Have you noticed a purple haze across the fields right now? If so, you may have wondered, “What kind of flowers are they?”
A purple haze of color stretches across fields not already green with cold-season crops like winter wheat.
Say hello to Purple Dead Nettle (Lamium purpureum), a non-native invasive species that has increased its prevalence in recent years by finding an improved niche in no-till cropland. Purple Dead Nettle, also known as Red Dead Nettle, is native to Asia and Europe. It has been a familiar early spring “weed” in gardens, along roadsides, and in other disturbed ground for decades.
Purple Dead Nettle owes its new-found success to the timing of its compressed growing season. Its tiny seeds germinate during the fall and winter, after crops have been harvested and herbicide application has ended for the season. The plants flower early in the spring and are thus particularly attractive to Honey Bees and other pollinators looking for a source of energy-rich nectar as they ramp up activity after winter lock down. In many cases, Purple Dead Nettle has already completed its flowering cycle and produced seeds before there is any activity in the field to prepare for planting the summer crop. The seeds spend the warmer months in dormancy, avoiding the hazards of modern cultivation that expel most other species of native and non-native plants from the agricultural landscape.
Flowering Purple Dead Nettle as a volunteer cover crop among last year’s corn stubble in a no-till field.Like the flowers of orchids, Purple Hedge Nettle blossoms are described as yoke shaped or bilateral (zygomorphic). Psychedelic experiences are produced only through observation, not by ingestion. A member of the mint family, its edible young leaves and tops have nutritional value, making a unique addition to salads and soups.We call them “weeds”, but what do we know? Purple Dead Nettle, Common Dandelion, and Shepherd’s Purse (Capsella bursa-pastoris), three edible non-native invasive species with similar life cycles seen here flowering along a rural road among fields where intensive farming is practiced. Shepard’s Purse, like many members of the mustard family, is already producing seeds at the bottom of the flower cluster by the time the uppermost buds open for business.In preparation for seeding of a warm-season crop, herbicide is applied on a no-till field to kill Shepherd’s Purse and other cool-season plants. To help prevent sediment and nutrient discharge from lands where high-intensity agriculture is practiced, no-till methods are used to reduce runoff from the areas of bare soil that would otherwise be created by traditional plowing.
While modern farming has eliminated a majority of native plant and animal species from agricultural lands of the lower Susquehanna valley, its crop management practices have simultaneously invited vigorous invasion by a select few non-native species. High-intensity farming devotes its acreage to providing food for a growing population of people—not to providing wildlife habitat. That’s why it’s so important to minimize our impact on non-farm lands throughout the remainder of the watershed. If we continue subdividing, paving, and mowing more and more space, we’ll eventually be living in a polluted semi-arid landscape populated by little else but non-native invasive plants and animals. We can certainly do better than that.
You probably know that fall is an excellent time for planting. Roots continue to grow in the warm soil even after the air becomes cool and leaves change color, setting the stage for your new trees and shrubs to sport splendid foliage and flowers in spring.
But did you know that autumn can be the best time to visit your local nursery/garden center to select the native trees and shrubs that produce berries for attracting and feeding overwintering birds and other wildlife? Here are three of our favorites. Each is looking its best from now through at least the first half of winter.
American Holly is a favorite small evergreen tree for winter beauty in the landscape. The showy red berries are produced only on female plants, so you’ll need to select at least one of each gender to grow fruit. They do best in acidic soils, responding well to a mulching of plenty of dead leaves each fall.American Robins eating American Holly berries in February.Common Winterberry is a slow-growing deciduous shrub and a member of the holly family; you’ll need both a male and a female plant to get a crop of berries. It just so happens that fall is the best time to visit the nursery for selecting a female that’s a good fruit producer. Winterberry is at its best under full sun in moist, acidic soils. These plants are very happy to receive the water from your downspouts and a mulching from the leaves in your garden.An American Robin feeds on Common Winterberry on a snowy February evening.American Beautyberry (Callicarpa americana) is a low-growing arching deciduous shrub of sunny locations in various well-drained soils. It is a plant of the southern United States that, given current temperature trends, will thrive in the Lower Susquehanna River Watershed, particularly on south-facing slopes. And yes, it does well in mass plantings on embankments.The fruits of American Beautyberry may be the most colorful of any native species.
There’s still time to get the shovel dirty, so visit your local native plant dealer this week and invest in some fruit-producing trees and shrubs. Fall is also a good time to plant pines, spruces, and hemlocks. Who knows, you might just get a good end-of-season deal.
