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June 13, 2009
I have fallen way behind in posting pictures of Native Suburbia. It is so much easier to take them then it is to sort through them and caption them. But enough excuses... at long last I have processed the pictures that we took last summer. So check out the Summer 2008 pictures! The backyard was particularly vibrant with an abundance of flowers and wildlife. Every year is more impressive than the last.
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June 05, 2009Today Benia muses about a little time she enjoyed in the back yard...
I saw a male cardinal land on the big nannyberry by the deck, while I was sitting at the table. It was pretty close, but he went in there and kept getting deeper into it. Finally, I heard little chirps and noticed a grayish bird hiding in the branches. The papa fed the baby and they chirped and chirped to each other.
I noticed two young robins high up in the chokecherry. One of them was fiddling around with some of the berries. Then an adult robin flew in and chased the active baby away. Later, I saw a baby robin on the snag and a mama robin came and fed it.
Meanwhile, the house wrens have been defending their territory against a sparrow couple that got aggressive with them. I believe the female wren sings more quietly and raises her tail quite a bit. I thought she was looking for a good time, but I'm not sure. The couple still seem to be working on nesting up the box. They go in and come out and chirp and sing and look around, etc.
A couple of cardinals came and enjoyed the rain garden. The female was down there a long time; the male followed her to it, hovered over for a few seconds, then left. An adult robin took a bath in the bird bath, too, at the same time.
That's about it. It's nice to see so much enjoyment of our native suburbia.
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May 24, 2009
First Monarch Butterfly of the Season
Yesterday I was relaxing on the deck after doing a few chores around the house, when a fluttering caught my eye. It was the first official monarch butterfly sighting of the season in Native Suburbia! It looks like we have become a monarch rest stop.
I watched as she went round and round the yard stopping at every common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) that she could find. It was interesting to watch because she actually found some little milkweeds that I did not even know were hiding among the other plants. I did not have my camera with me at the time, but sometimes it is nice to just enjoy the sights in Native Suburbia without trying to get that perfect shot.
Later inspection of the milkweed plants confirmed that the monarch was laying eggs on each of them. I am including a picture of one of them. It makes me feel good that we are growing a plant that is so obviously appreciated by wildlife.
/native_suburbia | Permalink (0 comments)
April 19, 2009
I was working my way through some junk mail today and came across an envelope from Spring-Green "Your neighborhood lawncare professionals". I usually just toss this junk in the recycling bin, but this time I decided to open it up and see what they were offering. It was such a compelling offer that I thought I would share it with you.
According to the letter, the Zouras family can get the Preferred Program 2009 for only $278.97. That represents a discount from the regular cost of $417.15 for a savings of $138.18. This amazing offer would bring Spring-Green to my home 8 times to take care of my landscaping needs. According to them that includes their "preferred fertilization and weed control program plus total lawn insect control for your lawn".
As tempting as that might sound to some, I am certainly not interested in the application of any fertilizers because my native plants do not require them in order to thrive. So I get to save the money and I do not pollute the environment with excess fertilizers.
The weed control program is a little confusing to me, because they never define "weed". I would never consider spraying herbicides on my yard, but I wonder what they would say if I asked them to get rid of the weeds that keep coming into my yard from the neighbors. Of course the most prevalent one is lawn grass. Do you think that Spring-Green has a method for killing that?
I am even more horrified by the "insect control" service. I can only imagine what poisons they would be spreading to kill the oh so terrible INSECTS that might nibble on the plants, provide food for birds, or chew up decomposing organic matter. When will people realize that insects are an important part of the ecosystem? I hope that humans never figure out a way to kill all of the insects that they are trying to eliminate, because it would be catastrophic. Every animal, right down to the smallest ant, has a place in this world and the world cannot operate if all of the stations are not "animaled". I will continue to provide poison free native plants in my yard to attract the insects and give them a habitat to survive in.
So I will not be paying anything to have Spring-Green spread fertilizers and poisons in my yard. My plants and insects will thrive with no help from me other than being left unmolested. I hope you will do the same.
/ruminations | Permalink (2 comments)
April 18, 2009
Native Suburbia featured at The Natural Garden again
Benia and I made another appearance at the Natural Garden in St. Charles to tell others about Native Suburbia. We love to share our experiences with other people that are interested in native plant landscaping. Our presentation was well received and the attendees were very engaged and interested.
