the most important food source for birds, amphibians, reptiles, fish, and some mammals. Seeds and fruits contribute to food webs too – but caterpillars are essential.

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So Why Are Our Yards Missing So Many Caterpillars?

Ninety percent of our native caterpillars, the young of daytime butterflies and the moths who maneuver through the night, are picky eaters! They can only eat plants with which they co-evolved. They are specialists who, over eons, have overcome the chemical defenses of particular native plants and are now adapted to eat them and nothing else. Unfortunately, they aren’t able to switch to what’s available. It would take thousands of years of evolution to make that possible. So if our caterpillars don’t hatch out on a native plant, they generally die of malnutrition before reaching adulthood.

The Monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus), of course, is the classic example; its caterpillars can eat only one genus – the milkweeds (genus Asclepias).  Monarchs will sip nectar from all kinds of flowers, but their caterpillars need one of the milkweed species for food that will nourish them to adulthood. And 90% of all our insects face the same challenge of finding the native plants their young can eat. Not enough native plants means not enough insects and their caterpillars, which means not enough birds, not enough amphibians –  and on it goes as hunger spreads through a habitat’s food web.

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A Beautiful, Simple Solution: Plant More Native Flowers, Grasses, Shrubs and Trees

So many environmental issues are beyond our control. But we can control our yards, our gardens, the fields and woods on our land. And we can turn around the declining numbers of butterflies, pollinators, birds and more by nourishing wildlife around us with beautiful native plants. They come in all kinds of colors and shapes. Some thrive in wet areas, some in dry. Some need the sunshine, some the shade. Some bloom in only one season, some in more than one. Some are even green all winter! Here’s just a tiny, rainbow sampling  to whet your appetite!

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Our Gardens and Yards Can Change Gradually, Right?

We don’t need to overhaul our gardens overnight. I plan to just gradually add in more native plants each year. Ideally, our goal is to reach at least 70% native – but any increase in native plants benefits our local habitats. For example, I can’t afford to eliminate the non-native woods of invasive Black Locust (Robinia pseudoacacia) next to our driveway – but I can remove its invasive sprouts wherever I come across one. And maybe year by year, we can remove a bit more of the Vinca and Lily-of -the-Valley that have choked out native woodland flowers on the forest floor. I’m thinking  of removing Locusts that are crowding the few native Wild Black Cherry Trees (Prunus serotina) in the woods and perhaps adding in a few native understory trees to help out the birds and insects.

Dense woods of non-native Black Locust

Three years ago, I started taking on the invasive Garlic Mustard (Alliaria petiolata) that has encircled our yard and infiltrated the woods for years. Pulling them out by the roots is quite easy; my 4-year-old neighbor enjoyed doing it with me! And the reward at our house is that beautiful, native White Snakeroot (Ageratina altissima) now rises out of the earth each autumn wherever I pulled the Garlic Mustard in the spring! (Have a look at the beautiful bank of white blossoms below!) I’m anxious to know what else may be hiding in the seed bank under the forest floor!

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If placed in the right environment, native plants are less fussy than non-native plants we usually get from the garden store. They’ve evolved in our ecosystem so they don’t need the regular watering, fertilizing or soil amendments that non-natives usually do. In fact many of our native plants do better in poor soil! Rain generally provides enough water for them, except in severe droughts. You’ll need to experiment to see what works, just as you do with non-native plants. Some will grow more vigorously than you’d like and need to be thinned; consider sharing them with neighbors! Others will need to be moved to a new location. That’s OK! It’s all a learning process, right?

A Word about that Lawn…

Douglas W. Tallamy, author of Bringing Nature Home, a sort of  “bible” for native gardeners, points out that millions of acres in America are covered by our lawns. In fact researchers say that the American lawn covers an area the size of New England! Turf grasses are non-native and require huge amounts of water, chemical fertilizers and herbicides to keep them  green. Mowing them frequently also uses lots of fossil fuel.

