insects

garden : nesting birds and a developing ecological balance

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There have always been a lot of birds around our yard, but this year we seem to have hit a sweet spot in terms of cover and food because we’ve seen a greater variety of fledgling birds than ever before. It’s possible that these birds have been here every year and I just haven’t noticed because I haven’t been as active in the yard after April. It’s also possible that I was finally sufficiently threatening with regard to the neighbors’ cats being in the yard every other day for three years, as I haven’t seen them around in months. We’ve also sprayed the cherry trees for Eastern Tent Caterpillars for two years now, which has enabled them to fully foliate and have enough energy to actually produce cherries. Most likely the proliferation is a combination of all of those factors plus the near-constant rain keeping fresh water in the birdbath.

At any rate, I’ve seen rumpled no-tail-feathers wobbly-flying young of 13 species in our yard (or on the street in front of the house): American Crow, Blue Jay, Catbird, Eastern Phoebe, Hairy Woodpecker, House Sparrow, Northern Cardinal, Grackle, European Starling, Brown Thrasher, Mourning Dove, American Robin, and (just this morning) Carolina Wren. Of all of these, I was most pleased by the ones I hadn’t seen before. The phoebe was a wonderful surprise, as I’d read they were shy nesters; in addition to being a pretty little bird (I have a northerner’s affinity for the gray species) they eat mosquitoes almost exclusively. I was excited about the crow, too, mostly because it’s one of those large birds about which you joke of never seeing a juvenile. And, truly, the young one would have been indistinguishable from an adult were it not making such plaintive cries for attention and had I not witnessed its parent actually feeding it. Finally, the woodpecker was a treat just because it was so cute. Without tail feathers, it was the quintessential Weeble ™ fluffball as it tried to peck for bugs up and down the limbs of the red maple.

My father rightly observes that all of these birds are ‘the loud ones,’ which is likely related to being the large ones, which is definitely related to being the voracious insect-eating ones. After years of effort, I seem to be finally developing ecological balance. We have numerous predator bugs in the yard, most noticeably fireflies, and just this week I discovered a beautiful spider—I bet you never expected me to use those two words together—camped out in the daylilies and another of the same in the climbing rose in the backyard.

Now, if only the slugs would attract some toads, I’d be set.

garden : nesting birds and a developing ecological balance

garden : foundation bed, volunteer wildflower, and leaves on the twig

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The front flower bed, newly planted.


The front flower bed, one month later.

A month after planting the foundation bed with flowering perennials, we’re seeing all kinds of growth. It doesn’t look like a mature flower garden yet, but it’s showing signs of how it will be when it fills in. When the plants first arrived, I was disappointed; I had expected all of the plants to be in pots and all of the potted plants to be larger. Now that the bare roots have sprouted, we’ve been able to tell which had crown rot and need to be replaced and which are likely going to survive. I probably should have been prepared for how scraggly it looks with just sprouts, but I have never done this kind of planting before.


Lavender buds just opening.

In terms of flowers, the bellflowers were coming into bloom when they arrived, so they have been a nice splash of purple. The scabiosa took off, and they are also sprouting multiple pale purple blooms. While lovely, neither is the true blue that was advertised, and everything looks washed in purple with the lavender in full bloom next to the bed. The butterfly weed grew like, well, a weed, and several of the shoots have developed flower buds. I look forward to that splash of orange or yellow color. The dwarf aster bloomed as well, and I can’t remember whether it was supposed to bloom this time of year or whether it was just early because of the planting schedule. And, the small rudbeckia on the other side of the steps has bloomed, and looks quite cheery in that dark little patch. Besides those, everything else is still in the sprout stage; I’m not sure I’ll get any daisies at all this year at the rate they’re growing. I remind myself that it’s barely summer, and there’s plenty of time for them to shoot up and get established.


The volunteer aster.


Leaves on the clethra.

Elsewhere around the front yard everything’s loving all the rain and heat. The clethra now has a full set of leaves, and we’re hoping to see more shoots once it starts actually photosynthesizing. The aster that I left unmowed has bloomed all over with lovely yellow-centered white flowers. I kind of like it as an outpost at the property line, but I’m under some household pressure to relocate it into the flowerbed. The monarda has grown significantly, and now has a healthy colony of predator insects eating the healthy colony of aphids that discovered it within the first days of planting. It hasn’t bloomed yet, but I’m hopeful. The daylilies are bursting out all over, of course; they love this climate and have been reveling in the rain. I had been thinking of phasing them out in favor of more natives, as I wasn’t sure anything found sustenance in them; I’ve since seen some insects eating the pollen and at least one butterfly—possibly a Delaware skipper—drinking from a bloom.


