Standing Still in 2018

Posted on 2018-12-21 by admin

These days, I feel like a single candle, cursing the darkness, both literal and figurative.

The Anthropocene weighs heavy on my mind, and heart:

Global atmospheric CO2 (carbon dioxide) concentration has increased 30% in my lifetime, reaching levels that have not been seen for at least hundreds of thousands of years.
Global climate change is accelerating. We are seeing the effects in more extreme weather events. Our complex earth systems are driven toward chaotic respones by warmer termperatures, greater atmospheric moisture, destablizing air and ocean currents.
What fossil carbon we haven’t burned, we’ve converted to plastic, contaminating the deepest ocean trenches, and our food supply.
We are causing the Sixth Great Extinction of species, and life, on the planet.

Not only is there no political will to interrupt our collective psychosis, the kleptocrats insist on doubling and tripling down, forcing ever-wider disparities in wealth and income. As long as they get theirs before the final bell rings, screw everyone else.

Poor Persephone got off easy. She got to leave hell six months of the year.

Persephone with her pomegranate. Dante Gabriel Rossetti – Proserpine (Oil on canvas, 1874) – Tate Gallery, London

This season’s solstice (Winter in the Northern hemisphere, Summer in the Southern), occurs at 22:23 UTC, December 21, 17:23 Eastern Standard Time (UTC-05:00). Etymology: Latin solstitium (sol “sun” + stitium, from sistere “to stand still”)

The name is derived from the Latin sol (sun) and sistere (to stand still), because at the solstices, the Sun stands still in declination; that is, its apparent movement north or south comes to a standstill.
– Solstice, Wikipedia

So we light a candle against the darkness, and try to keep it lit. If I’m feeling hopeful, I might reflect on these lyrics from Peter Gabriel’s song written in memory of Stephen Biko, who would have been 90 this past week:

You can blow out a candle
But you can’t blow out a fire.
Once the flames begin to catch
The wind will blow it higher.

Wishing for peace, wishing you peace, these dark days.

This page has a little MIDI file which bangs out the tune so you can follow the score.

Illumination of Earth by Sun at the southern solstice.

Links

Wikipedia: Solstice

Grief and Baking: Rolled Holiday Butter Cookies

Posted on 2018-12-02 by admin

Today is World AIDS Day. By coincidence, the 41st president also just died, reminding me – and the cohort of survivors from his dark reign – how many more of us died on his watch from inaction, and more active hatred.

It’s also my dad’s mortiversary, the 10th anniversary of his death.

As I did ten years ago, I turned to baking. In anticipation of our upcoming tree-trimming party, and a hoped-for cookie-decorating side activity, I chose a rolling cookie recipe from King Arthur Flour. Since I’m unfamiliar with this type of cookie, I stayed as close as I could to the original recipe.

I consider these a qualified success. There are some improvements I can make, mostly about technique. I’m happy with the basic recipe.

Ingredients

Confectioners’ sugar, 1-1/4 cups / 5-1/2 ounces (Their recipe gives 5 oz as the weight equivalent, but this is what my scale came up with)
Unsalted (“sweet”) butter, 18 tablespoons = 1 cup + 2 tablespoons, room temperature (I neglected to let mine come to room temperature, but with an electric mixer, it whipped up just fine, anyway)
Yolk of 1 large egg (reserve the white to brush the cookies and add decorative sugar before baking)
Salt, 1/2 teaspoon (I usually omit salt from my baking, but this was my first time with this recipe. The “Tips” section of their recipe suggests using 1 teaspoon when using unsalted butter. It wasn’t necessary.)
Flavoring:

Vanilla extract, 2-1/2 teaspoons
Lemon oil, 1/4 teaspoon
(I started with 2 teaspoons of vanilla. a taste test indicated it needed more assertive flavor, and a little something more than vanilla.)
(The original recipe calls for 1/4 teaspoon of Fiori di Sicilia. I’ve never used that; I’ve only ever seen it in their recipes.)