Now neither Doug Tallamy nor I are not advocating that you ignore your lawn and let it grow into a fallow field full of invasive plants! What Tallamy and other conservationists are asking is this: Could you do with less grass and plant more native gardens? Could you plant a native White Oak (Quercus alba) in your front yard? (White Oaks can support over 500 different insect species and still look great! Could you put native shrubs along your driveway? Maybe you could plant a more formal native garden in the front with drifts or masses of native plants that love to be planted close together.  (No need for mulch!)

Grass paths could be used to guide you through your landscape; turf grass is great to walk on. If your children play outside (and I fervently hope they do!), leave a play area but surround it with native wildflowers or flowering native shrubs. And where you have slopes or large open areas with plenty of sun, consider taller native grasses like Little Bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium) or Big Bluestem (Andropogon gerardi) and a variety of sun-loving prairie plants. Native grasses and shrubs provide artistic structure in a garden, but also give caterpillars safe places to spin their chrysalises and cocoons.  The possibilities are endless.

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An Inspiration for the Future:  The “Homegrown National Park”

In his newest book,  Nature’s Best Hope, Dr. Tallamy proposes a glorious vision of what a dedicated nation could create for its people and its wildlife. He envisions all of us together creating huge swaths of native habitat by linking our native-growing neighborhoods into a “Homegrown National Park.” Imagine that! Our new national park could be as large as 20 million acres if we all reduced our lawn areas by half. Wow! An audacious idea, but theoretically possible. For the moment though, our goal can simply be to enhance the habitat around our own houses and perhaps eventually a network of houses and neighborhoods full of both life and beauty.

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Wild geranium and wild columbine make a stunning spring combo

Imagine Your Native Garden as Living Landscape, a Beautiful Habitat Where Nature Thrives

February is a great time for garden dreaming. Envision the possibilities outside your kitchen window. A green path wends it way between native gardens that change with each season. Warm patches of sunlight bring butterflies looking for nectar. Perhaps fledgling bluebirds beg to be fed beneath your native flowering shrub. In the shade of the native tree canopy, migrating birds stop by to sing while looking for caterpillars or to pluck a few berries on their way south for the winter. I’m finding a whole new set of yard dreams myself. I hope you conjure up a few too, and add some natives to your yard this year.

RESOURCES:

Ready to Plant Some Native Plants this Spring and/or Fall?  We Can Get Them for You Wholesale!

Starting last year, our Stewardship Manager, Dr. Ben VanderWeide, created a new native plant sale for township residents.  All the information for this year’s sale is right at this link  or under “Native Plant Sale” at the top of the Natural Areas Notebook home page.  But you need to order by March 4th!

Need More Detail about Native Plants, In-Depth Information or Answers to Frequently Asked Questions?  

  1. Get hold of a copy of any of Dr. Douglas W. Tallamy’s books:  Bringing Nature Home – How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants (Timber Press);  Nature’s Best Hope – A New Approach to Conservation That Starts in Your Yard (Timber Press), and one he wrote with native landscaper, Rick Darke, The Living Landscape – Designing for Beauty and Biodiversity in the Home Garden.
  2. Listen to this podcast of Dr. Tallamy being interviewed about native plants.
  3. Find native plants for your county by using this national database and putting in your zipcode!
  4. Check out the somewhat more comprehensive blog about native plants that I wrote last year after attending the Wildlfower Association of Michigan annual conference.

Restoration Never Stops: Winter Planting and “Weeding” in Our Natural Areas

Education, Flowering Plants, Invasive Plants, Prairie Restoration, This Week at Bear Creek, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
The Center Pond and the sloping trail to the west after December mowing by the stewardship crew.

Most home gardeners take a break during the winter. The gardens have been prepared for winter; no weeding or seeding is planned until spring. Winter is a time to dream about next year’s garden.

