Nature Skills

I was pleased, yet dismayed, to come across someone's short-lived wildflower patch on the side of a less traveled road in my community. It inspired me to think that guerilla gardening like this could be done in many other places, with no permitting needed. I just wished that the native plants could have out-competed the countless weeds that had come to dominate. Perhaps, with the right soil preparation, the best plants for the location, and attention to plant spacing, it could have looked something like this without much follow-on maintenance. 

Photo by Richard Ashley

Even with the array of information easily available on numerous native plants to consider for various purposes, the art of garden design requires first-hand detailed knowledge of plant appearance and behavior. For example, I can see that a Great Blue Lobelia might be a lovely addition to a butterfly garden, but how well does it play with others in its root space? The answer is not easily found in documents, and is probably best discovered through consulting more experienced gardeners and naturalists.

Master Gardeners should be able to design gardens and use available online tools and references to make informed plant selections. Yet, it wasn't until I was trained as a Master Watershed Steward that I got exposed to enough of this material to feel confident in garden design. I have also come to realize that even both of these designations won't fit me to single-handedly design conservation landscapes or many other planting schemes. It's going to take collaboration.

Master Naturalists are skilled in wetland restoration, among other things, so they could be good resources for rain garden plant selection. There are many Master Gardeners who seem to have a good amount of native plant knowledge. +Kurt Reitz operates an outdoor native plant nursery at the Elms Environmental Education Center and would be one of the first people I'd ask, partly because he will give away plants for public gardens and restoration projects.

Let's face it. Most of us who take on these volunteer roles are amateurs. However, maybe one-third have had careers that make them extraordinarily valuable sources of information in their particular area of expertise. If you want to make your conservation landscaping or other restoration project have lasting value, asking enough of these kinds of folks until you find the expert on the matter in question could be critical to your project's longevity.

Healing the Land

Restoring habitat is not limited to wilderness preservation. Significantly more biodiversity can also be had by improving landscapes around our built environments. Many private residences are prime opportunities for owners to boldly transform lawns and lots into small wonderlands teeming with beneficial and beautiful beings. Conservation landscaping is a discipline that encourages such transformations and offers tools and guidelines to empower practitioners.

Photo by Jayscratch

The suburban living experiment has left occupants with half-finished properties. Having met human needs for shelter and infrastructure, builders leave restoration of the remaining devastated environment largely to homeowners. Planting turf is but a temporary salve on a bare wound. The soil under turf will not be anywhere near as healthy as it once was or could be again if covered with deep-rooted plants.

Turf, as much trouble as it can be to maintain, can also be very comely. More often, unfortunately, lawns are a less attractive mixture of weeds and uneven patches of turfgrass. Conservation landscaping doesn't call for eradication of lawns, but discourages their dominance on a property. Over time, homeowners are encouraged to transform the less fecund areas of their property with plantings that can supply many functions such as insectary, water infiltration, and curb appeal.

For those living in the Chesapeake Bay region, some tools that are available to make garden design and plant selection fast and fun are the Conservation Landscape Design Tool of the Anne Arundel Watershed Stewards Academy, or for a more step-by-step design approach, try the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay's version (also available through the Chesapeake Native Plant Center). I did a design, and wanting a more comprehensive set of native plants to select from, alternated between the tool's suggestions and those plants that met my more precise specifications at the Ladybird Johnson Native Plant Database. If nothing else, the exercise has helped me recognize a few more native plants.

Losing Native Naivety

Our walk to the Elms Environmental Education Center's pond last week was preceded by a slide talk about the importance of using native plants in watershed protection projects. The point was made by +Kurt Reitz, our gracious host, that the reason we want native plants is for the insects.

Photo by Tim Hynes

It takes a while to pull that thread, but what it amounts to is that plants feed insects and insects feed animals and native plants are evolutionarily adapted to the food chain of their area.

I become a little indifferent to the native plant appeals when I recall that I have a food chain that currently doesn't rely on foraging and hunting. In the expectation that this could change rather quickly, I am endeavoring to establish a food forest around my home, but not strictly using natives. Planting natives is a very helpful environmental practice, but environmentmental restoration still takes a back-seat to survival. However, as our fossil-fueled supply chain falters, rejoining the local food chain may become essential to survival.

The more I garden, the more I take pleasure in growing ornamentals. Yet, future reliance on agroforestry for a multitude of resources that will no longer be derived from or made using fossil fuels deters me from planting lots of native ornamentals mainly for environmental preservation.

There are some edible natives, however, that deserve a place in my forest garden. These include: Paw-paw, persimmon, gooseberry, black raspberry, blackberry, blueberry, and elderberry. I already have everything but the first and last of these. They aren't all that I wish to grow in the way of edibles, so non-natives will be in the mix. Then there are the less edible plants that provide other key functions in support of cultivated trees, including the insectary role. The time it takes to harvest, preserve, and consume or distribute the perennial bounty will ultimately determine where my forest farming ends and ornamental gardening begins.