I learned a valuable lesson about preparing for a speaking engagement. There was almost a disaster as I first arrived and unpacked my stuff, I realized that I had forgotten the cable to connect my laptop to the projector! I had double checked everything except that. Luckily I was able to use a USB drive to copy my pictures to a laptop that The Natural Garden had. I lost the captions that were part of my presentation, but I improvise mostly anyway, so everything worked out. I will be triple checking EVERYTHING for future engagements. I hope they have me back again some day.
/offshoots | Permalink (0 comments)
December 06, 2008Today we were looking out into the backyard as we often do and one of the stray black cats that visits happened to be out there. He was particularly obvious due to the recent snowfall that we have had here. The yard is very white and he is very black.
The presence of the cat in itself is not very noteworthy. He was having a hard time walking through the relatively deep snow though, so we watched him to see where he would go. He walked up to a clump of Canada wild rye stalks that were heavy with seed heads. After sniffing them for a second he proceeded to start eating them! At first I couldn't believe it, I had never seen a cat eating seeds before. It was confirmed though when he finished with one and then moved on to the next. He continued through the yard and stopped at another bunch for more snacks.
I don't know if this was desperation because it was hard to hunt in the snow, but I was surprised by this behavior so I thought I would share.
/native_suburbia | Permalink (1 comment)
August 10, 2008If you have been wondering what Native Suburbia looked like this Spring, then your wait is over. I went through my huge collection of pictures and narrowed them down a little for your viewing pleasure.
I called this the Mega Tour because I found it a little harder to exclude pictures this time and so this set contains over 80 pictures! There is more of a concentration on pictures of individual plants at different stages. I am currently considering how the Native Suburbia site will evolve as the project grows more mature. There will probably be fewer tour picture sets and more specimens.
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August 03, 2008
It is common for people to approach native plant landscaping from the "butterfly garden" point of view. In Native Suburbia, that was not our primary focus, but it has turned out to be a pleasant side effect.
There has been an abundance of blooms in our yard this summer and this has attracted numerous species of butterflies, bees and wasps. Every day we see busy insects working nearly every flower in the yard. Our most recent arrival is the Spicebush Swallowtail (Papilio troilus) pictured at left. They seem to really like the purple coneflowers, which worked out well for me. With so much focus on the flower, I was able to get up close and take the picture.
The insects' concentration on the flowers should also reassure anyone who fears bees and wasps. They are far more interested in collecting pollen and nectar than stinging anyone. In fact they can be just as visually interesting as butterflies if you take the time to look. Benia and I often observe them up close and have never been stung. Now if only those pesky mosquitos would learn to love nectar instead of my blood, then all would be peaceful in Native Suburbia!
/native_suburbia | Permalink (2 comments)
June 16, 2008The plants between the flagstones of our garden path are now short. That is because I mow them regularly. We finally decided to go with the cordless electric mower. We purchased a Homelite 20" Cordless Electric Mower from the Home Despot. It is not my favorite place to do business, but I was nervous about the purchase of this relatively new technology and I wanted to be able to return it more easily if something goes wrong.
So far there have been no problems. I brought it home and plugged it in to get it charging. The next day I took it for a spin around the path. As expected, it started right up. Despite what all the marketing materials say about electric mowers, this thing is not whisper quiet! It sounds like a very loud fan. It is certainly quieter than a gas mower, but still difficult to talk over. The best thing is that there is no yanking on a pull cord and there are no exhaust fumes.
But back to the cutting... I set the height at about 3.25" so that I can clear my rather bumpy stone path. I also like the way it lets the plants grow in between the stones, albeit in a dwarfed stature. I pushed it around the path and found that it takes two passes to cut the full width. Apparently the path is wider than the 20" cutting width of the mower. I think that the electric mower feels heavier than my old gas mower, but it is on wheels, so I don't have too much trouble pushing it. The exercise is good for me anyway.
The whole job of trimming all of the path winding through Native Suburbia takes less than 10 minutes. I do it about once a week and after 3 or 4 times I am still on the first charge. Of course my "mileage" is probably much better than that reported in the typical online reviews because I am not cutting a thick lawn. The path trimming job is a whole different chore. It remains to be seen how this electric mower will stand up to the spring mulching job.