Text and photos
by Cam Mannino

But late fall and winter are busy times for our Parks and Recreation stewardship crew. Many native seeds need cold winter temperatures in order to germinate. According to the useful website Ecolandscaping.org, thawing and freezing loosen the outer coating of some native seeds, signaling them to germinate as the soil warms. The Milkweeds (genus Asclepias) and Bee Balm (Monarda fistulosa) would be examples of native seeds that require the winter’s cold before germinating. [Use pause button to see captions below, if necessary.]

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Other seeds may need multiple seasons in the soil before they germinate – like Round-lobed Hepatica (Hepatica americana) or Common Trillium (Trillium grandiflorum). [Click on photos to enlarge; hover cursor for captions.]

Hepatica seeds require more than one season in the soil before blooming.
A Common Trillium also germinates after multiple seasons in the soil.

And of course, given the diversity of native plants, some seeds sprout and grow in one growing season like Black-Eyed Susans (Rudbeckia hirta) or New England Asters (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae).

Native Seeds Can Be Planted Almost Year ‘Round

Because native plants are adapted to our climate, very early spring, late fall and even snowy winter days can all be times for planting in our parks and natural areas. In November of 2015, the northern prairie at Draper Twin Lake Park was seeded. In this case, the planting area was huge and special equipment was required to get the native seed distributed evenly across the site. So Oakland Township Stewardship Manager, Dr. Ben VanderWeide, used a native plant contractor. By 2018, a lush prairie began to bloom at Draper Twin Lake Park.

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In the winter of 2018, Ben and his stewardship specialist did a very orderly planting of moisture-loving seeds in the emerging wetlands at Charles Ilsley Park.  Last winter when I reported on interesting tracks at Charles Ilsley Park, I  mentioned a neat grid of “tracks” on the snowy surface of one of the wetlands.

Of course, they were the footprints left by Ben and Alyssa as they seeded the spring-fed pond with a native wetland mix.  (The birders had trekked across the pond earlier in the morning.) Ben had planted Water Plantain (Alisma triviale), some sedges (grass-like plants), and bright purple Monkey-Flower (Mimulus ringens) along with other wetland species.

Many of the plants they seeded aren’t apparent yet.  But nature took temporary advantage of the spot. Up out of the wetland sprouted a native annual Witchgrass (Panicum capillare). We’ll have to wait for Ben’s plants to grow larger – but meanwhile, the seed bank has produced a grass that feeds the caterpillars of several Skipper butterflies  and produces late fall seeds for lots of birds, including cardinals, woodcocks, bobolinks, bobwhite quail and many others.

Native Witchgrass emerged from the seed bank in the prairie wetlands at Ilsley.

Sometimes, Ben hand sows the native seed that his crew and volunteers harvest each year from various parks. Here on a cool April morning of 2018, shortly after a prescribed burn, Ben is casting seed at Bear Creek Nature Park by hand in a tradition that dates back centuries. It’s a simple way to plant smaller amounts of gathered seed in certain areas that can benefit from more native plants.

Dr. Ben Vanderweide 2018 seeding smaller areas at Bear Creek in 2018 with native seed gathered by his crew and volunteers.

A Kind of “Weeding” Happens Year ‘Round as Well

Just as in a garden, removing or thinning unwanted plants is an endless stewardship task in natural areas. Invasive shrubs that crowd or shade out our native species can literally take over fields. To give native plants a chance to establish themselves, the non-natives must be removed repeatedly for several years in a row. Vines like Oriental Bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus) must be cut and treated to keep them from strangling trees by spiraling around their trunks – or to prevent them from climbing across the crowns of trees, making them so top-heavy that they fall in wind storms. Non-native wildflowers and grasses can be invasive too, while providing little food and shelter for wildlife. Late autumn and winter can be ideal times to do those jobs, when plants are pulling down nutrients into their roots.