White whole wheat flour, 2-3/4 cups / 11-1/2 ounces (The original recipe calls for unbleached all-purpose flour)

Directions

Whip the butter until it’s smooth and starts peaking. (If your butter is still cold, as mine was, slice it into small ~1/2T pats first.)
Gradually stir in the confectioner’s sugar. Once combined, whip some more at high speed. (If you add all the sugar at once, you’ll get a cloud of sugar. I used a pouring shield to add it while the mixer was on slow speed and keep dust down.)
Separate one large egg. Add only the egg yolk to the batter. Beat it in until the batter is smooth. Keep the white refrigerated for the cookie-making.
Mix in your flavorings of choice.
Add the flour, mixing at slow-medium speeds until just smooth. If the dough is sticky to the touch, add a small amount of flour to adjust the texture. (Their recipe notes: “The mixture will seem dry at first, but will suddenly come together. If it doesn’t, dribble in a tablespoon of water.” This wasn’t a problem for my first time.)
Remove the dough from the bowl. Wrap and chill the dough for at least 2 hours, or overnight.

Preparation and Baking

Our kitchen is tiny, with no counter space. (Seriously: attentive readers may notice that the “counters” in the photos are the side-drain of our sink and the space between the burners on our stove.) Since I was doing this as a tech rehearsal for a party activity, I used our dining room table as the surface for setup and rolling. I rolled the dough out directly onto parchment paper for cutting and pre-decorating, then lifted the parchment directly onto the baking sheet.

“When you’re ready to bake, remove the dough from the refrigerator, and let it soften for about 20 to 30 minutes, until it feels soft enough to roll. It should still feel cold, but shouldn’t feel rock-hard.”
“Sprinkle your rolling surface with flour, and flour your rolling pin. Working with one piece of dough at a time, roll it 1/8″ to 3/16″ thick.”

Notes: I found rolling the dough evenly to be difficult. This resulted in uneven baking, both among the cookies, and even across the surface of larger cookies.

The thicker cookies baked more evenly, and had a nicer “tooth” to them. The thinner cookies ended up more like crackers. I want to invest in some rolling pin rings to eliminate this variation, and get more professional looking cookies. With rolling pin rings, I can do some more precise experimentation with different thicknesses. I think 1/4″ cookies will end up being my favorite.
Use a cookie cutter to cut shapes. Collect the trimmed dough for re-rolling. They won’t spread much in the oven, but leave 1/2″ between them so they don’t butt up against, or into, each other. (Most of the cookies I cut out in these photos were too close together. Lesson learned!
Optional Pre-bake Decoration: Mix 1 teaspoon of water into the egg white you reserved earlier. Brush cookies lightly with with the white-water mixture. Cover the cookies with coarse or colored sugars, edible glitter, etc. (I tried some peppermint crumble, but it wasn’t designed for baking; it all melted.)
Bake the cookies in a preheated 350°F oven for 12 to 14 minutes, until they’re set and barely browned around the edges.
Remove the cookies from the oven, and cool right on the pan. If you’ve used parchment, you can lift cookies and parchment off the pan, so you can continue to use the pan as the cookies cool.
Repeat with the remaining piece of dough, rolling, cutting, and baking cookies.

Links

Original recipe: King Arthur Flour

Extinct Plants of northern North America 2018

Posted on 2018-11-30 by admin

I’m limiting this list to northern North America for two reasons:

Restricting this list geographically is in keeping with my specialization in plants native to northeastern North America.
There are many more tropical plants, and plant extinctions, than I can manage; for example, Cuba alone has lost more plant species than I’ve listed on this blog post.

If you have additions to this list, please let me know, and provide a link which I can research.