Oh, How the Phragmites Have Fallen

In our Watershed Stewards Academy class visit to Elms Environmental Education Center, our host, +Kurt Reitz showed us a freshwater pond that was walled in halfway around with deep stands of phragmites australis (the common reed), an invasive shoreline plant so tenacious that it requires herculean efforts to eradicate it. Typically, eradication requires cutting, spraying with glyphosate, burning the stubble, and repeat treatments a few years later. The toil and trouble associated with this regimen deters most attempts at restoration, so owners and environmentalists have essentially acceded to allowing phragmites to rob our ecosystems of their natural biodiversity.

These tenacious phragmites will weather this storm, no problem (Photo by Kurt Reitz)

The way phragmites dries up in the fall makes it a tempting target for conversion to biochar. Controlled open burns of phragmites risk turning into conflagrations that could touch off fires in surrounding areas. I wonder, though, if it may be feasible to avoid much of the cutting and spraying and make very hot fires out of phragmites stands by applying traditional charcoal-farming techniques.

Biochar could be made with phragmites similar to the Ankara system. One of the problems we have in the Chesapeake Bay area is that phragmites grows out of dredging deposits, but by using dredging spoils as the covering material for the Ankara-style burn, we would be able to kill the in situ phragmites and the seeds and rhizomes in the dredging material, as well. Open burning has been an ineffective way to eliminate phragmites since the deep rhizomes often survive and come back with a vengeance. With the Ankara approach, heat is concentrated and conducted down deeper into the soil, so there is a better chance that the rhizomes would be killed.

For phragmites, the way to apply this approach might involve cutting three-foot strips about every 12 feet, flattening the reeds in the 12 foot rows and adding the cut pieces, digging out the rhizome-filled soil from the cut areas and spreading it on the flattened reeds, adding dredging spoils (from nearby projects) to create a casing over the whole biomass, making vent holes at the ends and in the top of the ridge as necessary to maintain some air flow, lighting the biomass at both ends and keeping it going by opening or closing air vents while it cooks for several days. After it cools, it can be tilled and planted with winter hardy native plants.

Potential advantages of this approach are its economy, rapidity, sequestering of carbon, creation of a biochar nutrient filter along the shoreline, and improved soil properties for replanting.

Nature Preserves (Big and Small)

Coal isn't the only embattled resource harbored by federal lands. In Oregon, cattle grazing ranges and timber are flashpoints for disputes arising out of economic vs. environmental foci. While federal jurisdiction is not as widespread as Oregon's, much of Maryland's economic activity takes place on property owned by the federal government. Presumably, should the union disintegrate following a slide into rebellion, states or regions will inherit these jurisdictions, but they may have to fight locally interested militias like Oregon's in order to maintain control. That won't be difficult for most of Maryland's federal lands, as most are owned and operated by federal departments involved in national security.  The Patuxent River Naval Air Station (home to my former employer, Naval Air Systems Command), the Aberdeen Proving Ground, and Fort Meade (home to the National Security Agency) are among the largest.

One prominent resource of interest to our future economy and our environment is the Patuxent River, which is largely held in the public commons. Adjacent to Fort Meade is a large chunk of federal land called the Patuxent Research Refuge (not to be confused with the Patuxent River State Park or county parks such as Prince George's Patuxent Park).  The navigable reach of the Patuxent River ends short of these environmental preserves, as the British discovered to their dismay during the War of 1812. Their largest vessels had to stop well below the headwaters, disembarking troops at Benedict, MD in preparation for their assault on the nation's capital.  That won't stop shallow-draft boats and barges from inland commerce up the Patuxent in the fossil-fuel deprived future that soon awaits us, especially as sea level rise backs up the tidal force to maintain wider and deeper channels all along its course. Environmental preservation will take a back seat to economic necessity in order to move goods via waterways in and out of populated areas, but that will be balanced out by the return to the wild of some areas which are economically unsustainable.

Developed landscapes that fall into neglect are vulnerable to invasive species, which also often include pioneer scrub plants such as thistles. Returning to a more beautifully advanced stage of wild can be fostered by a method now being practiced at the Patuxent Research Refuge by Master Gardeners. It is being taught to Master Gardeners in many counties through a series of workshops for creating foundation seedbeds of native plants. The process includes (1) Native plant rescue/seed saving (2) Seed sowing, and (3) Maintenance and propagation of foundation beds. Planting a foundation seed bed and collecting the seed from the mature plants allows a gardener to propagate natives via:

• starting plugs or pots of local genotype native plants, (for community greening projects and MG plant sales and demo gardens) 
• providing parks with genetically appropriate seed for restoration of areas after invasives removal or other soil disturbance 
• sowing native meadows 
• making wildflower seed packets, or 
• selling to produce income or raise funds.

