Avalonia eTrails: pollinators

Showing posts with label pollinators. Show all posts

Monday, May 3, 2021

A Journey to Community

Over the last 8 months or so, I have had the great pleasure of working with a Local Girl Scout Troop. These are middle school aged students, who have had to juggle a lot during this last year. In addition to their school upheaval, they had also planned to work toward their Silver Award, a high honor in Scouting circles. Their proposal was to create a pollinator garden at the Parker Brothers Preserve on River Rd. in Pawcatuck. This sweet garden-like preserve was a somewhat underappreciated parcel, and over the years, the invasives began to take over. It was looking a bit unloved. As soon as the girls came forward with their ideas, it made me look at the preserve with new appreciation. We ourselves began to try and uncover and recover its potential. As the girls began their research and we consulted about their base plan, we stewards began to attack the greater problems. Over this past year we have untangled many trees, rescued and rejuvenated berry shrubs and cleared some of the stone walls. The pollinator garden took shape with help from parents and neighbors. Last fall they planted and this spring we have already welcomed pollinators to the early spring flowers. In a few weeks, the scouts: Nora, Sierra and Kate and their families will celebrate their Silver Award Winning project.

For them it wasn’t just about making a garden to fulfill a requirement. It truly was helping to create a benefit for pollinators, as well as creating a lovely spot for community members to gather and enjoy being outside again.

Please watch their video here. Read their report and take some time to visit their garden at the Parker Brother’s Preserve. Thank you to all involved. Beth

A Journey to Community by Sierra Redfern

The star of the show - a Monarch!

We began the Pollinator Project looking to change our community for the better. Make a difference together. It started as a project for a silver award and became so much more. We found that we could help others through this project.

Last fall the preserve was
cleaned up and
the garden dug.

We started on planning our garden, researching on what plants
would work best. We divided the research between the three of us and attended a weekly meeting every Tuesday at 5. Once all of our research was finished we put our plan into action. We dug up our garden and cleaned up the area around it. Now we were ready to get our plants!

Nora's PAWSOME
dog treat fundraiser!

One of our girl scouts, Nora, had raised money selling dog treats so we could fund our project, so we purchased our plants and began to plant them. They were all perennials so they could come back every year without our help. We wanted our project to last a long time. Our garden was planted but we weren’t done. We still had to add our butterflies! Because you can’t have a butterfly garden without butterflies!

We had to wait though because the best time to release these insects is near the end of April, so we decided we weren’t done quite yet with pollinators. We all collaborated on a 3 part video explaining the importance of pollinators, why they’re going extinct, and how we can save them. This was one of the most important parts of our project. And once we were done we got to share it with local areas that wanted to help spread our message. (Editor's note: You can watch it here!)

Early spring bulbs welcomed the insects!

To bring some more passion to the garden we made signs for our plants, a care tip book, and painted rocks. All to help bring our garden to life, and once our butterflies are released then our garden will have truly been completed. Completed but not finished, the whole point of our silver award was to give back to the community, and our garden will help bring more pollinators to the neighborhood, bring people together, and make some new memories.

Getting donations from Stonington Gardens
and Pequot Plant Farm

Planting in the fall

Later this season, there will be many more
welcoming flowers for bees!

Monday, July 1, 2019

Birds and Bees

By Beth Sullivan

People are paying a little more attention to the birds and the bees in recent years. There is a growing awareness of the absolutely critical role they play in so many aspects of our life and economy. Finally even school children are being instructed on the importance of pollinators and are creating gardens and doing citizen science observations of bees and other creatures that are part of this chain of life.

There is greater awareness of the harm pesticides are doing, not just to the harmful insects, but to all insects, including bees. Broad use of herbicides affects not only the targeted invasives, but if used carelessly, they kill beneficial natives and host plants for all species of insects, including our beloved Monarch. Awareness is slowly growing; there are programs and websites and projects dedicated to pollinators, and hopefully more people will understand the connection we all have at the very basic level. It takes a while to make the connection between a pollinator and a hamburger, but these links are being spelled out and kids get it.

A gardener maybe tempted to spray for the aphids, but would also end up harming the monarch caterpillar as well.

The weather

One other factor in this whole process is climate change and the weather. There is an increasing discrepancy and disconnect with the changing seasons. In some places they are warmer too early, and in others remaining cool too long into the spring. It is climate change affecting wildlife and natural cycles. Plants bloom before, or after, their insect pollinators need them. Heavy rains destroy blossoms before pollinators can do their job. Both extreme heat and cold affect bloom time and also health of insect populations. This then affects crop success and fruit and berry production. This will not only affect us, but also the wildlife that depend on these fruits for survival later in the year. Enter the next level of creatures to be affected: the birds.

This has been a very strange spring with so much rain and cooler temps lasting longer through the spring and into summer so far, especially here along the coast. We may not all notice the changes in the bird populations, but as the monitor Mom of a Purple Martin colony, I have witnessed the effects first hand this year. While it is still too early to count my chicks before they hatch, I know we will be far below our other years in terms of success rate. By mid-July, I will have a better idea of our outcomes and will report to all dedicated martin lovers.

Earlier this spring the woods were a banquet of destructive caterpillars for the birds.

One person's weeds may be sustenance for native pollinators. Let them grow.

Kingbirds are flycatchers that rely on insects to satisfy their hungry nestlings.

Tree swallows catch insects on the wing and return to their nests. Photograph by Rick Newton.

