What to do while we wait...
This issue: 9 things you can do to make a difference in your own landscape.
Hello Gardeners!
So many things are cancelled right now, but it's still March, Spring is well on the way, and gardening is a great, safe activity! I am taking this tremendous concern I feel for the state of the world right now and channeling it into hands-on work I can do in my own landscape. It feels so healthy!
If you are wondering where to start, I wholeheartedly recommend Doug Tallamy's new book, Nature's Best Hope. Here are some recommendations from his book (but really it's worth the entire read--these recommendations are just one aspect of this great book):
Shrink the lawn. Most of us have heard this by now—lawns are the least beneficial and most polluting aspect of our landscapes, because of lawnmowers, herbicides, and fertilizers used to maintain them.
Remove invasive species. Yep.
Plant keystone genera. Just a few genera of native plants bring 95% of the energy into the food chain, because of their ability to support insect life and therefore all the other life that feeds on insects. Examples of keystone trees: native oaks, cherries, birches. Keystone perennials are goldenrods, asters and helianthus (native perennial sunflowers).
Be generous with your plantings. "Planting groves of trees and drifts of perennials makes more food available and better replicates natural situations that many species have evolved with."
Plant for specialist pollinators. In Maryland, some examples are sunflowers, goldenrods, willows, blueberries, asters.... The idea is that if you support the specialists, the generalists are also taken care of, but it doesn't work the other way around. What's particularly cool is that there is some overlap with the host plant keystone genera mentioned above--making it possible to really amp up your landscape's contributions by adding just a few types of plants.
Network with neighbors.
Build a conservation hardscape. It's worth reading about the details for this in the book—installing lights that don't kill insects at night, covering window wells, setting mower height at 3" or higher, installing a bubbler...and more.
Create caterpillar-friendly zones under trees. Did you know that a hard-packed lawn under an oak tree actually KILLS many caterpillars as they try to complete their life cycles and become butterflies? Design beds under your trees that have groundcover rather than mulch, and design the bed so that you can let most of the leaves remain. The worst things are hard-packed lawn, or a bed that is cut to the ground and blown clean of all leaf litter and then mulched every fall! We really need to change our generally accepted landscape practices, if we want to help biodiversity. But this can be done, and can be done beautifully, with some planning and thought.
Do not spray or fertilize. Particular case in point: we need to oppose harmful mosquito spraying. The pyrethroid-based insecticides used by mosquito foggers KILL ALL INSECTS, not just mosquitos. I will be trying Tallamy's straw-and-water-in-a-bucket method this year in my very mosquito-rich backyard:
Put a 5-gallon bucket of water in a sunny place and add a handful of hay or straw. After a few days this creates an irresistible magnet for egg-laying female mosquitoes. After the eggs are laid, you add something called a Mosquito Dunk to your bucket, which contains a naturally occurring larvicide, Bt. When the eggs hatch, the Bt kills them.
I'm going to research the timing details and get back to you—I may need multiple buckets going (one started each week or each month) for my population of mosquitoes. If you are trying this method let me know what your results are--it would be nice to compare notes and share our results!
So, waiting for this coronavirus thing to pass may not be all that bad...we can catch up on reading, gardening, and practicing the piano. (And I'll keep washing my hands!)
—Chris
P.S. If you'd like some help planning a more biodiversity-supporting landscape, I'd love to do a consult visit. No crowds or close contact necessary--we can be outdoors the whole time if you like! More info on consulting service here.
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