It doesn't require a nature preserve to carry out this small-scale approach to environmental preservation. Gardeners like me can dedicate a little of their gardens and time to restoring natural beauty at home and in their communities. Groups throughout the country are holding seed swaps on or around the last weekend in January. I plan to participate in our county's event this weekend, where one of the seeds on my shopping list will be a native for my foundation seedbed.

Pushing back the Invaders

There is something of a tragedy in places where natives are driven into minority status.  Who knows what the waves of climate and resource war migrations will do to Europe in terms of cultural upheaval? The wild kingdom endures its own invasions of animals, plants, and insects, driven, as well, by climate change and human exploitation.  Often, the invasive species can be predatory, as were the settlers vs. the Native Americans and certain Islamic extremists living in the free world.

As a master gardener intern, I've been trained to side with the natives in their fight to possess territory.  This sounds like a convenient simplifying precept until you start asking for native plants at local nurseries.  Browsing through the Native Plant Guide for the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, I picked four ground cover plants that I decided to shop for to get the best price from nurseries as far as 50 miles away.  It turned out that price wasn't the issue, since not a single one was available at any of the half dozen nurseries shopped.

It seems that the online shopping option will be the solution to this apparent lack of conservation consciousness.  If I don't want to buy in quantities of 25 or greater from the Maryland Online Nursery, I can still buy numerous native species at Izel Plants, the Amazon.com of native plants.  Izel (meaning "unique" in a Native American language), is a clearinghouse for nurseries specializing in native plants.  Prices appear to be relatively low, and include quantity discounts.  The mid-Atlantic region is their strongest sector.

Should neither of these sources carry the plants I want, there are other listings yet to be explored.  As mentioned earlier, the local annual Master Gardener plant sale is a real good shopping opportunity, as well.

Fruits and Nuts

The forest garden I intend to plant will consist of 25 black walnut trees and several compatible species.  That limits the field to only a few species which don't seem to mind the juglone (5-hydroxy-alphanapthaquinone) that black walnut roots secrete.  A recommended native plant guild for black walnut* from Maryland permaculturist Michael Judd consists of:

• Goumi bush - producing a juicy, red berry in June (use 2 varieties; won't tolerate wet soil)
• Persimmon* - delicious Diospyros (Food of the Gods) virginiana (requires full sun; dioecious {requires a male tree}; half the height of black walnut)
• Paw paw - custard cream tropical fruit for making smoothies (full sun best; half the height of persimmon)
• Mulberry - exotic berry flavor (tolerates shade; a bit larger than paw paw tree)
• Currants - tart to sweet from black to pink nutritious berries (a shrub that grows well next to trees)
• Black raspberry - (not out-of-control like blackberries)
• Alpine strawberry - smaller fruit than commercial varieties (ground cover)
• Elderberry* - small, juicy fruit in June/July (likes wet soil, so double up the biochar; to 12')
• Goldenseal - flowery (medicinal) herb

* Available cheap through the Maryland online nursery.  Plant one in every patch.

If there is any room left over in some of these patches, other plants might be considered for inclusion. Everything else should be planted 50 feet or more away from the black walnut to prevent juglone poisoning, which means all these patches have to be well away from my existing plantings.

A Candy Store

Speaking of treasure troves, stumbling across the new Maryland online nursery has opened up a glorious new chapter in my forest gardening efforts.  Whereas, formerly, the only affordable and accessible source for me to buy native plants was the annual Master Gardener plant sale in Prince Frederick, where I would have to pay at least double the online nursery price, plants are now available online throughout the growing season and early orders are possible.  A minimum order of 25 plants is required and a minimum shipping charge of $20 applies to each order ($30 if your state doesn't adjoin Maryland).  Considering that retail nurseries charge over $150 for a young tree, and you could get 150 seedlings at this website for that price, it's a huge bargain.

This outlet is not for commercial resellers.  As the DNR website stipulates:

"Landowners who purchase seedlings from the John S. Ayton Nursery agree to:

• Provide a planting report upon department request
• Protect plantings as much as possible from fires, grazing animals and trespassers
• Keep live, rooted trees in place (trees with roots attached may not be uprooted for sale as live or ornamental trees)"

If you are on the Eastern shore and want to see the farm with over 3 million seedlings, their address is:

John S. Ayton State Tree Nursery
3424 Gallagher Road
Preston, MD 21655,

(a place sure to appeal to at least one of my loyal readers ; )

Rather than rush into ordering, my focus will first be on establishing food forest patches where the seedlings can be planted throughout my property.  This process of sheet mulching requires a year for wood chips and leaves to break down before planting can begin.  My goal is at least 25 patches on my property ready for planting by 2018.