When planted in mixed clumps, conifers like these White Pines, Norway Spruces, and Eastern Red Cedar provide excellent winter food and cover for birds and other wildlife.
This tallgrass prairie wildflower planting on a health campus in Hershey, Pennsylvania, enhances stormwater management and benefits butterflies and other wildlife. Reducing the acreage maintained as manicured lawn has helped disperse the large flocks of resident Canada Geese (a population of invasive native transplants) that frequented the property and posed a serious hazard to medevac helicopters flying in and out of the facility.Big Bluestem, a warm-season grass, dominates the site and is complemented by Indiangrass and tall wildflowers including Common Milkweed, Wild Bergamot, Oxeye, Black-eyed Susan, Prairie Coneflower, and Purple Coneflower.
This month, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (I.U.C.N.) added the Migratory Monarch Butterfly (Danaus plexippus plexippus) to its “Red List of Threatened Species”, classifying it as endangered. Perhaps there is no better time than the present to have a look at the virtues of replacing areas of mowed and manicured grass with a wildflower garden or meadow that provides essential breeding and feeding habitat for Monarchs and hundreds of other species of animals.
A recently arrived Monarch visits a cluster of fragrant Common Milkweed flowers in the garden at the susquehannawildlife.net headquarters. Milkweeds included among a wide variety of plants in a garden or meadow habitat can help local populations of Monarchs increase their numbers before the autumn flights to wintering grounds commence in the fall. Female Monarchs lay their eggs on milkweed leaves, then, after hatching, the larvae (caterpillars) feed on them before pupating.
If you’re not quite sure about finally breaking the ties that bind you to the cult of lawn manicuring, then compare the attributes of a parcel maintained as mowed grass with those of a space planted as a wildflower garden or meadow. In our example we’ve mixed native warm season grasses with the wildflowers and thrown in a couple of Eastern Red Cedars to create a more authentic early successional habitat.
* Particularly when native warm-season grasses are included (root depth 6′-8′)
Still not ready to take the leap. Think about this: once established, the wildflower planting can be maintained without the use of herbicides or insecticides. There’ll be no pesticide residues leaching into the soil or running off during downpours. Yes friends, it doesn’t matter whether you’re using a private well or a community system, a wildflower meadow is an asset to your water supply. Not only is it free of man-made chemicals, but it also provides stormwater retention to recharge the aquifer by holding precipitation on site and guiding it into the ground. Mowed grass on the other hand, particularly when situated on steep slopes or when the ground is frozen or dry, does little to stop or slow the sheet runoff that floods and pollutes streams during heavy rains.
What if I told you that for less than fifty bucks, you could start a wildflower garden covering 1,000 square feet of space? That’s a nice plot 25′ x 40′ or a strip 10′ wide and 100′ long along a driveway, field margin, roadside, property line, swale, or stream. All you need to do is cast seed evenly across bare soil in a sunny location and you’ll soon have a spectacular wildflower garden. Here at the susquehannawildllife.net headquarters we don’t have that much space, so we just cast the seed along the margins of the driveway and around established trees and shrubs. Look what we get for pennies a plant…
Some of the wildflowers and warm-season grasses grown from scattered seed in the susquehannawildlife.net headquarters garden.
Here’s a closer look…
Lance-leaved Coreopsis (Coreopsis lanceolata), a perennial.Black-eyed Susan, a biennial or short-lived perennial.“Gloriosa Daisy”, a variety of Black-eyed Susan, a biennial or short-lived perennial.Purple Coneflower, an excellent perennial for pollinators. The ripe seeds provide food for American Goldfinches.A short variety of Common Sunflower, an annual and a source of free bird seed.Another short variety of Common Sunflower, an annual.
All this and best of all, we never need to mow.
Around the garden, we’ve used a northeast wildflower mix from American Meadows. It’s a blend of annuals and perennials that’s easy to grow. On their website, you’ll find seeds for individual species as well as mixes and instructions for planting and maintaining your wildflower garden. They even have a mix specifically formulated for hummingbirds and butterflies.
When planted in spring and early summer, annuals included in a wildflower mix will provide vibrant color during the first year. Many varieties will self-seed to supplement the display provided by biennials and perennials in subsequent years.A northeast wildflower mix from American Meadows. There are no fillers. One pound of pure live seed easily plants 1,000 square feet.
Nothing does more to promote the spread and abundance of non-native plants, including invasive species, than repetitive mowing. One of the big advantages of planting a wildflower garden or meadow is the opportunity to promote the growth of a community of diverse native plants on your property. A single mowing is done only during the dormant season to reseed annuals and to maintain the meadow in an early successional stage—preventing reversion to forest.