/native_suburbia | Permalink (0 comments)
May 26, 2008I am continuing to work my way through the photo backlog. The latest set of pictures is from Autumn 2007 and it is now available for your viewing pleasure.
In some ways these pictures are starting to look very similar to previous years in Native Suburbia. I am constantly thrilled by the little things that I see in the yard, but I have been debating whether these photographic tours are still useful. My goal is to show how the project progresses from season to season and year to year. It really puts the timeline into perspective when you realize that it took several years for our yard to reach this point. There are still bare patches that have not yet decided what they want to be when they grow up.
I welcome feedback from you. If you are enjoying the pictures as they are, then let me know. If there is some aspect of the project that is missing, and you think it would be interesting, then definitely let me know.
/native_suburbia | Permalink (1 comment)
May 20, 2008I have a lawn mower. A powerful, stinky, loud, gas burning lawnmower. It was purchased many years ago when I bought my first house and I needed it to cut the lawn I had suddenly obtained back in 2000. You might be wondering what does this has to do with a path in Native Suburbia, where there is no lawn.
Now that Benia and I have created Native Suburbia in our yard, the lawn mower is only used once a year. Due to the close proximity of other houses, we have been hesitant to burn our native plants. In fact, I doubt such activity would ever be approved by the village of Bartlett. So in the Spring I have been using the lawn mower to mulch everything. This year, just as I was finishing the yard, I broke the pull string used to start the lawn mower. This made me consider alternatives to fixing it. Using it once a year may not seem too bad compared to the many times I drive my car, but the gas lawn mower is a powerful symbol of the the lawn lifestyle that I have rejected.
Things are getting a little more complex as I have determined that the mower may provide a solution to another problem we are having. Anyone that has seen the pictures of Native Suburbia knows that there is a flagstone path through the entire yard. The gaps between the stones are begging to be filled in. As the plants in our yard continue to multiply and thrive, we get many volunteers to occupy those gaps. Unfortunately, these volunteers would like to grow to be several feet tall, which is not conducive to path walking. In the past, we have been hand pulling anything tall that grows between the stones. This is a time consuming and back breaking chore. It also leaves bare dirt in between the stones except for the wood sorrel that pops up in some places. So getting back to the mower, I am back to considering a mechanized solution to keeping the path in a walkable condition.
I considered a cordless electric string trimmer. Of course the primary benefit would be a powered tool without the gas engine. It's portability would allow me to trim the path without dragging a cord all over my tall prairie plants. On the downside, it would leave tiny bits of nylon cord all over the yard. I may not be able to see them, but I would know that I was putting them there. I wondered if there was a more permanent solution to the trimming string. I wonder what would happen if I used a thin diameter, braided steel cable in place of the nylon string. If both ends were bound tightly it seems like it would last forever against mere plant material. It might be a little more dangerous, but even the nylon string could cause injury. So I would just be a little more careful and stay away from fences with this new mecha-trimmer.
I also considered a cordless electric lawn mower. This would be more powerful than the string trimmer, but also a lot heavier. It has metal blades that will last a very long time. It may still be able to serve the function of mulching my yard in the Spring in addition to maintaining the path during the summer. I just do not know if it will have enough power. I did a ton of review reading online and people either love these things or hate them. It is difficult to know how their experiences would relate to my needs. I also imagine that it would be faster and easier to clear a path by making a single pass over the path with this mower. The stones only make the path about 18" -24" wide anyway. I imagine the string trimmer would require a bunch of waving about to accomplish the job.
So I am still not sure what to do, but I have "weeded" the path once this year already and I would like to avoid a second time now that my back is healed up.
/native_suburbia | Permalink (0 comments)
May 18, 2008I finally got around to going through a bunch of pictures that we took in Native Suburbia last year in September. It turns out that I was a little premature in calling the end of summer and there was still plenty of flowers to see.
I know that I am falling behind, but go ahead and take a look at the latest set that I have posted. I promise that I will try to get some pics of Native Suburbia 2008 up before 2009 is upon us.
/native_suburbia | Permalink (0 comments)
One of the tasks I completed yesterday while working in the yard was to get our sign post firmly back in the ground. It had been sitting loosely in its hole all week after the previous attack.
I was disappointed to see that it was once again lying on the ground this morning when I got up. One of the 3 signs had been broken off and another was bent a little. I could hardly believe what I was seeing! I cannot understand why someone would bother to target my innocent little signs. Who goes out in the middle of the night to vandalize a sign post in a suburban yard?
