Recently I posted an update on the status of two of our native pollinator gardens. Today I stopped at the gardens at Winn Elementary and the Morey Public School Academy.
I spent about an hour doing maintenance at the Morey PSA garden on June 18th. This garden had some weeds, especially around the edges, and quite a few plants that had seeded in the walkways and needed to be removed. Here are some photographs from today (30 June) as well as from the 18th.
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| The Morey PSA Native Pollinator Garden is listed as a Monarch Waystation |
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| Lance-leaf Coreopsis is the most prominent flower in the garden right now |
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| Looking up through the coreopsis |
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| Honeybees visiting the Common Milkweed in the garden |
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| Butterflyweed |
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| Another honeybee on a Common Milkweed |
The garden at Winn Elementary has required more of my time this year than any other garden. Today was my second trip to this garden in the past month. There have been some weeds that have required removing (White Clove, Black Medick, Common Dendelion, etc.), but the biggest headache has actually been the spread of plants that we placed in this garden.
I rarely advise against planting a native plant, but I will do so now.
Do not plant Canada Tick-trefoil (Desmodium canadense) in a garden. Let me repeat that warning:
Do NOT plant Canada Tick-trefoil (Desmodium canadense) in a garden!
In the wild, I rarely find more than one or two plants of this species, but in a new garden, this plant can quickly overtake other species.
This perennial produces hundreds of "sticky" seeds each year. We started with four plants and I think every seed that was produced by those four plants has found a home in the soil and germinated. Last year I cut off and removed every seed head that I could see, but seeds that had sat dormant in the soil for a year decided to try to take over the world this spring. I am now in the process of trying to remove every single one of these plants from this garden. I expect this will be a multi-year battle as dormant seeds continue to spring forth.
Anyway... here are a few photographs from the Winn Elementary Native Pollinator Garden.
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| The garden at Winn Elementary is between major blooms right now |
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| A few Butterflyweed plants were showing off their orange flowers |
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| Red Baneberry berries are ripening from green to red |
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| New Jersey Tea was attracting lots of pollinators (bees, flies, and wasps) |
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| The view from the other end of the garden |
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| This coreopsis was transplanted into this garden in 2014 from the Saginaw Chippewa Academy |
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