The daylily bed, with the clethra in the lower left corner.

garden : foundation bed, volunteer wildflower, and leaves on the twig

garden : weeding, transplanting, and a baby dove

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After days of pulling up chickweed and dandelion, I finally called it done and mowed the backyard this morning; I’m leaving the front until next week to enjoy the violets a bit longer. I am quite sure I didn’t get all of the weeds, as I couldn’t be bothered to get the dandelion digger and just took the flowers. Plus, the short chickweed that I missed among the tall grass will survive my ample 3″ mower position and be back again next spring. I did learn this week that chickweed is edible, like dandelions; since we’re up to our eyeballs in the greens we actually pay for, I’m going to give eating weeds a miss this year. If the recession deepens, who knows.

In the category of ‘garden labor that is neither killing invasives nor walking around looking at flower buds’ I also moved some plants around this week. The moving around went something like: iceplant (which is really a type of sedum, although apparently now booted from the sedum family as well; I suppose taxonomists have to do something to pay the rent) from back to front; yellow daylilies from front to back, bluebells from back to side, Summersweet from a cup in the kitchen into the front bed, and some of my neighbor’s lovely little spring starflowers into the front bed. As a result of all this moving and planting, the bed along the sidewalk is starting to look quite respectable. The native phlox is blooming, and pollinators—that’s what we’re calling bees and bee-like insects these days, right?—are flocking to the lavender flowers. The aster and coneflower will be moving out of that bed to new spots by the foundation, just as soon as we get that bed prepared.

At the moment, with the violets in the lawn, the daffodils by the porch steps, and last year’s free irises sending up purple and white flowers it looks quite nice. It’s a bit frightfully respectable, as Christopher Lloyd would say, with the purple and white and yellow (which will only be enhanced when the white carpet phlox and basket-of-gold go into the front bed); although the crocuses didn’t bloom after last year’s transplanting, they are also in the same palette. Soon, however, the flaming pink azalea will be in bloom around the corner of the house — along with more white in the form of the other azaleas along the front of the house. The backyard has the huge salmon ball that is the quince bush and the flaming yellow tower that is the forsythia. What can I say, I’m not a fan of the pink, although the bright oranges, yellows and reds will be well-represented in the new sunny foundation bed. Along with (of course) more blues and whites.

As the icing on the cake of actually having flowers coming up in the garden, I was visited by a young dove while I sat on the porch. I’ve never seen one that small before, but it could fly and was following its parent on a tour of our yard. I think the nest is in the neighbor’s hedge, which is an excellent spot now that the neighbors have gotten better about keeping their cats indoors. I’m always pleased to see any birds in the yard; as I’m no longer stocking the feeders, they’re a decent gauge of how well our plantings provide food and habitat all on their own. So far the verdict seems to be: not too shabby.


With digital zoom in order not to get too close to the (4-5″ long) dove.

garden : weeding, transplanting, and a baby dove

garden log : mating dragonflies

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Dragonflies mating on our porch post.

I went outside this afternoon to enjoy the unseasonably warm day, and after my mole eyes adjusted to the sun, I noticed a pair of dragonflies mating on our porch. These dragonflies have been around the yard for a while now, and I also see them in the town park. Which is great, because it means our stream is both clean and wet enough to support dragonflies (the overgrowth along the edges is apparently also ideal for them to do their hanging thing when they’re young).

Despite having purchased a dragonfly identification book, I have not been able to figure out what kind they are. For example: is that a clubtail? This is the first time I’ve ever tried to identify a dragonfly beyond those really obvious white-winged blobby ones that I see at the pond, and I’m a bit overwhelmed by the choices. So, please feel free to identify them for me! I’m in Maryland, they’re mating in October, and the water habitat nearby is a creek bed that is mostly fed by storm water. Go to town!


Still mating.


More mating.


And still more mating.

garden log : mating dragonflies

garden log : praying mantises

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Praying mantis on the front porch one evening last week.


Praying mantis on the back wall this afternoon.


Praying mantis on the front window this time last year.

I was delighted to catch sight of mantises of two different colors in our yard this year, although probably both of a single species. The brown color and the lateral stripe, plus the fact that they are enormous, indicate that they are likely Chinese mantises. Mantises are excellent predators, and as I’ve noted in the past, our yard can use all the insect predation help it can get. It’s true that they will eat any kind of insect they can catch, so I’m hoping they’ll focus on the crickets and leave the other predators — cicada killers and ladybugs in particular — alone.

Now that I know what their egg sacs look like (thank you, interweb!), I’ll keep an eye out for it on or around the house and not mistake it for a wasp nest, which I think I’ve done in the past. Plants and insects are not my forte, but I’m learning. Now, if we had some toads to eat the hosta’s slugs, those I would know what to do with!

garden log : praying mantises