For wildflower mixes containing native species, including ecotypes from locations in and near the Lower Susquehanna River Watershed, nobody beats Ernst Conservation Seeds of Meadville, Pennsylvania. Their selection of grass and wildflower seed mixes could keep you planting new projects for a lifetime. They craft blends for specific regions, states, physiographic provinces, habitats, soils, and uses. Check out these examples of some of the scores of mixes offered at Ernst Conservation Seeds…
Pipeline Mixes
Pasture, Grazing, and Hay Mixes
Cover Crops
Pondside Mixes
Warm-season Grass Mixes
Retention Basin Mixes
Wildlife Mixes
Pollinator Mixes
Wetland Mixes
Floodplain and Riparian Buffer Mixes
Rain Garden Mixes
Steep Slope Mixes
Solar Farm Mixes
Strip Mine Reclamation Mixes
We’ve used their “Showy Northeast Native Wildflower and Grass Mix” on streambank renewal projects with great success. For Monarchs, we really recommend the “Butterfly and Hummingbird Garden Mix”. It includes many of the species pictured above plus “Fort Indiantown Gap” Little Bluestem, a warm-season grass native to Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, and milkweeds (Asclepias), which are not included in their northeast native wildflower blends. More than a dozen of the flowers and grasses currently included in this mix are derived from Pennsylvania ecotypes, so you can expect them to thrive in the Lower Susquehanna River Watershed.
Swamp Milkweed, a perennial species, is included in the Ernst Seed “Butterfly and Hummingbird Garden Mix”. It is a favorite of female Monarchs seeking a location to deposit eggs.A Monarch larva (caterpillar) feeding on Swamp Milkweed.Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa) is included in the Ernst Seed “Butterfly and Hummingbird Garden Mix”. This perennial is also known as Butterfly Milkweed.Eastern Tiger Swallowtails are among the dozens of species of pollinators that will visit Butterfly Weed.
In addition to the milkweeds, you’ll find these attractive plants included in Ernst Conservation Seed’s “Butterfly and Hummingbird Garden Mix”, as well as in some of their other blends.
The perennial Wild Bergamot, also known as Bee Balm, is an excellent pollinator plant, and the tubular flowers are a favorite of hummingbirds.Oxeye is adorned with showy clusters of sunflower-like blooms in mid-summer. It is a perennial plant.Plains Coreopsis (Coreopsis tinctoria), also known as Plains Tickseed, is a versatile annual that can survive occasional flooding as well as drought.Gray-headed Coneflower (Ratibida pinnata), a tall perennial, is spectacular during its long flowering season.Goldenrods are a favorite nectar plant for migrating Monarchs in autumn. They seldom need to be sown into a wildflower garden; the seeds of local species usually arrive on the wind. They are included in the “Butterfly and Hummingbird Garden Mix” from Ernst Conservation Seeds in low dose, just in case the wind doesn’t bring anything your way.Is something missing from your seed mix? You can purchase individual species from the selections available at American Meadows and Ernst Conservation Seeds. Partridge Pea is a good native annual to add. It is a host plant for the Cloudless Sulphur butterfly and hummingbirds will often visit the flowers. It does really well in sandy soils.Indiangrass is a warm-season species that makes a great addition to any wildflower meadow mix. Its deep roots make it resistant to drought and ideal for preventing erosion.
Why not give the Monarchs and other wildlife living around you a little help? Plant a wildflower garden or meadow. It’s so easy, a child can do it.
Volunteers sow a riparian buffer on a recontoured stream bank using wildflower and warm-season grass seed blended uniformly with sand. By casting the sand/seed mixture evenly over the planting site, participants can visually assure that seed has been distributed according to the space calculations.The same seeded site less than four months later.A Monarch pupa from which the adult butterfly will emerge.
A Leafcutter Bee (Megachile species) visits the blossoms of a Wild Bergamot (Monarda fistulosa), a native wildflower also known as Bee Balm or Horsemint. Like Mason Bees (Osmia species), leafcutters will readily nest in the tubular cavities provided inside man-made bee houses. As their names suggest, Mason Bees use mud to construct and seal the cells for their eggs while leafcutters harvest leaves for the task. Female Leafcutter Bees, including this individual, can be recognized by the accumulation of pollen carried on the underside of their abdomen. Within each nest cell, a female will lay an egg atop a supply of pollen and nectar. These provisions will nourish the larva through development and transformation into an adult.
