By Geri Williams

Now is the time to start planning your home landscape, check out the seed catalogues for ideas, and start some seeds. Observe the sun as it passes over your yard to see where you have full sun, at least 5-6 hours of sun in summer, only morning or afternoon sun, or mostly shade. Each plant has specific requirements for sun and moisture. Some also need good drainage, which is not a problem in our sandy soil. Others are less fussy and much more tolerant of poor, dry soil. You can enrich your soil with compost, building it up, so it will retain moisture and provide more nutrients without chemical fertilizers. I spread about an inch of compost over all my flower, fruit and vegetable beds each spring. I mix in more compost when we dig up lawn and start new beds. When we moved to our home in Plymouth and started gardening, I had mostly sand, very little topsoil. Now I have at least 4 inches of rich soil and am able to grow lush gardens without chemical fertilizer, pesticides, or mulch.

To attract and support pollinators, a succession of blooms is an absolute necessity in any landscape. From early spring through late fall, each pollinator species looks for different types of flowers. They need many flowers, and of the right type, so diversity and quantity are big factors.

We gardeners are not just cultivating flowers, we’re cultivating habitat!

In trying to make my yard a better habitat for birds and pollinators, I have increasingly been looking for and planting more native plants. I still have many non-native plants such as iris, daylilies, various flowering bulbs, azaleas, rhododendrons, and flowering annuals because I love their flowers and they do seem to attract many pollinators. Together with the many native flowers, shrubs, and trees, they provide nearly continuous blooms from spring through fall.

Solomon’s Seal

Some of my favorite spring blooming natives are dwarf bleeding heart (Dicentra exima), and celadine or woodland poppy (Stylophorum diphyllum), along with the tall, elegant Solomon’s Seal (Polygonatum biflorum). Catmint (Nepeta), with its profusion of blue purple flower stalks, starts blooming in spring and continues all summer if you cut off the spent flowers. A little later, the evening primrose (Onethera) adds its sunny yellow blooms, along with the coral bells (Heuchers sanguinea) whose delicate stalks of small bells bloom for an extended period. Soon the pink and fuchsia bee balms (Monarda) bloom and attract many pollinators and the occasional hummingbird. But the Cardinal Flower (Lobelia cardinalis), the native plant that the hummers really love, blooms later in the summer with vivid stalks of many small red flowers. The big flower heads in shades of pink and white of the tall garden phlox (Phlox paniculata) often bloom from late July into August along with the pale pink spikes of obedient plant (Physostegia virginiana).

The 4-6 foot tall Joe Pye Weed (Eupatorium purpureum) with its massive pink flower heads is a magnet for all sorts of pollinators. In late summer into fall the black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia fulgida and hirta) provide vivid patches of bright yellow.

For the Monarch butterflies I have a boxed-in area of common milkweed (which still escapes into the lawn, but is controlled by mowing) and I cut off the seed pods before they open to prevent them from spreading everywhere. In a flower border, I have some white and pink swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnate) that is better behaved, but still used by the Monarchs.

Fothergilla

In spring, my blueberry bushes are covered with sweet white blossoms and many bees. Later, the raspberry and blackberry flowers provide lots of nectar and pollen. We enjoy all the berries and so do the birds. The fothergilla bush is covered with small bottlebrush-shaped flowers in late spring and is swarming with pollinators as well. I recently planted winterberry shrubs and their bright red berries feed the birds into the winter.

When I first started gardening in Plymouth, I planted butterfly bushes which grew quickly and were beautiful. They seemed to attract butterflies, but I have since learned that they are only used by one caterpillar species in North America, so they do not really feed butterfly caterpillars. They are now considered a non-native, invasive species that spreads easily, so I no longer plant them.

Be on the lookout for other invasive plants. They usually sprout or green up earlier than our native plants. You want to get rid of them as soon as you can. Japanese knotweed can grow extremely fast and develops an extensive root system, making it difficult to eradicate. You may have to cut it down several times over the growing season weakening it each time. Oriental bittersweet will cover desirable shrubs and climb up trees, starving them for light and moisture. Pull up any vines that come up easily and cut off the more difficult ones above ground. They will die and the vine will deteriorate and drop out of the tree.

Cardinal Flower

Garlic mustard grows quickly in the spring to 1 to 1-1/2 feet tall.  Its flowers are white umbrels, about an inch across, that produce hundreds of seeds. This plant will spread and choke out desirable plants. Fortunately, it is easy to pull out; just make sure you remove it before it goes to seed.

If you left the leaves and dead flower stalks in your flower beds last fall, wait until April when we have had several days above 50 degrees to clean up. That allows the caterpillars and other insects, toads, and turtles that have been wintering there to safely emerge.

You should start seeds for annuals such as zinnias, marigolds, cosmos, and alyssum indoors now. Wet the seed starting mix well before planting your seeds. I use the clear plastic boxes (baby spinach and lettuce containers) like small green houses. They retain the heat and moisture. I take the lid off and move them to good light after they have their first true leaves. You don’t have to buy an expensive Grow Lux light; you can use a cheap fluorescent box light. Start with the light source just a few inches above the plants, then move it up as the plants grow.

Happy gardening and enjoy the butterflies and birds in the beautiful habitat you’ve created!