Vandals are despicable human beings. Do they ever stop to think about what it would be like if someone were to target their property? Imagine if vandalism were so rampant that you couldn't park your car outside. Or if people randomly chose houses to deface. Do the people who vandalize want everyone to act like they do?
I know it is a long shot that the vandals are reading this, but the URL is on the sign, so it is possible. If you are responsible for the attack on my sign post, please stop. I am not doing you any harm. If you have an issue with me, then feel free to stop by and discuss it like an adult. You could even send me a letter in the mail if you prefer anonymity. Let's just give peace a chance.
/offshoots | Permalink (0 comments)
May 13, 2008
Yesterday Benia and I returned home from a long weekend out of town in Appleton, WI. The first thing we noticed as we pulled into the driveway is that our sign post was lying on the ground. This is the post that proudly displays signs for Native Suburbia, Wild Ones, and Backyard Habitat.
We were puzzled as to how this could have happened. The post is actually a fairly thick branch that we found on the curb on trash day a couple of years ago. I had planted it firmly in the ground and it had survived a couple of winters already.
Closer inspection revealed that someone was determined enough to rock the post back and forth until it was loose. They then pulled it directly up and out of the hole and left it lying on the ground as seen in the picture.
We don't know if this was someone venting their frustration about our unique landscaping or simply misguided kids. Regardless, it is always troubling to have your property vandalized.
/offshoots | Permalink (0 comments)
April 27, 2008Benia and I went out and did some weeding yesterday. We spent about 3 hours crawling around the yard and pulling up things that weren't where they belonged. In some cases this included weeds, which in Native Suburbia is any plant that is non-native. Unfortunately we also found ourselves pulling up a fair amount of native plants. A lot of volunteers have sprouted up in the path that we maintain. It almost seems that seeds are more likely to germinate in the spaces between the stones than anywhere else. Maybe the stones capture the heat and warm up the soil around them faster in the Spring. In any case, we are not quite ready to turn our path over to 5 foot tall prairie plants. We need some nice short ground cover to go in between the stones but we are having a hard time finding anything native at our local nursery.
One thing we learned while doing all this weeding is that we are getting older and probably were a little too lazy over the winter. The sore muscles sang out today and reminded us that we may have jumped in a little too enthusiastically this year.
/native_suburbia | Permalink (0 comments)
April 23, 2008I look back and notice that I haven't posted anything since last October! I always meant to, but then I just never did. I would like to say it is because I have been busily working on the Native Suburbia site, but that wouldn't be true either. I did spend some time working on web pages for the Greater DuPage Wild Ones chapter You may notice that it bears some resemblance to the Native Suburbia site. Can you blame me for reusing some of my work?
Hopefully I will get around to processing some of the zillions of pictures I have sitting around. I will keep you posted.
/offshoots | Permalink (0 comments)
I poked my head out of my cave (also known as the computer room) and it seems that Winter is over. A new growing season is quickly ramping up. For all the caretakers of cool season grasses that means the "sounds of summer" are already here. I was saddened to hear all the lawn mowers firing up last weekend already!
In the interest of full disclosure, I actually used my lawn mower to mulch up the leftover plants from last season. Burning does not look like a viable option in our neighborhood, so I need some way to clear the way for the next season's growth. We are still trying to determine what our long term maintenance plan will look like.
Benia and I have already toured the yard many times. There is so much to see in Native Suburbia! This is an amazing time of year as we go from zero to 6 feet in 6.2 weeks. (OK, I don't actually measure, but I liked the way that sounded.) Since we have no lawn and our native plants are still sparse in some areas, things look pretty barren after the snow melts. As soon as we got a few sunny days though, things started sprouting all over. To give you an idea of the enjoyment we get out of our yard tours here is an email that Benia sent after a walk she took without me. Things are moving so fast that these are new developments since the day before!
1. Another mayapple sprouted up where the 2 newer ones are, near the ash tree. There are also 2 brand-new mayapples just behind the hairy wood mint.
