The Value of Native Plants for Wildlife

Tallahassee Democrat 8/19/10

In Tallahassee, we have many fine non-native plants to use in our landscapes – camellia, azalea, crape myrtle all come to mind. The claims that native plants are easier to grow and require less water sometimes do not hold up.

For me, the main reason to choose native plants in the landscape is to promote the unique relationships between our native plants and animals, from the smallest microorganisms, insects and other invertebrates to birds and mammals. Simply put – what you plant in your yard makes a difference to wildlife. There are unique evolutionary relationships between native plants and wildlife that have developed over a very long time. Here are a few examples.

Red buckeye blooms in mid to late March, just in time for the return of ruby-throated hummingbirds from Central America. The hummingbirds drink nectar from red tubular flowers and, in return, provide pollination services for this native tree whose nuts are food for other wildlife.

Sweetgum trees have close relationships with several animals. When American goldfinch arrive in late fall or winter, they can be seen and heard high in sweetgum trees clinging to the prickly balls feasting on abundant sweetgum seeds. Many of our resident birds, like the Carolina chickadee, also depend on the seeds of sweetgum.

As valuable as seeds and fruit are to wildlife, native plants serve an even more important function. Native plants, from grasses and wildflowers to towering shade trees, form the base of the food chain. Our native insects are uniquely adapted to eat native plants; some are generalists and can eat a variety of plants, but many are specialists that can only digest certain types of leaves based on the chemistry of the plant. For instance, the luna moth would not be with us without the sweetgum tree and a few other native hardwood trees. Each female luna moth may lay 150 eggs, which then become 150 highly nutritious caterpillars, feeding chickadees, vireos, spiders and more. These in turn may be eaten by a snake, hawk or other predator. It is estimated that of the 150, only 2 or 3 survive to mate and lay eggs.

Most of our butterflies and moths depend on native plants, not just for nectar, but for sustenance while in the larval stage as caterpillars. For instance, spicebush swallowtails depend on sassafras, giant swallowtails on hoptrees and Gulf fritillaries on passion vine. Without their native food plants, these butterflies would cease to exist.

To make our yard more hospitable to wildlife, our goal each year is to increase the percentage of native plants. Over the last 18 years, we have transformed our front yard from a mediocre monoculture of lawn to a shady native oasis beneath a huge live oak on one side and a wildflower/butterfly garden on the sunny side. Judicious use of nectar rich non-natives like pentas, perennial salvias, Mexican sunflower and cardinal guard extend the blooming season of our butterfly/hummingbird garden and mix nicely with the native purple coneflower, ironweed, heliopsis, sunflower and other wildflowers.

We’ll always have room for a few azaleas, camellias and hydrangeas among the natives, but native plants provide the staff of life for wildlife. For further reading, I recommend Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants by Douglas Tallamy.

Dawn Chorus

The Natural Garden, Eastside Chronicle, Tallahassee Democrat 3/26/07

Early one March morning our daughter woke us saying that a bird outside her window had woken her calling, “Feodore, feodore, wick, wick, wick feodore”. Feodore, as she took to calling this bird, was a cardinal calling from the bushes outside her window announcing his breeding territory or trying to attract a mate. He and other cardinals begin an early morning chorus while it is still dark, with other species joining in towards the approaching light of dawn. In my yard the brown thrasher joins in shortly after the cardinal.

This early morning singing by birds is hardly unique to our area. It even has an official name – the dawn chorus, which occurs when songbirds sing at the start of a new day leading up to breeding. In checking the internet, I found that there is an International Dawn Chorus Day, especially active in England, this year to be held on May 6. This is a little late for us, spring having arrived in mid March.

It is amazing to imagine this chorus of song that, in North America, begins at the shores of the Atlantic Ocean and sweeps across the continent as a wave of bird songs as dawn progresses. One of the best ways to enjoy the dawn chorus is to go for a walk half an hour before dawn. If you go by yourself, you will be more observant of the sounds around you. I walk regularly at this time of day. Last week (week of March 19th) I jotted down the times of the chorus:

6:40 am – voice of the first cardinal in our yard

7:00 am – chorus beginning to build (still dark out)

7:15 am – pale light of dawn, dawn chorus peaking to a crescendo

8:00 am – down to individual voices here and there

Each day dawn gets earlier and earlier so you will need to adjust the time you walk to correspond with dawn.