In the fall of 2018, Ben arranged for a forestry mower to remove a huge area of aggressively invasive shrubs that had blanketed the fields north of the pond for decades.  Last year in early spring, with snow still on the ground, he and his stewardship assistant spent a few days carefully seeding this vast area with native seed since the area was too full of mowed shrub material to be planted by machine.

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A month ago on a dry winter day,  he went over the area again with a bushhog since many of the shrubs tried to make a comeback during the summer before they were spot treated in August. It was great to see these areas cleared again so that the architecture of Bear Creek’s natural rolling landscape could be fully appreciated once more!

The rolling landscape of the north section of Bear Creek Park after Ben bush-hogged again this December.

In 2016, I wrote a history blog about how Bear Creek Nature Park looked when it was a farm during the Great Depression.  In the library’s local history room is a book entitled Incredible Yesterdays (Ravenswood Press, 1977) by local author George Comps who lived on the property in the 1930’s. At one point, he described a moonlit night when he and his sister walked to the Center Pond. While George stood on the south side, his sister went around to her favorite “Big Rock” on the north side and they could see each other across the pond in the moonlight. When I wrote the 2016 blog, I bemoaned the fact that what I believe was that “Big Rock” was buried in invasive shrubs that also surrounded the pond, blocking the view to the other side. But with Ben’s last mowing of the land, the Comps’ favorite rock is once again visible and the view across the pond that they saw some 75 years ago is possible again. Now that’s both land and history preservation!

Last week, a different kind of “weeding” was happening at the Wet Prairie on the Paint Creek Trail. In last October’s blog, I described the very special conditions of this natural area that blooms with many unusual wildflowers throughout the growing season.

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Though adapted to fire and  both wet and dry conditions, these rare-but-sturdy flowers do need lots of sunshine. Over the years, trees have grown up around the edge of the Wet Prairie, shading out some of the sunlight these lovely plants require. So this January,  Ben and his stewardship specialist Grant, have been felling some trees to bring more sunlight to this special spot on the Paint Creek Trail. They’re also working to eliminate a large, dense thicket of Glossy Buckthorn (Frangula alnus), like the ones they removed last year also at Bear Creek Nature Park’s marsh. An aggressively invasive bush, glossy buckthorn crowds out native plants and its admittedly attractive berries are also not as nutritious for wildlife as those of our native shrubs and plants.

Ben and Grant fell a few trees that shade out rare plants on the Wet Prairie.
Glossy Buckthorn is a very aggressive invasive shrub that can take over large areas if left “unweeded!”
A pile of invasive Buckthorn near the Bear Creek marsh which will eventually be burned.

Big Rewards for Year ‘Round Work

February of 2018 at the Eastern Prairie at Charles Ilsley Park – an austere beauty seen through a scrim of Indian Grass.

The eastern prairie at Charles Ilsley Park is one of my favorites – a huge rolling expanse embraced by forest. In February last year, its austere palette of browns and dark grays suited the inward quietness of a winter day. This park has required years of “weeding” – removal of non-native shrubs, elimination of stands of non-native plants and coming this spring, another prescribed burn, if the weather allows. Like many of you, I imagine, I don’t relish the sound of chain saws against wood, the stoop work of treating stumps to prevent the return of invasive shrubs, the roar of mowers as they chew  through a thicket of invasive shrubs.

July at Charles Ilsley’s Eastern Prairie

But all of that is just preparing the way for native plants and their seeds to flourish. And the reward is great  – a richly diverse native habitat where bees and butterflies sip at blossoms, where birds build nests in the deep grass or along the tree line, where creatures and their young are fed by plants that they’ve thrived on for thousands of years. Jane Giblin, of the Michigan Wildflower Association, recently quoted someone who said we should “garden as if life depended on it,” because, of course it does! And that’s also the goal of our township’s stewardship program – to restore our parks and natural areas by  “weeding out” plants that don’t provide rich, healthy habitat while protecting, nourishing and restoring the plants that feed and house the creatures that called this land home eons before we did.

