The Mostly-Native Fairy Garden

Cucumber leaf fairy stepping stone

When trying to design and build native gardens that make my entire family happy I quickly realized it meant creating a space just for my two children, both under the age of four. And so we built their Fairy Garden.

When I garden in an area I don't really want them digging in they can go to their Fairy Garden and dig all they want. I divided up some old hostas from near the greenhouse and let them decide where to plant them. I even splurged and let them have some newly purchased native lady ferns and bunch berries (which my two-year-old just trampled last night). We also poured our own concrete stepping stones with cucumber and hosta leaf impressions for their fairy path, which they move around daily wherever their fairies apparently need them.

When I decided to deed over a patch of earth to them I picked an area where I couldn't really fit anyway: the secret spot under the hemlock tree. I often found them hiding under there on warm winter days, so it was the perfect place. I edged the area, left a path all around it and let them go crazy.

Mini turtle bird bath under ginger

No Fairy Garden would be complete without a pile of sticks for fairy houses!

 










I have to say not only do they love the Fairy Garden, my older child knows the names of all the plants she's planted. She also feels a sense of stewardship over everything in it from the ginger to the mini concrete bird baths we made with their turtle and sea star beach molds. The Fairy Garden may not be the most attractive part of our Slow the Flow Grant native garden makeover, but I don't care. I love it just the same.

Just the other day my older child asked, as she was planting a baby hosta, "Mommy, is this hosta native?" When I said no she was disappointed and a little confused. When I explained that since it was already here when we moved, and it wasn't invasive, then it was OK. And she said "good, then all the hostas can live in my Fairy Garden."  

The Fairy Garden has definitely worked its magic. Its given my kids their own patch of earth to work and make beautiful, or destroy, depending on their mood. They're learning what plants are native, what animals use them and how to care for a garden. I'm looking forward to watching the garden grow as they grow. And I already know where to look when I can't find my garden tools. Apparently fairies need ALL my watering cans!

The mini rain garden doing its thing

first you dig a trench down the slope

 On the upriver side of our new fenced in child safety area we have a drainage problem. Most of the water from the rear roof drains to this side of the house, forming a lake on the rear patio and leaking back into the basement in a heavy downpour. One of the first things I did when we moved in last fall was to extend the downspout past the patio and away from the house. But then the run off just makes its way straight down the sloped backyard (right) and into the river. We can't have our basement flood, but I knew there must be a way to capture this water and let it soak in to the watershed, preventing it from just flowing straight out to sea. One of the main objectives of the Slow the Flow Grant funding my landscape makeover was to do just this.

the trench with gravel filled channel

 To fix this issue I dug a trench along the new fence and filled it with gravel (left). Then I planted the edges of the trench with lady ferns, male ferns, sensitive ferns, dwarf goats beard and a few non-native hostas divided from existing ones on the property from the old owners. 

ferns and other plants are planted

The gravel-filled trench continues right under the fence and ends in a small circle scooped out like a bowl and filled with compost, loam and more lady ferns. The trench and bowl is edged with plastic landscape edging to hold back run off, preventing it from flowing over the last 30 feet of backyard and straight down the riverbank.

If any of you experienced the heavy downpour that passed through Ipswich this past Friday night you'll know this was the perfect moment to put the mini rain garden to the test.

And it worked.

The water bypassed the brick patio (and our basement), flowed right down the gravel channel and filled up the bottom of the rain garden. From what I could tell little water spilled over and washed into the river. The garden remained flooded about five inches deep until dark but was empty the next morning, with very happy plants that loved their soak.

This was an easy project, and a great solution that keeps our basement from flooding and replenishes the watershed at the same time. It certainly slowed the flow this past Friday evening!

flooded rain garden "bowl"

flooded rain garden trench

It's OUT! Finally, a plastic free yard....I think.

 Another two hours of backbreaking work this afternoon and the last of the plastic sheeting is out. I hope. With my luck I'll find more when I tackle the other half of the back yard next year. But at least it's all out in the areas where I planned this year's landscaping for the Slow the Flow Grant. And this last 30' by 30' tarp, below, was the worst. It had a thick layer of landscape cloth over it with up to one inch roots all through it, and another six inches of compacted soil on top of all that. Needless to say I've already taken some Tylenol anticipating the pain I'm going to wake up with tomorrow.





















I started its removal in June, but my four-year-old has decided she no longer wants to help Mommy with landscaping projects, no matter how much I promise she can play in the mud. So our work-time during my two-year-old's nap has come to a stand still and my Slow the Flow landscape project hasn't progressed much since June (hence the lack of blog posts). I'm lucky if I get a few minutes of weeding here and there, or moving a plant around until I'm happy with its location. But today, thanks to my wonderful husband who distracted the kids for two hours, I finally finished this, and it was worth it. It's done and now I can plan the fun part of planting! Of course my four-year-old was perfectly happy to sit on the tarp while I took a picture of it. Figures.