Astilbe crenatiloba, Roan Mountain false goat’s beard, Roan Mountain, Tennessee, 1885
Narthecium montanum, Appalachian Yellow Asphodel, East Flat Rock Bog, Henderson County, North Carolina, before 2004?
Neomacounia nitida, Macoun’s shining moss, Belleville, Ontario, 1864
Orbexilum macrophyllum, bigleaf scurfpea, Polk County, North Carolina, 1899
Orbexilum stipulatum, large-stipule leather-root, Falls-of-the-Ohio scurfpea, Rock Island, Falls of the Ohio, KY, 1881
Thismia americana, banded trinity, Lake Calumet, IL, 1916

Extinct in the wild (IUCN Red List code EW)

Franklinia alatamaha, Franklin Tree

Extinct versus Extirpated

I often come across misuse of the word “extinct,” as in: native plant extinct in New York City.

“Extinct” means globally extinct. No living specimens exist anywhere in the world, not even in cultivation.
“Extirpated” means locally extinct, while the species persists in other populations outside of the study area. To correct the above example: extirpated in New York City. Any regional Flora lists many extirpated species.

When a species is known only from one original or remaining population, as those listed above were, loss of that population means extinction for the species. In this case, extirpation and extinction are the same thing.

Another category is “extinct in the wild,” when the species still exists under cultivation, like an animal in a zoo. A famous example of this is Franklinia alatamaha.

Links

Wikipedia: List of extinct plants: Americas
IUCN Red List: List of species extinct in the wild
The Sixth Extinction: Recent Plant Extinctions
Extinct and Extirpated Plants from Oregon (PDF, 5 pp)

Plant Blindness and Urban Ecology

Posted on 2018-08-19 by admin

A small patch of biodiversity – i.e.: weeds – from my driveway.

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal has people talking about it, e.g.: on the Twitter. The term “plant blindness” has been in use for a while, especially among those of us intensely interested in the subject of plants, from gardeners to botanists.

“Apps” and Social Media

I’ve seen folks get more interested in plants when they can reduce, or eliminate, the risk of being shamed by others for ignorance. (Which is nothing to be ashamed of, nor to shame others for. We all start out ignorant. Choosing to remain so, on the other hand …)

I’ve been on BugGuide for a decade. This is an expert-curated Web site where you can upload observations of any insect – and many other arthropods – seen in Canada and the continental United States. I’ve learned a tremendous amount from the experts there, both professional and “amateur”, and continue to do so. However, it is curated; I’ve had many of my photos “Frass”‘d – trashed – because they did not meet someone’s standards for image quality. (“Frass” is caterpillar excrement.) So I can’t rely on BugGuide as a record of my observations, even for insects. Even so, I’ve often wished for the equivalent for plant identification.

The widespread availability of handheld computers with visual processing capabilities – i.e. “smart” phones with cameras and displays – has given rise to applications such as PlantSnap to help people ID plant “on their own”, without having to ask others for help. I’ve not been impressed with the accuracy of such apps. And better alternatives are available.

The rise of iNaturalist has been astonishing, and refreshing. Anyone can upload any observation of any living organism anywhere in the world. The technology behind iNaturalist is also a decade ahead of BugGuide. Geotagging and labels are automatically picked up, you can explore observations by region or place, or even just be exploring a map.

Anyone can assist in identification. This community aspect raises it up to the level of social media. I know a lot of conventional garden plants; I can help those who don’t know a Rhododendron from a Hydrangea by identifying their observations. I may even be able to go back to the same plant to confirm what it is, using the geolocation. In this way, I’ve made more identifications of others’ observations, than observations of my own.

Countering Plant Blindness in Urban Settings

When I’m sharing my knowledge, informally or formally, I find that people welcome the opportunity to learn new ways of seeing. It could be discovering that there are different kinds of bees, or that an asteraceous “flower” like a daisy or sunflower is not a single bloom, but hundreds of flowers. I’ve yet to come across someone who wasn’t excited to learn something new about living things that have been there all the time, right around them, where they live, not in some distant, inaccessible “preserve”.

We’ve had an unusually rainy year. The first half of this August gave us twice as much rain as the average month. A good time for the weeds; not so much for the gardeners.

I’ve been joking that the weeds are so out of control that I should do a “Bio-Blitz” of my own driveway. And why not?! Let’s get started.

