2016 Isabella Conservation District Fall Tree Order

The Isabella Conservation District is now accepting orders for our Fall 2016 Tree Order.  Orders can be made by mail or in person at the Isabella Conservation District Office at 5979 E. Broadway, Mt. Pleasant.  Orders can also be placed over the phone at (989) 772-5927 ext. 3.

Payments can be made in cash, by check (to the Isabella Conservation District or ICD), or by credit card.  Payment is due at the time you order.

Orders are due no later than Friday October 7th.

A fillable form can be found at the following link.

Fall 2016 Order Form

At home in the (mostly) native pollinator garden

I refer to the gardens that I have planted at schools as Native Pollinator Gardens for two reasons.  First, they contain only native plants.  Second, the plants in the gardens were selected to attracts native pollinators such as butterflies, mason and leafcutter bees, bumble bees, and more.

Our garden at home is a (mostly) native pollinator garden.  Not every plant in the garden is native - maybe 70% is native, the rest are not.  Some of the plants were already here when we bought the house (hostas, irises, grape hyacinth, Siberian Squill), others we planted because they filled a need (Japanese maples in front of the house replaced Rose of Sharon and Boxwood), and some we planted just because we like them (tulips!).

The star of the show remains the native plants, especially this time of year.  Our garden is currently full of asters and goldenrods.  The pollinators love them.  Yesterday afternoon while the sun was shining, the number of wild honeybees in our yard probably numbered at least 200 at any given time; bumblebees numbered as many as two dozen at once.  Add in the flies, beetles, butterflies, and the sphinx moth that was buzzing around just before dark and it was a very busy place.

False Solomon's Seal berries

Big-leaf Aster

Three-lobed Coneflower takes front and center

The garden is a certified Monarch Waystation

Honey bees (and a fly) on Cut-leaved Coneflower

New England Asters - the current star of the show

Bumblebee on a Stiff Goldenrod

Shades of purple and gold

The garden is reaching outside its borders into the lawn

Zigzag Goldenrod guards the front steps

Turtlehead

 

Violets and Maidenhair Fern

Zigzag Goldenrod

No room! Go away!

Give me some sugar, little honey bee!

Honeybee and Spotted Cucumber Beetle on New England Aster

Drawings from students

Over the past seven years I have been the recipient of dozens of drawings from students.  Usually the drawings were made while I was teaching a class.  Less commonly, a student has saved something for me since the last time I visited their classroom.  Normally they have something to do with the lesson I am presenting, but not always. 

Earlier this week I received my first one of this school year.

The subject of the drawing (and the presentation I was giving) - Trees

For those of you not fluent in the "Beginning of Third Grade" written language, here is the translation.

                               Left of the trunk                            Right of the Trunk
                               oxygen                                             trunk
                               paper                                                leaves
                               sugar                                                roots
                               sunlight
                               carbon
                               dioxide.
                               water
                               can be
                               little
                               big
                               small             

Native Pollinator Garden Update (14 and 15 SEP 2016)

Yesterday afternoon I photographed the Native Pollinator Garden at the Saginaw Chippewa Academy.  This year was a transition year for this garden.  The portable classroom that bordered it on the west was removed this spring.  This meant that the garden no longer gets water running off the roof and it is exposed to full sun for the entire day.  I was not sure how it would react to the changes.

Native plants are tough.  Most of them took the changes in stride, with no obvious ill effects. A few plants were noticeably shorter than in previous years, but everything survived.  Here are some pictures.

Looking north into the garden - the portable classroom used to be on the left

Honey bees were very abundant

 

Looking east toward the school - the bright yellow flower is Cup Plant

Butterflyweed explodes into seeds

Blue Vervain flowers

A wasp with a millipede it has captured

 

Culver's Root leaves

Cup Plant leaves

This morning (15 September), I stopped at the Mt. Pleasant Discovery Museum to take a few photographs of their Native Pollinator Garden.  This garden is wild looking right now!  I love seeing how these gardens evolve from year to year.

Native Pollinator Garden at the Mt. Pleasant Discovery Museum

Stiff Goldenrod is in bloom

Native grasses sprawl into the walkway

Prairie Dock silhouetted against the sky

A few Prairie Dock flowers remain in bloom

 

Horsemint

The tall plants to the right are Evening Primrose which is threatening to take over the garden

Asters are just beginning to bloom

Selected Mid-Michigan Leaves (A Digital Archive)

Over the past few weeks I have been collecting leaves to press and dry.  Once the leaves were dry, I laminated them on pieces of 8.5x11 card stock.  Then I scanned one leaf of each type to create a digital copy of the leaf.  Now, when I want to create new sets of leaves for students to use for identification or classification, all I have to do is hit "print".