2. There are many little Solomon's seals coming up on both sides of the path near the ash tree. The first false one appears to be opening up and spreading its leaves out more. There are going to be so many! :)
3. The little Pennsylvania sedges near the big viburnum are fluffing out nicely. Perhaps a photo is in order?
4. Still no sign of the mayapples near the maple, but I did notice a new trillium or two crammed into the crowded spot of anemone/geranium farther from the path than the original trillium bunch. I could tell by the 3 triangle-shaped leaves around the center. It looks like the others.
5. The original bloodroot lost all its petals already, but the second one appears to be about to open up soon. Both leaves were still curled around the stem.
I only had a few minutes and of course, didn't want to leave.
-Benia
/native_suburbia | Permalink (0 comments)
October 14, 2007Over the course of the last two weekends, Benia and I purchased and planted about 200 native plants. This was the culmination of the final phase our our lawn removal goal. Native Suburbia is 100% free of traditional lawn of any sort. Officially this happened earlier this summer, when we smothered the lawn in the parkway. It has been cooking under all that mulch and newspaper for over 3 months, so it was time to plant.
We had been seeing the barren mulch covered area in our front yard all summer, and we were very excited to be doing something about it. Since the parkway is a fairly narrow patch next to the sidewalk, we chose plants that tend to grow shorter than 24 inches. There may eventually be taller volunteers from other parts of the yard, but for now we are stacking the deck on the shorter side.
Some of the species we planted:
- cleft phlox (Phlox bifida)
- heart-leaved meadow parsnip (Zizia aptera)
- pale beard tongue (Penstemon pallidus)
- path rush (Juncus tenuis)
- purple love grass (Eragrostis spectabilis)
- violet bush clover (Lespedeza violacea)
- wild petunia (Ruellia humillis)
I cannot wait until next year to see how everything fills in. It will be nice to move on to the next phase of Native Suburbia. We will still be weeding, but now we can watch as our native landscape matures.
/native_suburbia | Permalink (1 comment)
October 09, 2007I responded to my neighbor's attorney, Mr. James G. Wiard, and indicated that I do not give permission for them to have access to my property. I just don't trust them to use good judgement in trimming the tree.
I did offer to meet with their tree trimmer to discuss the trimming of specific branches. I won't give unqualified access to the tree, but if the professional wants to work with me, I will at least hear him out. I will be surprised if they take me up on this offer.
So now we wait once again to see what the tree hating neighbor will do.
/native_suburbia | Permalink (0 comments)
September 30, 2007
Return of the Tree Hating Neighbor
As mentioned in a previous post, I have been corresponding with my neighbor's attorney, Mr. James G. Wiard, about my river birch (Betula nigra). In my response to his initial letter I declined to trim the tree. I made it clear that if the neighbors feel compelled to destroy the aesthetic appeal of the tree through excessive pruning, they must not overstep their legal rights while doing it.
Today I received another letter from Mr. Wiard. He indicates that a professional tree trimmer has been engaged to prune branches overhanging his clients' property. Now they are requesting permission to have access to my property so that they can cut even more of the tree. The request is presented in the guise of attempting to do the pruning properly. If I were to approve such access the tree would surely lose a large portion of its crown. While collar cuts are the proper method to use when pruning trees, I fear what these ignorant people would request of the tree trimmer if he had access to the trunk. My only defense at this point is to keep their tree trimmer off my property and force them to make lateral cuts further from the trunk. In this manner, the tree trimmer may be able to appease their thirst for innocent sap, while still maintaining some of the tree's symmetry.
The sad thing is that there is no way I can make these people understand that their actions are pointless. The trees in my yard will continue to follow their natural cycles despite any disfiguration that they may inflict upon on the one. There will still be pollen, seeds and leaves blowing in the wind and I will be glad to see it, for it means that nature is still surviving despite mankind's attempts to defeat it.
/native_suburbia | Permalink (0 comments)
September 27, 2007
Common Ragweed: Stealthy Sneezemaker
I was reading "THIS WEEK at HILTON POND" for 15-21 September 2007 today and I enjoyed the piece on common ragweed and goldenrod. Both of these are native plants, but it is goldenrod that is often blamed for hayfever, while the truth is that ragweed is the true culprit.
In the early days of Native Suburbia, we let a little ragweed grow just because it was native and it was willing to fill in a spot where nothing else had grown yet. Now that we have a much larger variety of native plants we have decided that ragweed already has enough habitat that it will survive without our help. In other words we tend to pull it out when we find it growing in Native Suburbia.
