Woodland Wildflowers for Native Pollinators

The sweet smell of rue anemone may help attract pollinators, such as queen bumble bees emerging from hibernation. Photo by Elizabeth Georges.

The delicate blossoms of woodland wildflowers are often the first splashes of color after our mild winters in Tallahassee. Woodland wildflowers, some known as spring ephemerals, thrive on the floor of rich, undisturbed woodlands and are a welcome sight for early-emerging pollinators at a time when nectar and pollen sources are scarce.

Woodland wildflowers are a welcome sight for early-emerging pollinators at a time when nectar and pollen sources are scarce. Photo by Elizabeth Georges.

These plants have a small window of sunshine between frost and leaf-out to emerge, flower, become pollinated, and produce seed. Once trees develop leaves and shade the ground for the remainder of the season, ephemerals will go to seed and fade into the background until the following year.

We don’t often associate woodland plants with pollinators because they flower in the shade where their pollinators go unnoticed. Pollination among most deciduous forests is primarily accomplished by the insect orders Hymenoptera (native bees and solitary wasps), Coleoptera (beetles), and Diptera (syrphid flies). Woodland wildflowers compete for these pollinators by offering nectar and pollen rewards using various shapes, colors, smells, and staggering bloom times.

Some spring ephemerals have a musty scent, such as trillium, that attract beetles and flies for pollination. Photo by Elizabeth Georges.

Some flowers shift towards the sun to attract bees and butterflies, while others orient their flowers near the ground to allure less gregarious insects, like beetles, ants, flies, or tiny ground-nesting bees. Some plants take this evolution strategy further by producing foliage that shelters their own flowers from the sun of the increasingly longer days of springtime. Perhaps they also do this to provide a protective area for pollinators to safely scout out their flowers.

Smell may also play a role in attracting pollinators. Many of the plant species that are pollinated by bees have a sweet odor such as phlox, rue anemone, and wild violets. These plants are important sources of food for hungry queen bumble bees as they emerge after a long hibernation through the winter. Other spring ephemerals have a musty scent like jack-in-the-pulpit, wild ginger, and trillium that attract a different group of pollinators like beetles and flies.

Every February into March, I am swept off my feet by the graceful multiplying appearance of delicate wildflowers occurring throughout the woodland beds at Native Nurseries. Masses of bright violet-blue phlox, yellow trout lilies, mysterious trillium, bursts of columbine, and the subtle glows of rue anemone and bloodroot have re-seeded and established themselves over the years.

Bursts of colombine blossoms appear in late winter and early spring in the woodland beds at Native Nurseries. Photo by Elizabeth Georges.

Not only do woodland wildflowers add a beautiful burst of early-season color to your yard, they provide critical early nectar for our native pollinators. Even if you have a shady, wooded landscape, you can still help pollinators by selecting plants that flower at different times and attract a diversity of species throughout the growing season. Many insects will be happy to find them blooming in your garden.

Plant a Native Tree this Winter to Provide Biodiversity in Your Yard

I live in a grove of large stately live oaks. Only one is technically on our property; the grove continues across the road and in adjacent yards, even down the road a piece. We are also blessed with some large pines, though we have lost a few to lightning strikes.

We are on a slope that runs down towards a drainage way that used to be a creek. I imagine this was originally a mature mixed pine/hardwood forest, and eventually pasture, with well distributed live oaks and pines until time of development in the 1960s.

We are not trying to restore what used to be here, but our goal has been to diversify the native tree species in our yard for the benefit of wildlife. When the rose-of-Sharon tree planted by previous owners was declining due to old age, we replaced it with a blue beech, a native tree with pretty fall color, gorgeous muscle-like bark, and unique seed structures. In addition, native caterpillars utilize its leaves which are then eaten by birds, lizards, spiders, and others.

At the edge of the patriarch live oak in our front yard, we planted red buckeye, a small tree with red tubular flowers in mid-March, timed perfectly for the return of migrating ruby-throated hummingbirds. We also planted a sassafras tree that is a larval food plant for the spicebush swallowtail.

This American beech tree sprouted from a beech nut within in a bag of leaves used as mulch in Legare’s yard. Photo by Donna Legare.

We utilize every space available. Between our driveway and our neighbor to the west, we placed a Chickasaw plum and some blueberry bushes and allowed American beautyberry and elderberry to sprout up on their own (free plants ‘planted’ by the birds).

One year for Christmas, I asked for an American beech tree, which we planted in our back ‘woods’ along with a spruce pine to replace a large loblolly pine that had died. We selected spruce pine because of its shade tolerance.

Another year I collected bags of leaves from a neighbor down the road. The bags were filled with golden beech leaves, which I used as mulch in a bed adjacent to our road. It unexpectedly contained seeds and the following year an American beech sprouted. This is one of the hardwoods that probably graced this slope before agriculture. It is a beauty every fall with its golden leaves which persist into winter. When mature, both American beech trees will sport beech nuts and birds will have a feast on these seeds. Another free plant!

One side of our front yard is a pollinator garden which requires good sun, so we have selected smaller trees in its vicinity – sparkleberry, rusty blackhaw, flatwoods plum, parsley hawthorn, hoptree, and fringe tree. A red cedar was selected to screen a telephone pole and streetlight from our front porch view.

Another freebie is a native persimmon that popped up on the east side of our house in the border between us and neighbors. It is now a good 15 feet tall.