On my walks I try to identify the voices of individual birds. I usually can distinguish Carolina chickadee, Carolina wren, tufted titmouse, perhaps a mockingbird, along with the cardinals and brown thrashers already mentioned as the leading singers. This morning I heard a rufous-sided towhee. Blue jays usually chime in late (I guess they like to sleep in). I am sure there are many other species singing – I just can’t distinguish their calls in the chorus. The cardinal can confuse you; besides his “feodore” call, he has several other interesting calls.

The quality of the dawn song is related to the quality of habitat that we create in our yards and parks in a neighborhood. Birds, like all wildlife, must have trees and shrubs that provide food and cover, places to make nests and raise their young, thickets for protection from predators and sources of water. What you plant in your yard will ultimately affect the dawn chorus of Tallahassee. I encourage all of you to experience this early spring dawn chorus by going out for an early morning walk by yourself or with a friend and listen as you walk!

Making Preserves Can be a Fun Family Project

Tallahassee Democrat, Thanksgiving Day 2009

My earliest memory of picking berries, at about the age of 6, is of a blueberry patch on a hot summer day near Woodville. I enjoyed the experience immensely. But for some reason, I wasn’t allowed to go on the next weekend trip to pick berries. Maybe it was because I had complained about the yellow flies, horse flies or redbugs. Or maybe it was because of the tick that had to be removed from a location I would rather not discuss. It was removed using the hot cigarette method, designed to make the tick think there was a forest fire and that he should back out of his own accord. Anyway, desperately wanting to go on the return berry-picking trip, I ran down Alachua Avenue after my parent’s DeSoto bawling. I guess I loved to pick berries, blue and black.

As a senior in college, I sometimes found picking blackberries at UF’s experimental forest to be more fun than studying. That same year was the first time I made jelly, from elderberries picked along US-19 near Perry.

Two years ago the mulberry trees at McCord Park in Betton Hills had an abundance of fruit. My college-age daughter and I went daily to pick as the fruit ripened, carrying a step ladder to reach the high fruit. I think the tall weeds under the trees kept neighbors fearful of snakes and away from “my” tree, and that was a good thing. We ended up with three batches of mulberry preserves, about 21 half-pint jars. Delicious! This year, however, these trees offered nothing. I’ll be watching next summer.

Mulberry, blackberry and blueberry are great for making preserves because there is no preparation of the fruit. Just cook add sugar and stir. I follow the recipe on the Sure-jell package. This summer my son and I spent a nice afternoon together washing jars and lids, smelling blueberries cooking, sealing them tightly and then boxing some up to send to his lonely sister in northern Minnesota.

Chickasaw plum also makes delicious preserves, though it is a tedious process to get the pit out of the small ½- to ¾-inch fruit. There is a row of Chickasaw plum trees on Centerville Road between Capital Circle and Potts Road that were loaded with fruit this summer. I saw a family picking them, but I didn’t pick there because of a concern about pollution in the fruit from car fumes. I guess that worries me more than snakes. We planted a Chickasaw plum in our yard; some years are banner years and others we get very little fruit.

The other fruits I like to use are muscadine grapes picked at Monticello Vineyards and kumquats from my own tree. Like the Chickasaw plums, these involve an hour or so of time to pick out seeds. If you make grape jelly you won’t have to pick out seeds since you merely strain all solids, but I prefer preserves with chunks of fruit. You probably can’t convince your teenage kids to pick seeds for you, but if you do the prep work, I bet they would like to see and smell the simple process of making homemade preserves. It is a basic lesson in where our food really comes from.

Anyone of any age would like to pull a jar of blueberry preserves out of the pantry in January to savor the sweet tastes of the summer past. For me there is no better Christmas gift than homemade preserves, except maybe my son’s chocolate truffles!