I have actually been pretty lucky this year as far as allergies are concerned. I have had very minor reactions so far. Fall is usually filled with itchy eyes and a never ending runny nose. Benia has not been so lucky, but it is not because of all the beautiful goldenrod in our yard.
/offshoots | Permalink (0 comments)
September 06, 2007The official end of summer is typically marked by Labor Day. There is still plenty of activity in Native Suburbia, but I know this is the last big splash before fall. It is exciting to see the culmination of all the plants I have been watching since they first poked through the dirt 4 months ago, but at the same time, I am sad to contemplate the approach of another long winter.
Take a late summer tour through the latest set of pictures and enjoy this great time of the year.
/native_suburbia | Permalink (1 comment)
August 30, 2007Today I received a letter from my neighbor's attorney. It contained a threat of "radical defoliation" against my tree, when they "hire a professional tree trimmer to cut all the way back to the property line".
The tree in question is a beautiful river birch (Betula nigra), which resides at the front corner of my house. As birches naturally do, this tree drops twigs, seeds, pollen and leaves. My neighbor refers to these as "effluent" and believes that the "mealy substance" given off by my tree is clogging his gutters. Check out these pictures that he sent me as evidence.
As you might have guessed, my neighbor is one of those people that believes that the outdoors should look like a living room. His yard contains an expanse of perfectly mown lawn that he never uses. There are a few shrubs pruned into submission. Of course there are no leaves or sticks out of place. Any strays are either vacuumed up or thrown into my yard. This explains why he is too ignorant to appreciate the benefits of a tree and why he confuses seeds with effluent.
Now I am being asked to trim the tree to his satisfaction. I will not be complying with that request. He has a legal right to trim any branches that hang over the property line, but I am not legally bound to help. The tree is healthy and poses no danger to his property. He greatly exaggerates the nuisance factor. I can say this confidently, because I have not one, but two of these trees in the front of my house and I experience no clogging of my gutters.
Since it is illegal to cause the death of a tree owned by your neighbor, I hope that he does hire a professional tree trimmer. Maybe a professional will be able to satisfy my neighbors needs without killing the tree. It would be a shame if my neighbor was forced to pay me for a tree that he hates so much.
/native_suburbia | Permalink (0 comments)
August 20, 2007I was on a roll so I went through a few more pictures. Take a tour of Native Suburbia in Midsummer 2007.
/native_suburbia | Permalink (1 comment)
I love sharing pictures of Native Suburbia on this site. Benia and I take tons of pictures, but unfortunately it takes some effort to sort through them and bring you only the best! So it has taken all summer, but I have finally gotten around to putting together a tour of what the yard looked like in April and May. Check out the Spring 2007 picture set if you haven't had a chance to see in person already.
/native_suburbia | Permalink (0 comments)
August 14, 2007
Prairie Days At The Natural Garden features Native Suburbia
It is only one small part of a multi-day event, but I am happy to be sharing my experiences with a new audience. I am preparing to present my Native Suburbia slideshow at this year's Prairie Days held at The Natural Garden nursery. It was well received at a Wild Ones meeting last spring and now I have been asked to share it again.
If you read this site, then you probably know more about Native Suburbia than I will have time to cover in this presentation. This is your chance to meet Benia and I in person, so stop by and see us on Saturday, September 8, starting at 1:00PM. We love to meet others who are interested in Native Suburbia, whether it be ours or the ones in your own back yard.
/offshoots | Permalink (0 comments)
August 11, 2007Today we hosted a Wild Ones picnic in Native Suburbia. We always enjoy sharing our yard with others and it was particularly nice to be among others who appreciate our efforts.
A lot of pictures have been taken this summer, but I have been too busy enjoying the outdoors to get them up on the site. Keep checking back, I hope to get caught up in the next couple of months.
/native_suburbia | Permalink (0 comments)
July 15, 2007Benia, our on-staff plant identification specialist, has been hard at work. She has added many new pictures to the specimen collection. It is easy for us to take many pictures, but it is a lot more work to actually identify the plants and write the captions for them.
Take a peek at what we have seen in Native Suburbia. Go to the Pictures page and look around.