Insects are needed too

It is not just the martins though. Think of all the insect-eating birds. Earlier this spring there was a new hatch of leaf-eating caterpillars in swaths of local forestland. These were small and green, not gypsy moths. The migrating warblers settled into the woods and feasted. But after each heavy rainfall, I discovered less activity for a day or so, as possibly the caterpillars were washed off the leaves. During rainy days, flying insects are grounded. Aerial insectivores such as swallows, martins, and flycatchers, were hard pressed to find their flying sustenance. If the adults are weakened, their nest-building efforts will suffer and egg production diminished. As the cold wet weather continues, it has been difficult to find food for those that did have young. I fear nest successes of many birds will be diminished.

Even larger birds, which rely on other food, are having difficulties. Osprey seem to have experienced more nest failures this spring. They catch and eat fish, so that should not actually be affected by weather, but maybe poor visibility at the water’s surface decreased their catch rate. But think of the poor hatchlings left uncovered during these torrential downpours and chillier days, while parents are out trying to find food for them.

The changes in weather patterns affect all levels of life, much like dominoes. Some effects are more visible than others. We can grumble and complain about spoiled plans, but for most of us the weather is not impacting us in an immediate life and death way on a daily basis. Take the time to think through some of the bigger connections and see where they lead. It is sobering.

Osprey eat only fish, but seeing them through rain-disturbed water may be difficult.

Dragonfly eat insects and are also food for Purple Martins.

Your can learn more about birds, insects, and bees at these links:

https://www.mnn.com/your-home/organic-farming-gardening/stories/how-to-garden-for-bumblebees

https://www.mnn.com/food/healthy-eating/stories/what-a-grocery-store-without-bees-looks-like

https://xerces.org/

Photographs by Beth Sullivan unless otherwise indicated.

Monday, March 4, 2019

Planning with Natives: a Snowy Day Tonic

By Beth Sullivan

As we sit and await yet another snow event, I can’t help but wonder if the groundhogs were wrong. The best antidote to a snowy day is a trip to the mailbox to discover some seed or plant catalog full of colorful and enticing entries, bound to warm one’s soul, and warm up the credit card.

A while ago I began to switch my own gardening choices to more native plants. Not always, but more often now than when I first began to beautify the barren landscape we found when we first moved here. My yard and gardens are pretty full, and now I am looking to downsize a little, make things easier. However, I have become involved with landscape restoration on larger scales for Avalonia. We have had a number of projects over the last many years, where we were often getting rid of invasives and then re-planting.

Choose local native flowers for their amazing colors.

Native plants can truly be more beautiful than a cultivated garden.

Clearing out invasives

At Dodge Paddock, the effort is ongoing. After the Phragmites were mostly eradicated ( they are so persistent), we replanted much of the areas with plugs and seeds of native Spartina marsh grasses. In just a few seasons, those grasses have behaved like they are supposed to in their home habitat: they have grown and spread and colonized all the appropriate areas, re-creating a normal and more healthy salt marsh. In doing so, it is attracting far more wildlife, of all kinds, to the area. We were told that Mother Nature would accomplish this on her own, but with funding and energy, it sure was gratifying to give her a hand and a head start.

At the Knox Preserve, we cleared out the southeast corner that was a tangle of an entirely non-native, invasive mess. Granted, it served as some habitat for animals and birds, but the quality was not there. It has been proven that a bird may be very happy eating a berry of a non-native or ornamental plant, but the quality nutrients are not nearly the same. This can pose a real problem when birds expend a lot of energy foraging and not getting the nutrients and calories they need. It is much the same with bees and pollinators. They may be less attracted to non-native flowers and therefore need to fly farther and longer to find their food sources. If they choose to indulge in a non-native nectar source, it may suffice in the short term, but once again, the quality of the nutrients is not the same.

Birds, bees and native plants evolved together. They rely on Nature’s time clock to hatch and feed young and find food according to the stimuli of the seasons-temperature and daylight hours. Non-native plants do not always follow the same timetables.

At Dodge Paddock native marsh plants have established diversity and wildlife flourishes.

Native viburnum berries are for more nutritious for birds.

Pollinators survive better when native plants abound.

A true native environment

We are beginning to plan for the Hoffman Evergreen Preserve project. We know that once the heavy work is completed, there will be areas in need of restoration. We also know we will need to give Nature a hand again. Leaving areas open to sun after disturbance is a big open-arm welcome for invasive plants to establish. They are always the bullies of the plant world and will out-compete the natives in every aspect. We need to fill that void quickly. Already we are looking at our options: native grasses, herbaceous plants, shrubs, and trees that we can use to replace and restore what has been removed. It is essential that we find true native resources to do so. In a home garden or a smaller landscape garden, it is OK to use occasional ornamental plant. There are also many wonderful native plants that have been developed by plants-people, to be more floriferous or often prettier than the true natives. These are called cultivars and often have names following the species in the label. These are good choices for the home gardener working on establishing basic native gardens, but even these pose problems when it comes to longer term stability in a larger landscape. For Hoffman, we are looking for true natives, the kinds that have grown here always. They will be pollinated by native pollinators and their seeds will be true to their species. It will be the first steps to restoring a forest that will last for generations.

So on a snowy day, I am not only looking at seed catalogs of luscious vegetables and amazing flowers. I am learning more about our own native plants, trying to find where they can be purchased, and think ahead to a bigger garden landscape. A whole forest.

Take a walk on the real wild side. Plan your gardens with natives.