Here is a small section, maybe 10 square feet in total, of the broken up concrete we call a driveway. How many different plants can you find in this photo? (Don’t worry, we’ll get some closer looks.) If, at first, your eyes glaze over and just see green, let’s practice. Are there any differences among all that green?

Is it all green? I see some yellow and brownish spots (aside from the leaves) in there.
Even among the green, is it all the same shade of green? Some is lighter, some darker. Maybe some has more yellow in it.
How about texture? Some seems coarse, some seems fine. Maybe those are different leaves, warranting closer inspection.

Instead of looking down, let’s look from the side. Now we can see there are many different heights and shapes of the plants themselves (and more evidence of an inattentive Gardener). The field of green starts to distinguish itself into groups of vegetation, even individual plants.

Let’s start to look at some groups. Let’s call them A, B, and C.

Group A: How many different kinds of plants can you see in this photo?

Group B: How about this one?

Group C: Feeling confident? Let’s go back to the photo at the top of this post. How many different plant species are in this small patch, no more than two or three square feet in area?

My answers:
A: 2 (maybe 3): crab grass, and Euphorbia (might be two different species)
B: 3, at least: The above two, plus Oxalis stricta, a native weed.
C: 7, at least: The crab grass and Euphorbia, plus Viola sororia, a foxtail grass, horseweed, and two I’m going to iNaturalist to ID to species: an Acalypha, copperleaf, and the one with pretty little yellow flowers (seems like a Sonchus, a sow-thistle, but the flowers don’t look right).

Now, I’m still a native plant gardener, and it is a driveway, not a garden bed. Once I’m done with my IDs, I’ll pull all the weeds. But knowing which weeds are native, and which are not, I can “edit” my weeds more selectively elsewhere in the garden, leaving the natives to pop up where they like, and reducing the competition from the non-native species. Thread by thread, I can weave ecological associations back into the landscape, even if it’s just a few square feet at a time.

Links

Rhododendron? Hydrangea? America Doesn’t Know Anymore, Douglas Belkin, Wall Street Journal, 2018-08-14 (PAYWALLED)

NPILC 2018 – Speaker Notes and Handout

Posted on 2018-06-17 by admin

2018-06-23: Updated with more links.

Following is the outline, speaker notes, and references of my talk at this year’s Native Plants in the Landscape Conference. This was to have been published as a speaker handout for attendees, but it never made it to the conference Web site. So I’m publishing it here.

This isn’t intended to stand alone. This post has many links to my blog posts and photos for further reading and viewing. And the presentation itself is available on Slideshare.

About Me

My New York City Gardens

1981-1992: East Village, Manhattan
Lesson: Buildings -> Shade
1992-2002: Park Slope, Brooklyn
Lesson: Concrete -> Containers
2002-2005: Park Slope
Lesson: Weeds and Invasives
2005 to Present: Flatbush, Brooklyn
Lessons: all of the above

Genius Loci

Geography is Destiny

Long Island

PLACE: Long Island Geography > NYC Eco-Regions > Flatbush

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_Long_Island

NASA Landsat satellite global mosaic image of Long Island, New York

URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Long_Island_Landsat_Mosaic.jpg

Long Island

Wisconsin Glaciation: ~21K years ago

Bennington, J Bret, 2003. New observations on the glacial geomorphology of Long Island from a digital elevation model (DEM). Long Island Geologists Conference, Stony Brook, New York, April 2003.

• Rpm: Roanoke Point Moraine – North Fork
• Rm: Ronkonkoma Moraine – South Fork
• HHm: Harbor Hill Moraine – North Shore, into Brooklyn and Staten Island
• Kd: Kame Deltas

Central Brooklyn

The Wooded Plain

“Flatbush”: Anglicization of old Dutch:
• “vlachtebos” (vlacke bos, vladbos, flakkebos)
Land use History:
• Home of Lenape and Canarsie. https://native-land.ca/
• Dutch “settled” in early 1600s
• Primarily used for agriculture: woodland -> pasture, meadow
• Railways provided access from “the city” (Brooklyn) through “the country” (Flatbush) to beach resorts, e.g.: Coney Island
• 1870s: Prospect Park
• 1880s: Brooklyn Bridge
• One of five townships consolidated into the City of Brooklyn (Kings County) in 1890s.
• Last farms converted to residential in 1890s, early 1900s: pasture/meadow -> savannah
• Excursion railways converted to commuter lines