Gallagher Creek Park Native Landscaping: Year 1

Education, Flowering Plants, , , , ,

Things are happening at Gallagher Creek Park! This little park in the southwest corner of Oakland Township spans 15-acres at the headwaters of Gallagher Creek, an important water resource in the township which was home to a remnant native brook trout population just a few years ago. Outside the developed area near the parking lot, wetlands at Gallagher Creek Park host a variety of birds and wildlife, and prairie plantings installed between 2016 and 2018 blanket the upland areas.

In 2018 Oakland Township Parks and Recreation added a playground, picnic shelter, and rain garden at Gallagher Creek Park, and expanded the parking lot. All this work wrapped up just as fall set in last year. This spring we added finishing touches with installation of native plant landscaping around the playground. Join me, Ben VanderWeide,  for a tour of the first year of our new landscaping!

Parents and kids at Gallagher
Grownups, children and a baby-to-be playing at Gallagher Creek Park in fall 2018.

Native Plants for a Better World

We use native plants throughout our parks because they are important for a healthy environment. Native plants provide food resources and habitat for pollinators, and filter runoff and sediment from storm water flowing from developed areas of the park before  it reaches Gallagher Creek. Check out great books by Doug Tallamy if you’re interested in learning more about the benefits of native plants.

The landscaping surrounding the playground and picnic pavilion creates a transition from the play area to the existing natural community in the park, connecting visitors, especially young children and their parents, to nature. We designed this transition landscape to be visually appealing by using low-growing plants, showy flowers, and neat edges. Check out our plant list here. Our native plant landscaping is a free, publicly accessible resource for educators, nature centers, and anyone who wants examples of how to use native plants.

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Native plant landscaping design for Gallagher Creek Park.

Site Preparation

After the playground and other improvements were finished in 2018, we were left with fairly compacted soils. Some areas had fill dirt and one spot had a thin layer of soil over driveway gravel! We didn’t have the time or resources to loosen the soil, so we just hoped the roots of our tough native plants would break through the hardpan. Our site preparation mostly involved removing sticks, large rocks, and any existing plants. The total area of the native planting is about 9,000 square feet.

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The east side of the playground at Gallagher Creek Park before native landscaping installation. April 12, 2019
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The north side of the playground at Gallagher Creek Park before native landscaping installation. April 12, 2019

The area near the parking lot had been accidentally seeded to turf the previous year, so we had to kill the grass first.

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The temporary grass cover on south side of the playground near the parking lot at Gallagher Creek Park before native landscaping installation. May 9, 2019

A few weeks before we started planting, we celebrated the grand opening of the playground equipment and other improvements. Jane Giblin was there representing both The Wildflower Association of Michigan and Rochester Garden Club, two organizations which provided grants to help us buy plants. Stephanie Patil also generously gave us a donation to help purchase plants. Thanks!

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Jane Giblin represented the Wildflower Association of Michigan and the Rochester Garden Club at the Gallagher Creek Park Grand Opening on May 23, 2019. Both organizations gave us grants to help install the native plant landscaping.

The last thing we did before planting was place the log edging. We used black locust logs left over from another project. Black locust resists rot, making it favorite choice for fence posts by farmers of the past. What a great use of this invasive tree!

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We used aged black locust logs left over from another project as the edging for our landscaping. The edging helps give the landscaping a neat, yet rugged appearance.

Planting!

All that preparation got us ready for the main event, planting! We put out the call for volunteers, and many of you showed up! The slideshow below shows our process. We first marked out each planting zone, then dug holes using a bulb planting bit on a gas-powered drill.  After placing the plants in the holes, we carefully packed dirt around the plugs to eliminate air gaps. We mulched around the plants and gave them a good soaking. Finally, we put small identifications signs throughout the landscaping to help people learn the  names of the species we’d planted.

