West Nile Virus - Another Reason to Go Native!

Brief post here to remind you that if you're working on fixing up your yard, it's best for the local birds & bees if you go native (native plants, I mean).  But now there's another reason: new research showing that non-natives seem to make it easier for nasties like West Nile Virus mosquitoes to thrive!  Which makes sense, right?  If you give them the plants they are used to, they'll feel right at home.  I'm fairly hospitable, but I do draw the line at evil disease-spreading non-native insects. 

So, the paper, Asymmetric effects of native and exotic invasive shrubs on ecology of the West Nile Virus vector Culex pipiens (Diptera: Culicidae), is a slog if you're not a biologist, so I just read the abstract. 

If you're not sure what/how to find natives for your area, the Lady Bird Johnson Center for Wildflowers (www.wildflower.org) is an excellent starting place.  

Credit

Insect Hotels! Who Knew?

If you saw my post from last May, you know I'm interested in birds.  One way to increase birds in your yard is to provide lots of cover for both birds & insects, which birds eat.  We do have some brush & lots of rotting wood around, which help to create a natural habitat.  In other words, neat yards are unnatural and may look nice to us, but they are quite critter-unfriendly.  

As a gardener, you probably want bugs for birds to eat & more native bees to pollinate your yard, meaning you'll need to provide housing (i.e., cover) for those bugs.  What to do?  Well, one way is to build an insect hotel! 

We have already started one, and we'll keep you posted as it goes along.  But I thought you'd enjoy some photos of absolutely lovely & amazing insect hotels (apparently they're quite a thing in Europe). Sunset magazine refers to them as yard art; they have some nice photos of tiny insect hotels (more like insect inns).  

Also, at the bottom of this post you'll see some links to "how to" pages.

Online how to guides: 
1. Permaculture.org's How To page
2. BBC Wildlife provides a downloadable PDF
3. Pacific Horticulture magazine provides one, too

Note that all have great photos, too.

More on Backyard Bees

Besides deciding we need honey bees in our backyard (the jury is still out, though we are

Credit

continuing to research this project), we also became interested in Mason bees, after reading DIY Del Ray's post on building a Mason bee hive.  My online research led me to Bee Diverse, which has lots of choices, including this Highrise, which comes with easy-to-clean inter-locking wooden tubes.  (The problem if you don't clean out the tubes is that mites take over, not good for the bees.)

Then I was asked if there would be a conflict having both types of bees in our yard. According to a publication from the Extension service at Washington State University, the answer is an emphatic "no!"  Obviously if you don't have many flowers at all, there might not be enough food for all the bees.  But having a bountiful yard (which we are working towards) and a regular water supply (more on that below) should be enough for both sets of pollinators.  

After attending a few lectures & talking with other beekeepers, we've discovered that the months of August-November present a problem because there aren't as many flowers, so not enough food for honeybees (there are many schools of thought on what to feed them instead, but honey is best).  I've been using the Wildflower.org Native Plant Database to find appropriate flowers to fill in this gap.  After selecting Virginia for my state and part-shade for the area, it's also possible to select the months you want the plant to flower in! (You can even

Swamp Leatherflower

select the color, but I don't think the bees care.)  I am trying to find a source for purchasing Clematis Crispa/Swamp Leatherflower, but native plants are sometimes hard to get ahold of, even at native plant sales!  

In terms of water for bees, that is a real problem in our area.  We have 3 bowls which we keep filled for the squirrels & birds.  But mosquitoes are such a problem that we try to empty them out (or let them go dry each week) so there's not a regular supply of standing water, which mosquitoes love.  According to this webpage, if the top of the water is moving, mosquitoes won't lay eggs (a reason to have a drip system).  Also, bees will drown if there's nothing floating in the water, so corks & sticks are recommended!  And apparently they don't like nice, clean water--they like it a bit dirty.  So, we have to work on getting more corks and figuring out a way to ensure water year-round for them.  

A Bird Friendly Yard? Here's How...

Birds are quite important to me (and our indoor cat who enjoys lots of kitty TV), and one

Brown-headed Cowbird from AllAboutBirds.com

way to attract more to your yard is to apply a few of the suggestions from the Audubon at Home (AAH) program.  Right now I've seen over 20 different species (including Red-Shouldered & Cooper's Hawks, 2 types of woodpeckers), and I've only begun following the AAH suggestions in earnest. 

Most important is to plant native species, lots of them, in bunches (multiples of one type of plant).  This gives birds & bees lots of cover & food.  

Second is to remove invasive plant species (Oh, English Ivy, I curse you curse you curse you!).  Livestock for Landscapes rents out small herds of goats, if you have lots of invasives to remove, or have a steep, unreachable area needing cleaning up.  (This really works!  A friend in California has a goatherd & his goats come every spring to clean up the cliff behind her house.)  We have a flat yard, so put down newspaper, wet the newspaper, then applied a few inches of leaf mulch from the City's program (they deliver).  It didn't clean up 100%, but I'd say 80% is long gone, allowing natives some space to become established. 

There are 10 suggestions in all about how your backyard can be friendlier to birds & bees & little animals at Ten Ways to Make A Difference for Migrating Birds. Take a few, or more, to heart & see what happens next. 

And once you've got all those amazing birds hanging out at your place?  If you'd like an online way to identify them, try WhatBird, which lets you search by color, state, size, and other variables. 

And eBird, run by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, lets you track your bird sightings online.  Not only do you get to use their tools for counting what you've seen where, but your data is used by ornithologists, conservations biologists, land management experts, etc. via the Lab to do research on migration, climate change, bird abundance & distribution.  

Happy native planting & birding! 

Green Springs Native Plant Sale on 5/17/14

This post is not really about vegetable gardening, but if you want to encourage Virginia's native birds & bees, you might want to consider adding some native  plants to your yard.   

This Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (female)
would sure appreciate a native habitat! /Credit

A great place to find out more about VA native plants is to head over to the Green Spring Garden and the Master Gardeners of NoVa Plant Sale, this Saturday, 5/17 from 9:00 am - 3:00 pm.  

Native plants are low maintenance once they're established.  They don't need to be coddled because they're used to the climate of the Mid-Atlantic.  

More information about the sale is available here (along with a plant list, if you're like me and want to do some research).  

There are plenty of resources online if you'd like to read up on native plants & wildflowers.  Here are a couple that I've found useful. 

The US Fish & Wildlife Service publishes Native Plants for Wildlife Habitat and Conservation Landscaping.  It's a small book that should answer most of your questions.

I like the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center because their website has a search engine that lets you find recommended plants based on amount of sun & water the plant will get & the state you live in.  

Of course your local public library has plenty of books, too.  Find it by entering your zip code on this page.