Ground Truth (My Neighborhood)

My garden is located roughly ½ mile south of Prospect Lake.
Landscape vernacular:
• Mow&Blow
• Green Death

Ecological Regions (EcoRegions)

In these maps, dashed lines are state boundaries.
Bailey (Roman numerals for Levels) v. Omernik/EPA (3-digit #s + letters)
Bailey: Levels I, II, and III

Level I:
8.0 Eastern Temperate Forests
5.0 Northern Forests

Level II:
8.5 Mississippi Alluvial and Southeast USA Coastal Plains
8.3 Southeastern USA Plains
8.1 Mixed Wood Plains

Level III:
8.1.7/59: Northeastern Coastal Zone
8.5.4/84: Atlantic Coastal Pine Barrens
8.3.1/64: Northern Piedmont

Level IV (Omernik)

http://ecologicalregions.info/htm/na_eco.htm
https://www.epa.gov/eco-research/ecoregions
https://www.epa.gov/eco-research/ecoregions-north-america

My Garden

Garden Where You Are
Backyard
Front yard
Biodiversity
2011 Garden Tours:
• NYC Wildflower Week
• Victorian Flatbush House (& Garden!) Tour
URL: http://goo.gl/8LgEN#mygarden

Garden #4

2009: Certificate in Horticulture, Brooklyn Botanic Garden
2011: National Wildlife Federation Wildlife Habitat #141,173
2012: Xerces Society Pollinator Habitat
2017: NABA Butterfly Garden #2348 and Monarch Garden

My Backyard Native Plant Garden

The Front Yard

I replaced most of the remaining front lawn in 2014.

Biodiversity

If you plant it, they will come

Plants

Native Plants
Species Acquisitions – “Plant More”
Can you tell from this chart the first year I attended NPILC?!

Insects in my Garden

Cumulative count of my observations of insects in my garden

Family	Common Name	# Species
Coleoptera	Beetles	19
Diptera	Flies	23
Hemiptera	Bugs	9
Hymenoptera	Bees	27
Hymenoptera	Wasps	26
Lepidoptera	Butterflies, Moths, and Skippers	22
		126

Excludes many other arthropod groups, including other insect families not listed here, spiders, centipedes, millipedes, etc.
1st BugGuide post: 2007! Neotibicen canicularis, dog-day/annual cicada
Joined iNaturalist in 2013, but posted my first observation in 2017

Allium triccocum, ramps

Aquilegia canadensis, red columbine

Limestone
Calcareous
Alvar
Grike

Aristolochia tomentosa, pipevine, Battus philenor, pipevine swallowtail

Coccinella novemnotata, C9

Glossary: Extirpated

Coleomegilla usurps Coccinella as New York State Insect, 2006-06-23
Coccinella novemnotata, nine-spotted lady beetle, aka “C9”, 2016-06-24

Timeline
1970: Coccinella novemnotata (C9) is the most common lady beetle species in the northeastern U.S.
1980: Nominated as New York state insect.
1980s: Begins rapidly declining. Speculation as to causes includes competition with introduced species, but no definitive answers have yet been found.
1982: Last seen in New York state.
1989: Designated NY State Insect, despite being apparently absent for 7 years.
1992: Last seen in the eastern U.S.
2000: The Lost Ladybug Project initiated as a citizen science project.
2006-06-15: Bill 2005-A06247 passes the NY State Assembly to change the state insect from Coccinella novemnotata, extirpated from NY State, to Coleomegilla maculata.
October 2006: C9 re-discovered in Virginia, first time it’s seen on the East Coast since 1992, 14 years.
2011-07-30: C9 rediscovered on Long Island, first time seen in New York since 1982, 29 years.
2016: Lost Ladybug Project launches program to re-introduce captively bred C9