/native_suburbia | Permalink (0 comments)
May 25, 2007
Benia recently discovered many oleander aphids (Aphis nerii) on some newly planted butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa). We were concerned that these non-native visitors might eat us out of leaf and stem. After some thought we decided to just leave them alone and let nature take its course. Someone on the Yahoo Group for Wild Ones mentioned that predators may show up and balance things a little.
Today we spotted a ladybug (Coccinella septempunctata) patrolling the butterfly weed. Hopefully it was hunting for aphids.
It is so exciting to see everything that is happening in Native Suburbia. Every day we see something new. A new flower, a new insect, a new bird, or a new interaction between any of the above. Replacing the lawn with this native landscape has turned out better than we imagined.
/native_suburbia | Permalink (0 comments)
May 24, 2007The Mourning Cloak (Nymphalis antiopa) caterpillars have been a star attraction in Native Suburbia lately. I visit them every day before and after work. Their host tree is a few leaves lighter, but it is not being stripped as much as I had feared. I think it will be able to survive the experience. The caterpillars have just shed their skins for the third time which means that they will be pupating soon. I noticed that there are not as many of them crawling back and forth along the branches as when I first discovered them. Yesterday I observed one reason for their decline in numbers.
While I was visiting the little mass of leaf munchers with my camera, I noticed a paper wasp (Polistes dominulus) flying around and checking things out. At first it appeared that he was randomly passing by. He landed on a branch for a second. He took to the air and "bounced" off the mass of caterpillars, seemingly by accident. Just a lazy afternoon of flying in the warm breezes.
Suddenly, it became apparent that he was just sizing up the situation. He landed and walked over to a caterpillar on the edge of the group. There was some defensive wriggling and shaking, but the wasp was not deterred. He maneuvered into position and the next thing I knew the caterpillar was hanging from his jaws. For the rest of the story see the pictures that I took.
/native_suburbia | Permalink (1 comment)
May 21, 2007
Benia and I were touring the yard today when we came upon a squirming mass of caterpillars in a quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides). I snapped a few pictures and we immediately checked them out on the computer. Benia quickly identified our new visitors as Nymphalis antiopa caterpillars. When they grow up, they are known as the Mourning Cloak butterfly.
A big part of the Native Suburbia philosophy is to provide habitat for animals. We love to see butterflies of all kinds fluttering around the yard. Our kind hearts are tested though, when we see a mass of 50 caterpillars working their way up a branch and eating every leaf. We only have 3 quaking aspens and they are all next to one another. Could these hungry little caterpillars wipe them out? I could cut them off at the pass now and increase the survival chances for the trees, but that would mean killing all the caterpillars. Am I prepared to do that? These are the tough decisions of the backyard nature preserve.
See Nymphalis antiopa on Wikipedia for more info.
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May 12, 2007We spent most of today planting in the front yard. This is the area where we smothered the grass last summer. A bunch of plants were added late last year, but while many of them are coming back, it still looked pretty barren.
We started with a trip to The Natural Garden and ended up coming home with 103 plants. It took about 3 hours to get them all in the ground. Benia and I are not as young as we were last year. There were complaints from sore knees and backs, but it was all worth it to us. There isn't quite as much open space, but still more than we would like. Hopefully the plants will help us out a little and fill in on their own. This is getting to be an expensive hobby.
This spring has been a great joy for us. We have been walking around the yard watching as every day something new pops up. A trillium here, a mayapple there, and wild geraniums everywhere. The grasses are coming back bigger and thicker than last year. It is all very exciting to us.
No pictures this time, but there will be some new ones soon.
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March 17, 2007
Wild Ones Meeting features Native Suburbia
This month's Wild Ones meeting featured our very own Native Suburbia. It was a live presentation of the information that we tried to convey in the articles that were published in the Wild Ones Journal. Benia and I put together a selection of pictures using JAlbum with the BananAlbum skin. I did most of the talking, with Benia chiming in when I missed something. She also operated the slide show which we ran on a Mac PowerBook G4. We were the first to use the new InFocus DLP projector that our Wild Ones chapter just purchased.
The presentation went well. I basically told the story based on the pictures. I didn't have a prewritten presentation, because I had seen the pictures so many times that each one reminded me of something. There were some good questions from the audience. It was a great opportunity to share our experiences with people and get real feedback.
