Native Pollinator Conservation

Instructor:  Ms. Sonia G. Schloemann
Date and time:  May 17, 10:00am to 1:00pm
Location:  Powisset Farm, 37 Powisset St., Dover MA

Pollination is an important step in growing all fruits and many vegetables. While most people know about honey bees, native bees are also important pollinators. Encouraging native bees and other beneficials by providing nesting and forage habitat is easy and fun for the home gardener. Learn about how to build bee blocks and which flowering plants make good forage habitat. Participants will build nest boxes to bring home to their gardens.

Related info:  “Northeast Plants for Native Bees” factsheet from the Xerces Society.

Friday, April 26 at 7:30 PM.  This year’s speaker is Meg Muckenhoupt.  No admission charge.  Refreshments will be served.

Good article on winter moth caterpillars in The Bedford Citizen:

An earlier article discussed the appalling extent of the danger posed by the winter moth, with its voracious appetite for our native northeastern trees and shrubs—especially red maples and oaks—and its ability to “balloon,” or float, from treetop to treetop,  as well as their appearance and behavior. This addresses what to do about them in greater detail.

The main topics:

• When to treat
• Do it yourself or hire a professional?
• Details of treatment options (chemicals)

Winter moth caterpillars can do a lot of damage.  We’ve had our trees sprayed by Boston Tree Preservation the past several years and will have them do so again this spring.  (I tried spraying some shrubs and young trees myself but getting up high on mature trees was a non-starter.)

Last fall I took my son to Drumlin Farm, a working farm and wildlife sanctuary run by Mass Audubon.  (My son likes to visit the chickens and say hello to the sheep and goats.  If you live in the area and haven’t been before it’s worth a visit.)  There’s a long path down the hill from the main entrance to the main farm & education area.  Within the last few years they planted it with native shrubs.  I could identify most of them but there was one that had me stumped.  Nevermind the species, I couldn’t get a bead on the genus.  It had pink and blueberry-colored berries and burgundy-colored foliage.  (It was pretty late in fall and a good fraction trees and shrubs had already dropped their leaves.)  Basically, I saw this but with deeper-red leaves:

Continue reading →

As I described in my previous post, I’m on the hunt for Viburnum prunifolium (blackhaw viburnum).  Nice shrub but it’s proving a bit challenging to find.  Viburnum lentago (a.k.a., nannyberry viburnum)  is more readily available and also a very nice shrub – very similar in appearance to V. prunifolium – but it isn’t as mildew resistant.  The claimed mildew resistance is why I’m holding out for V. prunifolium.  That said, if I’m not able to find it then V. lentago seems like a pretty good fallback.

A few pictures of V. lentago turned up by a Google search:

Fruit and fall foliage: Continue reading →

Politics and economics to the back burner.   I need to shift focus to things that don’t raise my blood pressure and/or depress me.  With that as a segue…

Spring is less than a month away.  Seed catalogs have arrived and nurseries are starting to release their ‘plant availability’ lists.  It’s time to think about spring landscaping projects.

There’s a spot in the yard where I think Viburnum prunifolium (blackhaw viburnum) could make a nice hedge.  I want to try one out behind the old shed before committing to a whole hedge though – see how it grows, how it looks, etc.

For the benefit of those not familiar, a couple pictures found by Googling “viburnum prunifolium”:

Fruit and fall foliage:

Continue reading →