Gardening for Insects

Stop using pesticides in the garden. Not just insecticides, but herbicides, fungicides, etc.
Grow more native plants, and more varieties of them. Many insects feed on plants in their larval stages, e.g.: caterpillars, and can’t feed effectively on plants with which they haven’t co-evolved.
A variety of native plant species also provides more flowers to provide nectar and pollen for adult insects. Choose plants that have clusters of small flowers, which will attract a larger diversity of insects than big, blowsy flowers.
Leave piles of leaf litter, old logs and branches, standing dead stems of plants. These provide shelter for eggs, pupae, and adults.

Colletes thoracicus, cellophane bee

Dioprosopa clavata, four-speckled hoverfly

NEW YORK STATE RECORD
Glossary: Adventive

Heuchera ‘Caramel’

Glossary:
• Native
• Hybrid
• Selection
• Cultivar
• Patent

Plant Patent (PP) #15,560
https://patents.google.com/patent/USPP16560P3/en
Sandrine Delabroye
“The inventor discovered the new cultivar, ‘Caramel’ as a chance seedling in a cultivated nursery bed in Hantay, France, CT in 2003. Although the parentage is unknown, the characteristics of the new cultivar and the proximity of plants of Heuchera villosa ‘Autumn Bride’ (not patented) suggests that ‘Autumn Pride’ is a probable parent.”

Impatiens capensis, orange jewelweed

Volunteers and urban habitats – the “moist meadow”

Oxalis stricta, yellow wood-sorrel

What’s a “weed”?
Other native weeds:
• Acalypha virginica, Virginia Copperleaf, Virginia Threeseed Mercury
• Ageratina altissima, white snakeroot
• Amaranthus retroflexus, Redroot Pigweed (Amaranth)
• Conyza canadensis (Erigeron canadensis), Horseweed
• Erechtites hieraciifolius, American burnweed
• Juncus tenuis, Slender Rush, Path Rush, Poverty Rush
• Lepidium virginicum, Virginia pepperweed, peppergrass
• Lobelia inflata, Indian tobacco, puke weed
• Oxalis stricta, Upright Yellow Wood-Sorrel, Common Yellow Oxalis
• Phytolacca americana, Pokeweed
• Plantago rugelii, blackseed plantain
• Solanum ptycanthum, Eastern Black Nightshade
• Viola sororia, Common Blue Violet

Pycnanthemum muticum, mountain-mint

Pollinator magnet
https://vimeo.com/136679893

Sphecius speciosus, cicada killer

Viburnum dentatum, arrowwood, Pyrrhalta viburni, Viburnum leaf beetle

Yucca filamentosa, Adam’s needle, Carpophilus melanopterus, Yucca beetle

Why Bother?

Living (and Gardening) in the Anthropocene

Population Urbanization
Habitat Loss
Globalization -> Invasive Species, Emergent Diseases
Injustice and Inequity: Environmental, Economic, Social

Climate Change

2018 = 60th anniversary of the Keeling curve
CO2 has increased by 32% IN MY LIFETIME
65 people died in New York state, 44 of them in New York City, 8 in Brooklyn, as a result of Sandy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_Hurricane_Sandy_in_New_York
https://whitneyhess.com/blog/2012/11/05/the-people-who-were-killed-by-hurricane-sandy/

The Sixth Extinction

Extinction Symbol
Lost Species Day of Remembrance: November 30th
Extinct Plant Species of Northern North America

Defiance and Resistance

Links

Native Plants in the Landscape Conference

Bowman’s Hill Wildflower Preserve

NPILC 2018 – Books

Posted on 2018-06-08 by admin

I spoke this year at the Native Plants in the Landscape Conference at Millersville University in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The organizers asked speakers for a list of books we recommend.

This is my list, grouped roughly by category.

