“It’s Full of Stars” of Bethlehem

While recovering from migraine during freakishly warm February days, I pull weeds. Slowly, gently, quietly, and in the shade. So far, I have filled an entire 30 gallon Leaf Bag with nothing but one kind of weed. My worst weed. The weed I wish would die in a supernova: the Star of Bethlehem.

I’ve ranted about this plant before (here), but I rant again because on every public occasion when I point to the foliage or the flowers and proclaim the thuggery of this twinkling plant, I am met with disbelief.
“Oh, but it’s so sweet!” gush the disbelievers. Sweet, pretty, adorable, etc.

All true. I used to make sweet, pretty, adorable bouquets of the flowers—all the flowers—in hopes that plucking them would prevent seed-formation, and perhaps reduce the number of new Stars next Spring.

But plucking did not work. Digging did not work. Smothering with cardboard did not work. Repeated removal of leaves did not work. Nothing works. New constellations continue to spread across the yard.

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Dashboard Nature: Car Spider

Today’s Dashboard Nature: the spider who lives in my car.

Funnel spider or Wolf spider? Either way, it dashes in and out of the windshield gasket as I drive.

“HELLO!” “GOODBYE!” “HELLO!” “GOODBYE!” etc, super-fast.
All the way to school, every day this week.

Today, it stood perfectly still through a red light at Music Row, which led me to imagine I had a chance to catch it. I pulled the car over, but my Spider Tupperware lives in the kitchen, not my car, and all I had on hand was yesterday’s teabag. Luckily, the bag was a nice, roomy pyramid which, I’ve just learned, can be pressed into a dome the perfect size to trap but not squish a car spider.

But, if it’s a Wolf spider, all 8 eyes saw me coming, and if it’s a Funnel spider, all 8 eyes (in a different arrangement) saw me coming;
so the spider said “GOODBYE!” before my teabag got halfway there.

There were no more HELLOS! all the way home.

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Five Reasons to not Hate February

Although February gets some love on the 14th, it remains a month most of us hate.
I hated it until Naturalist training, during which a series of seasonal epiphanies taught me otherwise.

So, here is my Valentine to you: 5 Reasons to not Hate February.

#1 First-of-Year Spring Beauty

Claytonia virginica is the aptly named Spring Beauty: one of the most common native wildflowers in Nashville. Mostly white, or mostly pink, but always with pink veins that act as landing strips to pollinators. And the pollen is pink, too!

And get this, Nashville has a specialist, native bee that depends on that pollen to feed her babies. No other pollen will do.
No Spring Beauties = No specialist bee.
In March and April, watch Spring Beauties for a small, dark bee with pale pink pollen on her leg baskets, and then try to follow her to the nest. After a load, she’ll fly back to a pencil-sized hole in the ground to provision the nursery.

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Foundation Shrubs that Feed Nature, not Fight it

Skip the Skip Laurel, Say No to Nandina: Choose NATIVE

If your exotic evergreens are “ever-brown” from the recent freeze, now is an ideal time to upgrade to natives.

It doesn’t make sense to simply plant more of the same: the same non-native foundation shrubs that are anything but foundational to our ecosystem. Schip laurel, boxwood, nandina, Chinese holly, euonymus, false cypress, red-tips, cryptomeria, and so forth: all are plants that evolved with creatures and conditions on different continents.

^{[Mockingbird on Black Chokeberry, Photo by Richard Hitt]}

What we need in Tennessee are more shrubs that evolved nearby.
Native shrubs can be more likely to survive extreme weather, year-round. And most importantly, natives are the only sustainable choice: they contribute to local foodwebs in countless, critical ways that non-native plants cannot.

But, which native shrubs give us the color, texture, and size we want, while giving birds, bees, and butterflies what they need?

^{Eastern Red-cedar, female with “berries”}

-WHAT TO BUY:

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Free the Trees

“But it’s pretty!” is how some gardeners defend the English ivy and Wintercreeper climbing (and killing) trees.
“Pretty” = evergreen, even in winter.

But it’s not pretty THIS winter, thanks to the deep freeze that browned even these invasive vines.

So, now is the perfect time to kill these killers.

As a friend noticed last month, the vines “already look like sh*t,” so people “have nothing to lose by cutting the stems.”

Cutting the stems can save our trees,
and save our neighborhoods from millions of new invasive seeds each year.

Cutting is fast, easy, and cheap.

Why cut? and How to cut?

Let Margie Hunter tell you, step by step.
Margie is on the board of the Tennessee Invasive Plant Council, is the author of Gardening with the Native Plants of Tennessee, is a founder of the Tennessee Naturalist Program (where she creates curriculum and teaches), and is a Conservation Communicator of the Year. And, she’s a neighbor!

(For a printable PDF version of Margie’s article, scroll to the end.)

Now is the Time to Free the Trees!

by Margie Hunter, for the HWEN newsletter

Hillsboro-West End Neighborhood received a wonderful holiday gift in December — frigid temperatures killed the foliage of the English Ivy and Wintercreeper vines climbing our trees — presenting a unique opportunity to cast off their arboreal tyranny without suffering the sad sight of slowly wilting leaves.

Why should we remove these vines from our trees?

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Classroom Butterflies

“Butterflies for Science?” was the invitation I emailed my friend.
“YES!” she answered, “I want butterflies for my classroom. How do we do it?”

Here’s how we DON’T do it:
No kits of generic caterpillars mailed 2nd Day Air with tubs of larval food paste (a “proprietary mixture of vitamins, proteins, and fats”).
No butterflies released into the wild without regard to the calendar or what plants are outside.*

Our butterflies are a name brand! The Gulf Fritillary.
Our caterpillar food is the real thing, the ONLY thing: this butterfly’s particular larval host plant. There would be no new Gulf Fritillaries without it.

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Don’t forget the stick (Bucket of Doom)

Don’t forget the stick! It’s the escape ramp for thirsty and clumsy critters.
The goal of a Mosquito Bucket of Doom is to kill mosquito larvae.
The goal is NOT to kill bees or ants or birds or fireflies or skinks or chipmunks, or anyone else who falls into the bucket.

Lately, I’ve heard from three friends that they’ve pulled dead squirrels and birds out of their buckets.
I asked if they used sticks in the bucket. No.

A stick is essential in every Bucket of Doom.
It’s an escape ramp for creatures to climb up to safety.

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Leaf Rescue

Today’s Sidewalk Nature: Leaf Rescue.

Before: leaves headed for storm grate.
During: leaves shoved into reused plastic bags.
After: leaves dumped onto my yard (for the pawpaw patch).

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(Doom-it-Yourself) Mosquito Bucket Styles

After I posted the Do-It-Yourself Mosquito Bucket of Doom (link), I realized two things:
1) I should have called the project a “Doom-It-Yourself,” and
2) Not everyone is excited about displaying an ugly bucket in their yard.

But, now I know that a Mosquito Bucket of Doom need not be ugly. Or even be a bucket.
Nearly any water-tight, wide-mouthed container will do.

Personally, I’m fine sharing my yard with an ugly bucket that still advertises the 30 pounds of kitty litter it once contained:

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Mosquito Bucket of Doom

Mosquito season is here! Instead of spraying pesticides onto our entire yards—and onto fireflies, ladybugs, bumblebees, and butterflies—why not just kill mosquitoes?

But wait, first: let’s PREVENT mosquitos from breeding in our yards. Here’s an infographic (link) from the CDC to remind us of the free and easy common-sense ways to do this, like removing standing water in toys, saucers and gutters.

And THEN, why not try a Mosquito Bucket of Doom?
It’s cheap, it’s safe, it works.

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