NWF Backyard Wildlife Habitat

Why not display your sign?

I've had my sign for quite awhile, but it graces an edge of my (inside) study in the Piedmont.

I saw this sign, prominently displayed on a mailbox) on a garden tour today (this garden wasn't on the tour).  But, it had me thinking about it.

The National Wildlife Federation's Backyard Wildlife Program (based here in the U.S.) is a long-running program, and it's evolved into quite a nice one -- encouraging native plants to support native wildlife (unlike in the earlier years of their campaign).

It's a bit of a gimmick, certainly; you as the homeowner go down a checklist about your garden, pay something for the sign, and bingo, you're a certified wildlife habitat.  But it's encouraging, too, so I'm supportive of their efforts --  they've tried to go beyond yards to neighborhoods and communities (college campuses, too).  These are all good things!

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Pollinator WeeK: June 18 --24

A tiger swallowtail on goldenrod in a
natural meadow.

The US Senate unanimously approved the motion to designate the last week in June as pollinator week. Who says the Senate can't agree on anything? In the past five years the pollinator week celebration has become an international event. This year it's June 18--24.

Much of the focus of pollinator week is on our food supply.  Every third bite of food we eat depends upon pollinators. But since 2006, the colony collapse disorder of the European honeybees has alarmed the beekeeping experts. Honeybees have been used as pollinators for hire. Beekeepers move their hives into an area where a large crop (often a monoculture) awaits pollinators in order for fruit to be formed. For example, a female squash flower, needs to be visited eight to ten times by bees or wasps that have also visited the male flowers for a fruit to form.

The Pollinator Partnership is the sponsoring agency for the pollinator week. They encourage you to "Invite pollinators to your neighborhood by planting a pollinator friendly habitat in your garden, farm, school, park or just about anywhere!" They provide many resources including posters of pollinators and guidelines and suggested plants to use in your landscape. Note: these are quite broad and most of Florida is included in the Outer Coastal Plain Mixed Forest Province, (an 11 MB pdf file) with a range from the Mid-Atlantic states to eastern Texas. You'll have the most success if you also use more local resources for native plants suggestions such as the FNPS website: www.fnps.org.

A carpenter bee on a native passionvine. The passionvine (Passiflora incarnata) supplies nectar and also larval food for several butterflies. To purchase some for your yard see: FANN website for sources.

Read more of this post over on the Florida Native Plant Society blog...

Green gardening matters,
Ginny Stibolt

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A fledgling robin

A couple of robins near the feeders caught my attention late this afternoon.  They were hopping around in an unusual fashion.

It turned out that they were mom and older fledgling.  She would do a bit of foraging and then return to her offspring, who was complete with the lovely spotted breast of older fledglings.

A mama robin and fledgling

They were fun to watch, although I didn't manage to get a decent photo of the youngster's spotted chest!

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Productive raised beds

mid-June, 2012, WNC

My raised beds in the mountains have been amazing.  Filled with commercial compost, topped up with bags of mushroom compost, and enriched with Espoma organic slow-release fertilizer, they've continued to produce. This spring, it was greens, snow peas, sugar snap peas, and lettuce.  I'm harvesting beets and leeks now, along with greens (uh, you see that Tuscan kale plant in the center of the photograph!)

raised beds in the mountains

 But tomatoes are coming along nicely, along with squash plants and beans.  Soon, there will be a switch in our 'local food' diet.  It'll be welcome, too.

sunset from the front door

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Business Advice that's Bad for the Birds

Washington Post business article is off base.

In yesterday's Washington Post business section, "Value Added: Mosquito-control business scratches this entrepreneur’s itch" describes a $300,000 business which is a franchise of the mosquito squad and the owner is a full time firefighter.

This article is wrong on several points in my opinion, but the one concerning green gardening is that the business is one that damages the environment.

General pesticides kill both the good and bad the bugs, which creates an imbalance in the ecosystem--the predators are left without any prey and so they either move away or don't survive. As the bugs recover, Mother Nature's natural predators including birds, bats, and predatory insects such as ladybugs and praying mantids are gone, so the homeowner poisons again and again. Each time the bad bugs come back in greater numbers and some even build up immunity to that poison. It's called the poison cycle.

The author of this article states at the beginning that he is jealous of this parttime businessman, but at the end of the article he hints at the problems he's caused.

The “product” — the franchisees refrain from using the term “pesticide” — paralyzes and kills the insects.

Usually when I get up in the morning, the birds are all over my front and back lawns, feeding on bugs and the millions of other things living in my neighborhood.

But on Friday, the day after Mosquito Squad sprayed, there wasn’t a bug in sight.

For more details on this vicious poison cycle read: "Just say NO to poisons" or "A poison is a poison is a poison." Plus, in "Sustainable Gardening for Florida," I spend a whole chapter on integrated pest management with details on how to manage pest bugs without poisons.

The Audubon Society estimates that some of our songbird populations have shrunk by 80% since the 1960s. That's a lot of birds and there are additional potential reasons for their demise in addition to residential poison applications: loss of habitat and roaming cats.

Green gardeners can help the birds by:
- not using general pesticides on their properties.
- creating habitat on their properties and in their neighborhoods.
- keeping cats inside and reducing feral cat populations.
- spreading the word.

For more information, see the Resources page.

Green gardening matters,Ginny

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Moving Away from Transplanted Gardener

Back in 2004 when my husband and I moved to northeast Florida, the gardening here was weird for me. Even though I have a masters degreee in Botany and have gardened all my life, almost everything I knew about gardening did not apply. So I started a gardener's log of what I learned and shared it on a website (www.TransplantedGardener.com) and various other media.

I took photos, wrote more than 80 articles, recorded more than 100 podcasts, and now I've written two Florida gardening books for University Press of Florida. The first book Sustainable Gardening for Florida was published in 2009 and has done quite well. The second book, "Organic Methods for Vegetable Gardening in Florida," which I wrote with Melissa Contreras from Miami, will be released in Feb. 2013.

In addition, I've become active in the Florida Native Plant Society, The Lawn Reform Coalition and Native Plants and Wildlife Gardens blog. I've spoken to many groups including master gardeners, garden clubs, FNPS chapters, and Sierra Club chapters. Plus, I've attended gardenfests all over our beautiful state, sometimes as a speaker and sometimes as a vendor.

So now, after eight years of Florida living, it's time to move away from the old Transplanted Gardener moniker and to this new Green Gardening Matters blog. I'll continue to share what I learn out in the garden, but I'll also cover current events and open discussions on other green gardening matters, especially here in Florida.

I hope you enjoy this new blog. Email me at garden@sky-bolt.com with questions and suggestions.

I practice green gardening. Do you?

Thanks for reading.

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Update to the yard

So here is the new front yard. I really like the twin centinal boxwood planters, they add a lot of elegance to the front walkway. Before the box woods there was only one pot on the right hand side and while it didn't look bad, this looks way better. Plus it was all super cheap. The boxwoods were on sale for $15 each, the pots were free from another job, and the soil was from last year. So really, this only cost me $30 total. Woot woot

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