Science

Brian Capon, Botany for Gardeners, 3rd Edition
2010, Timber Press
Paperback, ISBN-13 978-1-604690-95-8

Steven B. Carroll and Steve D. Salt, Ecology for Gardeners
2004, Timber Press
Hardcover, ISBN-13 978-0-88192-611-8
Paperback, ISBN-13 978-1-604694-45-1

James B. Nardi, Life in the Soil: A Guide for Naturalists and Gardeners
2007, The University of Chicago Press
Paperback, ISBN-13 978-0-22656853-9

See also: Tallamy, Bringing Nature Home

Plants

Lauren Brown, Grasses: An Identification Guide
1979, Houghton Mifflin Company

Paperback, ISBN 0-395-62881-4

C. Colston Burrell, Native Alternatives to Invasive Plants
2006, Brooklyn Botanic Garden All-Region Guides

Paperback, ISBN-13 978-1-889538-74-7

William Cullina, Growing and Propagating Wildflowers of the United States and Canada
2000, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Hardcover, ISBN-13 978-0-39596609-9

Eric Lee-Mäder, Jarrod Fowler, Jillian Vento, Jennifer Hopwood, 100 Plants to Feed the Bees: Provide a Healthy Habitat to Help Pollinators Thrive
2016, The Xerces Society/Storey Publishing Paperback, ISBN-13 978-1-61212-701-9

Lawrence Newcomb, Newcomb’s Wildflower Guide: The classic field guide for quick identification of wildflowers, flowering shrubs, and vines
1977, Little, Brown and CompanyPaperback, ISBN-13 978-0-316-60442-0

Richard H. Uva, Joseph C. Neal, and Joseph M. DiTomaso, Weeds of the Northeast
1997, Cornell University Press
Hardcover, ISBN-13 978-0-8014-3391-6
Paperback, ISBN-13 978-0-8014-8334-9

Insects

Eric Grissell, Bees, Wasps, and Ants: The Indispensable Role of Hymenoptera in Gardens
2010, Timber Press
Hardcover, ISBN-13 978-0-88192-988-1

Heather Holm, Pollinators of Native Plants: Attract, Observe and Identify Pollinators and Beneficial Insects with Native Plants
2014, Pollination Press
Paperback, ISBN-13 978-0-9913563-0-0

Eric Mader, Matthew Shepherd, Mace Vaughan, Scott Black, and Gretchen LeBuhn, Attracting Native Pollinators
2011, The Xerces Society
Paperback, ISBN-13 978-1-60342695-4

Paul H. Williams, Robbin W. Thorp, Leif L. Richardson, and Sheila R. Colla, Bumblebees of North America: An Identification Guide
2014, Princeton University Press
Paperback, ISBN-13 978-0-69115222-6

The Xerces Society, Gardening for Butterflies
2016, The Xerces Society
Paperback, ISBN-13 978-1-60469598-4

Inspiration

Rick Darke & Doug Tallamy, The Living Landscape: Designing for beauty and biodiversity in the home garden
2014, Timber Press
Hardcover, ISBN-13 978-1-60469-408-6

Kenneth I. Helphand, Defiant Gardens: Making Gardens in Wartime 2006, Trinity University PressHardcover, ISBN-13 978-1-59534-021-4 Paperback, ISBN-13 978-1-59534-045-0

Thomas Rainer and Claudia West, Planting in a Post-Wild World Designing Plant Communities for Resilient Landscapes
2015, Timber Press Hardcover, ISBN-13 978-1-60649-553-3

Douglas W. Tallamy & Rick Darke, Bringing Nature Home: How native plants sustain wildlife in our gardens
Timber Press
Hardcover, 2007, ISBN-13 978-0-88192-854-9

Paperback, 2009, ISBN-13 978-0-88192-992-1

Links

Native Plants in the Landscape Conference

Bowman’s Hill Wildflower Preserve

City Nature Challenge 2018

Posted on 2018-04-29 by admin

The “weedy” remnants of my front lawn, where Viola sororia, common blue violet, has taken charge. Easily overlooked, it seeds itself readily without any help from me (or any other gardener). Yet this species is native to New York City. It’s one of my iNaturalist observations from my garden for this year’s City Nature Challenge.