By now you are getting the point that if you have beds with leaves in them around existing trees and shrubs, the seeds of native plants will germinate, many of which may be quite valuable to wildlife. The trick is to learn what these plants look like when they are seedlings. Invasive plants such as the trees Ligustrum and Chinese tallow will also sprout and will need to be pulled up. This is easy to do when they are seedlings. Likewise, some native plants will need to be pulled. We have a black cherry seedling flagged under our live oak tree. It was most likely planted by a bird who sat on a limb of the live oak after it had eaten and digested a wild cherry. Out popped the seed, conveniently fertilized with bird poop. However, it is far too shady for this cherry to thrive here. We will move it this winter to a sunnier spot in the back yard.

Our New Year’s resolution every year is to increase the percentage of native plants in our yard. You would think we would be running out of room after nearly 30 years. At first, we made room for native trees and shrubs by removing invasive plants like Nandina, Ligustrum, and female Podocarpus and replacing aging but desirable non-native trees with young natives. Then we started squeezing trees into existing beds, finding space here and there, creating layers of native plants. We planted overstory trees like the American beech, understory trees like blue beech and silverbell, large native shrubs like arrowwood viburnum and spicebush, and then wildflowers and native grasses. All of these are worked in and around some beautiful old camellias, sasanquas, and azaleas, planted by the original owners of the property.

We are senior citizens now, but we keep on planting. We prefer to plant trees in three-gallon pots. For one thing it is easier on the person doing the planting (smaller hole to dig), but mainly we find that the less time trees have spent in pots, the healthier they are and the faster they take off if planted in the correct conditions and planted properly. Bareroot trees planted in winter are particularly robust.

This winter, we are replacing another aging non-native tree with two natives in our backyard ‘woods’, the black cherry mentioned above and a white oak. I have always wanted a white oak and wish I had planted one 30 years ago! It will have pretty fall color, eventual acorns, and will provide insects, primarily caterpillars, for nesting birds. Over 300 caterpillar species are known to utilize oak trees in the Tallahassee area.

Natives Can Thrive in Sandy Soils

East of the Apalachicola river, running to Alachua County, a landform known as the Cody Scarp delineates soils in Tallahassee. To the north of the Scarp is the Red Hills Region and to the south is the Woodville Karst Plain. As a resident of Wakulla County for many years, and currently residing in southern Leon County, I know gardening and landscaping in the sandy soil south of this line is much different than in the heavier loamy clay soils to the north.

You will see many beautiful native plants, such as American holly, on the sandy trails in Wakulla Springs State Park. Photo by John Ruter, University of Georgia, Bugwood.org.

So many plants native to this area thrive and perform extremely well in sandy soil. The abundance of birds and wildlife around my immediate neighborhood is a testament to the power of native plants. The thin sandy soil in the Woodville area where I live sustains a wide variety of natives. If you want to get a good idea of what will grow in these soils, take a walk at Wakulla Springs State Park on the Sally Ward Spring Run, which starts on the main road up from the Lodge at Wakulla Springs. The shady trail wanders through a beech-magnolia forest unique to our area. Besides the over-story of beech, magnolia, hickory, sweetgum, pines, and oaks you will find an understory of red buckeye, sparkleberry, yaupon holly, American holly, sugarberry, many species of hawthorne, saw palmetto, native azaleas, and beautyberry.

Indian pink (Spigelia marilandica) is a hardy native perennial that grows in the understory of various deciduous hardwood forests in Florida. Photo by David Stephens, Bugwood.org.

On my own property, I’ve found many of these same natives that require no maintenance to thrive. Wildflowers that flourish on their own include ironweed, goldenrod, blue curls, rosin weed, ruellia, elephant’s foot, ageratum, horsemint, partridge pea, butterfly weed, and coralbean. I’ve encouraged the indigenous deep green partridgeberry, which is the dominant groundcover in the forest. A woodcock shows up every year about the time the berries appear on this plant, and I wonder if it could be a food source for this prehistoric looking ground nesting bird. Alongside these plants, I have added many other native species that have basically managed with not a lot of attention, watering only when absolutely necessary. These include Indian pink, scarlet sage, purple coneflower, salt and pepper, and white wild indigo. Most are attractive to ruby-throated hummingbirds and many species of butterflies.

Ashe magnolia (Magnolia macrophylla var. ashei) is native to Florida, but it is endangered and can only be found in a few counties in the Panhandle. Photo by John Ruter, University of Georgia, Bugwood.org.

A few other natives surprised me by doing well in this sandy soil. Not usually found here, but native to Florida, firebush, Ocala anise, and Ashe magnolia have thrived on my land. I skeptically planted the deciduous Ashe magnolia and also a needle palm, both found over in Torreya State Park, and both have done remarkably well. The magnolia is now five years old, over 12 feet tall, and has bloomed every year since it was first planted. The Ocala anise fits the criteria for an evergreen screen between my house and the neighbor’s perfectly. In a severe drought I do put the soaker hose on it occasionally.

Additionally, I’ve added a fast-growing sycamore (the rapid growth on this is phenomenal) for shade to replace an unhealthy laurel oak that needed to come down and a pine that was hit by lightning and was too close to the house to leave. Other pines have been lightning struck and I left them standing. The snags are the perfect resting place for swallowtail kites in summer and the pileated woodpeckers constantly work them for bugs. My favorite tree is our state tree, the cabbage palm. I planted many over the years as memorials to loved ones. Some are now 10 feet by 10 feet, starting from one-gallon pots nine years ago.

As with all landscaping ventures, the right plant for the right place is crucial to success, as is watering the first six months to a year. You can’t put an Ashe magnolia in full sun and expect it to survive. You also can’t plant trees and then go on vacation expecting to come back to healthy plants. Protect your efforts and hire someone to water while you are gone. Help our native bees, butterflies, insects, birds, reptiles, and mammals by planting what they need to survive and thrive.