Tiptoe Through the March Garden
…to protect and promote beneficial wildlife
With spring officially less than one week away, it’s the time of year that I personally recommit to sustainable gardening practices, and what I call ‘slow gardening’. This week’s mild temps make it indeed tempting to break out the rakes and lawn bags ~ but don’t stow those shovels and snow blowers away just yet…
Galanthus, aka ‘snow drops’
Emerging through leaf and pine needle litter in the March garden
Reality check ~ New Englanders know that this tease of nice weather will soon degrade into cold, wind, sleet, and probably more snow, and that April weather can, indeed, be cruel. Do we really want to expose tender spring shoots and hibernating creatures to these conditions?
Cleaning the gardens today might help us to feel productive and to enjoy some fresh air, but the process can be stressful for our plants tomorrow, exposing the crowns to freezing temps and soil erosion. Those of us who follow the ‘let the leaves lie’ approach in the fall, know that those protective layers are like a warm, comfy blanket for our gardens. Last year’s leaves protect this year’s plants and provide crucial habitat for overwintering insects and butterfly larvae. Raking away the leaves now destroys habitat for our native bumblebees, swallowtail butterflies, fireflies, ladybugs and many more essential pollinators. In addition to these garden ‘beauties’, leaf litter is home to a vast array of important beetles, earthworms, spiders and other sources of food that are vital for the survival of our native song birds.
It’s important to remember that our song birds like chickadees, wrens, blue birds and woodpeckers may flock to our seed feeders for themselves, but they don’t feed these seeds to their hatchlings. Only insects, moths and caterpillars are suitable food for youngsters. When we remove the habitat that supports these beneficial insects, we upset the natural balance in our gardens, making plants more susceptible to infestations from ‘pest’ insects like aphids. My ‘slow gardening’ approach helps maintain the delicate balance, feeding the birds and reducing problematic outbreaks this summer.
If we just exercise a bit of patience and let these ‘beneficials’ awaken and emerge on their own schedule (usually when temps are consistently in the 50’s), we’ll be rewarded with more bird song, more flickering fireflies, more fluttering butterflies and more buzzing bumblebees this summer! In next month’s blog, I’ll share my list of favorite blooming plants for butterflies!
Here’s a great post on the role of leaf litter in supporting beneficial insects in the garden.
…So what can we do now?
Don’t despair - there are garden care activities that we can do now to feed our desire to primp up our landscape, without disturbing wildlife habitat and ensuring MORE, MORE, MORE! bees, butterflies and birds this summer.
Being careful not to stomp through garden beds (especially wet or soggy ones), we can tiptoe carefully and tackle the following:
with clean, sterilized tools, prune hydrangea paniculata: cultivars like ‘Little Lime’, ‘Quick Fire’, ‘Bobo’, and ‘Pinky Winky’. Panicle hydrangeas bloom on this year’s ‘new wood’, so we can prune in late winter and into early spring without fear of eliminating this year’s blooms (see today’s ‘Pinky Winky’ pruning from this morning below)
prune rose bushes now to reduce the incidence of leaf blight and other diseases later in the spring.
prune arborvitae, boxwood and chamaecyparis trees (note, that this requires some skill to ensure that pruning cuts are properly made)
carefully cut back woody and dried perennial stems that are not hollow (hollow stems may be host to native bee cocoons that will hatch in spring); if you are unsure and want to avoid sending beneficial insects to the landfill, you can carefully pile clippings in an out of the way place until the weather warms enough for insects to emerge. I like to leave 3-4” of last years’ stems to mark the plant spot, assuming a lack of visible basal foliage.
gather fallen twigs and branches from lawns, creating brush piles for wrens and other small ground dwelling birds and mammals (also part of the food chain!). Dry clippings will also come in handy later in the summer when your compost pile is calling out for carbon to mix with the nitrogen components (grass clippings, kitchen waste)
Brush pile for habitat and carbon for compost pile later in the summer
stock up on high quality organic fertilizers and soil amendments now (in case the dreaded supply chain issues resurface). I recommend Espoma granular fertilizers as well as Coast of Maine and North Country Organics composts and garden soil, which you can find here in southern New Hampshire at Nashua Farmers’ Exchange.
rough rake lawns, being careful to avoid wet/soggy areas that are easily compressed with foot traffic. This initial raking can help remove snow mold and fallen twig debris, making the spring round of lawn care easier and more effective. Again, I highly recommend Gene & Judy at Nashua Farmers’ Exchange for all lawn care advice and products (both conventional and organic). For those of you outside the southern NH/northern MA area, feed and grain companies can be good sources of expertise and products. Smaller, family-owned companies tend to be more knowledgeable than clerks at the big box stores.
Busy Chickadees
This house is strategically located near a native willow shrub which serves up a never ending supply of live caterpillars which sustain the young until they fledge.
clean out bird houses and nest boxes ~ this helps our cute friends focus on the important work of building fresh, new nests and reduces the risk of problematic insect infestations which threaten young hatchlings.
Chickadees and house wrens are filling the air with their mating songs and will be nesting soon!
learn more about Carolina wrens here! Hear their cute vocalizations and learn to ID them vs our native house wrens (equally cute and verbal!)
…Garden as Sanctuary
The last couple of years have proven just how important and therapeutic our gardens can be to us during times of uncertainty and illness. Today, world events underscore the fragility of life and put into perspective our time on this Planet. Let us all join together and commit to our gardens as essential places of Sanctuary, Healing and Hope.
~ Barb