The most important part of our presentation was the pictures that showed our yard every step along the way. We had taken pictures right from the beginning when Native Suburbia was still covered in lawn. It is so much fun to look back and marvel at how things used to be. I would encourage plentiful picture taking to everyone who embarks on adding native plants to their landscape. Then of course you should share the before and after pictures with everyone who will listen and perhaps we can spread the Wild Ones way far and wide.
If you were unable to attend the meeting then check out the slideshow here. Since it wasn't designed to share the layout of the rest of this site, it will open in a new browser window. Just click in that window and use the arrow keys to flip through the slides. The notes on the side were just to remind me of details. They were so small that the audience couldn't really see them.
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March 03, 2007
The bitter cold spell that we were having has broken. Temperatures have made their way up into the 40's and then back into the 30's. There has been rain and now there is snow on the ground again. We like to look out into Native Suburbia through the big window on the back of the house. (Hey, we like nature, but not freezing our butts off!)
What we have noticed lately is that the path we have laid out is pretty popular with the critters who visit our yard. All of the tracks you see in the picture are non-human. Most of them are made by the opossum who visits frequently and often stays under the deck. There are a few bunny trails as well. And finally there is evidence that a big domestic cat is still passing through regularly. I really wish people would keep their cats in the house! We are trying to provide a habitat for the wild animals upon whose territory we have encroached, not a playground for well fed house cats.
But the real point of this post is to remember that even though our plants are not doing much at this time of the year, life still goes on in Native Suburbia.
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February 22, 2007
Native Suburbia "The Third Year" Article Published
OK, so we don't get any prizes for creative titles, but the third article in the series that we wrote for the Wild Ones Journal has been published in the January/February 2007 issue.
With this article we are caught up to present day. It talks about what we did in Native Suburbia during the 2006 growing season here in the Chicago suburbs. There is still plenty more to come though, so be sure to keep checking here for the latest news. Spring is just around the corner... isn't it? I can't wait.
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January 18, 2007
Wild Ones Meeting and Squirrels
This month's Wild Ones meeting featured Joel Brown, a Biology Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. I enjoyed his presentation: SQUIRRELS, COTTONTAILS AND OTHER INHABITANTS OF THE URBAN GAME PARK. He concentrated primarily on squirrels, but I learned a lot about them, such as how to identify the grey squirrel and the fox squirrel, which are common in this area. I don't feel like I can properly summarize his presentation, so all I can say is that you should have been there.
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December 23, 2006In my quest to provide you, my loyal readers, with more pictures of the Native Suburbia project, I have posted a new set called Autumn 2006.
This almost catches me up with things for this year. There are still a lot of specimen pictures to be processed and added to the Specimen Collection, but that will come slowly over the next couple of months.
I would love to hear from anyone who is looking at all the pictures that I post. Are you enjoying them? Are they boring? Too many? Too few? Is there something that you would like to see that is not being covered?
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December 18, 2006It has been too long since I posted new pictures. Native Suburbia put on a nice show this summer. We saw many new plants in bloom and there is even more potential for next year as more plants mature. So many pictures were taken that it was hard to choose which ones should be posted on the site. After much deliberation, I still ended up with about 70 pictures showing what happened in August and September. The new set is called Late Summer 2006.
I hope they give you a little taste of the wonderful alternative that native plant landscaping provides./native_suburbia | Permalink (0 comments)
December 02, 2006
The first snowfall of the season hit us yesterday and it was a big one. It wasn't fun shoveling all of that snow, but it did make for some nice scenery in our yard.
It was very satisfying to see the various stalks and seed heads sticking up above the snow. This winter interest certainly sets Native Suburbia apart from the other yards in the neighborhood.
The coolest part was how our "rain" garden looks in the snow. Since we just created it last spring, this was the first time we saw it covered in snow. Recall that our rain garden is fed by our sump pump as well as a downspout. This means that a fresh supply of water is being pumped into the area on a regular basis. It looks like a small stream peeking out of the snow. We are hoping that birds will be attracted to this open water source. They can even sample some seeds that are still left around the yard as well.
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November 24, 2006
Native Suburbia "The Second Year" Article Published
The second article in the series that we wrote for the Wild Ones Journal has been published in the November/December 2006 issue. This has made us extremely minor celebrities at our Wild Ones chapter. We have been asked to talk about our yard at a future meeting.
People might be tired of hearing about Native Suburbia by then since all members get the Journal already. It might be a good way to start some more interactive conversation about our methods and ideas.