Today, Sunday, April 29th, is day 3 of the global City Nature Challenge, which continues into tomorrow. Building on the explosive popularity of iNaturalist as a platform for observations, this gamified bioblitz pits cities against each other, to see which can identify more taxa of living species in a 96-hour period.

NYC is currently is 6th place globally, and 4th nationally. There are still plenty of opportunities to join special events organized for New York City, with events in 4 of our 5 boroughs today, and more tomorrow.

I wasn’t able to take part in yesterday’s festivities. This weekend, I have to get my garden ready for this season’s garden tours. Armed with only my phone, I kept an eye out for anything I might see, uncover, or unearth. I was rewarded.

I came up with 16 observations yesterday. In addition to Viola sororia introduced at the top of the post, I observed:

Moss, one species
A weedy Prunus (I think)
Taraxacum officinale, dandelion
Slug, adult and eggs
Cepaea nemoralis, grove snail
Shell of another unknown snail
An earthworm, genus Lumbricus
Spiders, 2 species
Millipedes, maybe 2 species
Centipede
Armadillidium vulgare, Common Pillbug
An unknown fly

And not a vertebrate among them. There were plenty of birds, and the occasional squirrel, in the garden. I wouldn’t have been able to get close enough with my phone to any of them to get a decent photo.

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City Nature Challenge

NYC City Nature Challenge 2018 on iNaturalist

Native Plant Acquisitions, Gowanus Canal Conservancy Plant Sale

Posted on 2018-04-22 by admin

Today I made my way to my first Gowanus Canal Conservancy Native Plant Sale. Today is Earth Day 2018, and today’s sale was held at their nursery location, the Salt Lot where Second Avenue ends at the Gowanus Canal. They have two more sales this season. The next, on May 19th, conflicts with the NYC Wildflower Week tour of my garden.

A wide range of species are listed are available on their nursery page. Not all of them are still in stock. In compensation, they had other unlisted species available at today’s plant sale.

I used their published list of species to make a shopping list, always a good idea when heading out to plant sales. I cross-checked their list for species that 1) I didn’t already have, and 2) were native to New York City. Since they list the Greenbelt Native Plant Center as a partner, I suspected many of their species would be NYC-local ecotypes. I made a few exceptions for cases where I have the species, but not a NYC-local ecotype, e.g.: Solidago sempervirens, seaside goldenrod.

I had the chance to speak with a few of their staff and volunteers, including Diana Gruberg, their Horticultural Manager for the whole operation. I was pleased when she confirmed that some 90% of their species originated with Greenbelt. They are now successfully propagating many of these species themselves, both vegetatively and from seed.

Today’s acquisitions, listed alphabetically by botanical name:

Carex albicans, white-tinged sedge
Carex comosa, bristly sedge
Euthamia graminifolia, common flat-topped goldenrod
Juncus greenei, Greene’s rush
Monarda fistulosa, bee-balm
Oenothera biennis, common evening primrose
Quercus bicolor, swamp white oak
Schizachyrium littorale, dune blue-stem
Solidago sempervirens, seaside goldenrod, N YC-local ecotype
Symphyotrichum ericoides. heath aster
Veronicastrum virginicum, Culver’s root

I confirmed with Diana that the seaside goldenrod was propagated from a Greenbelt collection, so it’s a local ecotype. I don’t know for sure which of the others also are. Odds are good that it’s most, if not all, of them.

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Gowanus Canal Conservancy

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Preparation and Baking

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Allium triccocum, ramps

Aquilegia canadensis, red columbine

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Coccinella novemnotata, C9

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Colletes thoracicus, cellophane bee

Dioprosopa clavata, four-speckled hoverfly

Heuchera ‘Caramel’

Impatiens capensis, orange jewelweed

Oxalis stricta, yellow wood-sorrel

Pycnanthemum muticum, mountain-mint

Sphecius speciosus, cicada killer

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