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Weeding and Watering Through the Summer

Even with careful site preparation and a few inches of mulch, we prepared ourselves for a big flush of weeds from our post-construction soils. The worst weed problem the first year was annual grasses, but we had to be vigilant as seedlings of cottonwood, Canada thistle, quack grass, and crown vetch emerged.

As summer began, we watered about twice per week to help the plants establish. Ample rain fell during the second half of the summer, so we only watered as needed. The seasonal stewardship staff did great work hauling water to the site in a large tank and keeping the weeds down. Thanks Alex, Marisa, and Grant! I know a few volunteers also stopped by to help with weeding. We couldn’t have done it without you!

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Watering the new plants during the first season helps them establish deep roots. After the first season we won’t need to continue watering, though we’ll scan for weeds regularly.

Monarch Butterflies Love the Plants!

As plants grew larger, we found monarch caterpillars on the butterfly milkweed, and adults enjoying the nectar of blazing star. Hurray for pollinator habitat!

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Plants like northern blazingstar (Liatris scariosa) were favorite nectar sources for monarch butterflies, while nearby butterfly milkweed provided hosts for their eggs and caterpillars.
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Build it and they will come! Monarch butterflies wasted no time finding our butterfly milkweed. This caterpillar we found on August 27 might be overwintering in Mexico right now!

From Small Plugs to Big Plants

Our little plants didn’t look so small by early September! The sedges and grasses did especially well, providing nice texture and structure. Some forbs (wildflowers) did well and even flowered their first year; others invested their energy in putting down deep roots. We weren’t able to get some species in the spring, so we planted a few additional species in the fall – western sunflower (Helianthus occidentalis), round-leaved ragwort (Packera obovata), and nodding wild onion (Allium cernuum). Fall plantings don’t need to be watered as much, and the plants get a head start for the next year!

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By the middle of September, the small plugs we’d planted were robust plants. The sedges and grasses did especially well the first year.
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Flagstone paths provide routes to explore the colors, textures, smells, and sounds of the native plant landscaping. I can’t wait to see what this corner looks like next summer! September 13, 2019
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Flagstone pathways allow children to play on the playground or explore the beauty of the native landscaping.
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As summer turned to fall, the colors and textures of the grasses and sedges provided seasonal interest. In this picture we have muskingum sedge, little bluestem, Carex brevior, and prairie dropseed showing off different textures and shades of green. October 13, 2019
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In October the interesting textures and shades of green from grasses and sedges replaced the pop of color that wildflowers provided during the summer. October 25, 2019.

Looking Ahead to Next Year

Next year we won’t have to plant everything again, so we’ll be switching gears to long-term maintenance. In 2019 we mulched the plantings to help retain moisture and suppress weeds, but we’re planning to reduce or eliminate additions of new mulch in the plantings over the next few years. We included several species that spread by rhizomes or stolons as part of our “green mulch” strategy – allowing the good plants to create a dense canopy that resists  the establishment of new weeds.

Next year we won’t need to water, unless we have a severe drought. At that point,  the plants should have established deep roots, and will be able to handle the normal fluctuations in moisture and temperature for southeast Michigan – another advantage of native plants!

Weeding will continue to be important until we’ve reduced the weed seed bank and established our green mulch. I’ve found that a few years of intensive weeding can reduce the weed pressure to almost nothing.  Only a few quick scans will be required every month to catch problems before they become big ones.

Every year we’ll evaluate the species mix in our plantings. What’s doing well? What didn’t grow much? Do we have consistent blooms to support pollinators throughout the growing season? We’ll add species and thin others, fine-tuning our native landscaping.

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The tenacious crew on the last day of planting. Thanks to all the parks staff and volunteers that worked so hard to bring beauty to our residents and food to our pollinators.

We’re looking forward to the challenge and joy of watching our native plant landscaping change and grow over time. We hope you’ll join us, whether you’ve been a gardener for decades or are just interested in native plant landscaping.  All are welcome!