 And she's also perfectly happy to eat her way through our veggie garden. Especially the beans she's in front of in this photo, which I thought I'd throw in as an 'after' shot for something pretty to look at. Where she's standing was a yew shrub a year ago, now it's pole beans, sunflowers, nasturtiums and my tomato and carrot patch. We've noticed the cabbage white butterflies are really enjoying the nasturtiums and the swallowtail butterflies and hummingbirds are loving those sunflowers.


 Here's a shot of that sunflower patch from the other side, the hummingbirds love those red cardinal flowers by the kitchen window so much I went out and bought more. Almost every time I look out the window there's a hummingbird feeding. And the best part about the cardinal flowers is, even though they can grow right in the water, they are amazingly drought tolerant. I never water them and they're always beautiful!

Total water ban? $2,000 of new plants? No problem!

Last week the Town of Ipswich enacted a total ban on outside watering due to a malfunction at one of their pumping stations. A neighbor of mine came over to ask how I was faring, he was concerned that I wouldn't be able to care for everything especially after the money I've put into the new plants. I simply replied, "Hasn't affected me one bit." And here's why:

I have two 50 gallon rain barrels attached to my two most productive downspouts. The first one is tucked in next to my vegetable and herb beds by the side door. It's the same color as the house, so it camouflages nicely, I think.

The second one is on the other end of the house by the shade garden. This one overflows into a pipe that runs under the path and into a t-shape perforated pipe under the three ostrich ferns in the middle of the island shade garden below. So when it really pours instead of overflowing onto our foundation it gives an extra soak to the plants that love that.

drought tolerant monarch waystation

All the full sun plants are drought tolerant so once they get a week of supplemental watering after planting they're all set for a week of no rain. The monarch waystation to the right hasn't been watered in weeks, it's pretty happy, we have at least six baby monarch caterpillars munching away and dozens of eggs waiting to hatch.








The shade plants that do need a bit of extra water do fine with a little bit from the rain barrels. And if those run low I stick a bucket under our shower and let that fill up while the water warms up and when I'm not rinsing soap and shampoo. I can usually get another 2 to 3 gallons that way. I know it sounds like a bit of work, but 2 or 3 gallons waters all my planters and my three compact sweet pepper bushes that droop when it's hot and dry.

I do all these practices even when we don't have a water ban. The minute it was lifted I heard the tell tale sounds of sprinklers shifting back and forth around the neighborhood. My garden looks just as green and lush as everyone's and I haven't touched a hose. It's not hard, just takes some planning and thinking and a little bit of help from Mother Nature to fill up the rain barrels every once in a while. 

Pollination Celebration!

Gaillardia aristata, Blanket Flower

Did you know it was National Pollinator Week? I didn't either! Not until I opened up a copy of National Wildlife magazine and read a little write-up about it. According to the Pollinator Partnership website, who coordinates this international celebration:

"Five years ago the U.S. Senate’s unanimous approval and designation of the final week in June as “National Pollinator Week” marked a necessary step toward addressing the urgent issue of declining pollinator populations.  Pollinator Week has now grown to be an international celebration of the valuable ecosystem services provided by bees, birds, butterflies, bats and beetles. The growing concern for pollinators is a sign of progress, but it is vital that we continue to maximize our collective effort."

Before (http://www.ipswichareahomes.com/property/29-Upper-River-Road-Ipswich-Massachusetts)

I thought in celebration of pollination I would take a break from posts about plastic removal and compost and bring everyone some beautiful photos of what's getting pollinated in our yard. Remember, a year ago (left) none of these plants were here. To a hummingbird, bee, butterfly or moth our former yard was basically a suburban nectarless desert. Now, thanks to a little help from Slow the Flow, it's dessert! All photos are from my garden, enjoy! (click on them to enlarge)

After

Asclepias incernata, swamp milkweed in the monarch waystation about to explode in color

Ceanothus americanus, New Jersey Tea, getting ready to be in full flower. I have been desperately searching for this shrub and just found it this weekend at Garden in the Woods! Everybody should have this  in their garden: it tolerates poor, dry soil, fixes nitrogen and is a buffet for butterflies. I bought four!

Heuchera sanguinea, coral bells, blooming in the shade border

Penstemon digitalis, Beardtongue, a favorite of our
neighborhood hummingbirds

Coreopsis lanceolata "Tickseed" in the sun border

Flower stalk of foamflower, Tiarella cordifolia,
a beautiful shady groundcover.
 

Penstemon and Achillea millefolium,
common yarrow

Bee pollinating my common yarrow

Anemone canadensis, another great shade plant.

A pea flower

 And don't forget the veggie garden. I have eleven varieties of herbs growing plus flowering tomatoes, peas, squash, and pole beans. All of which are relying on pollinators to turn those blossoms into food for my family.

Even tomatoes provide food for pollinators

I hope you enjoy Pollinator Week! I just harvested my first tomato of the year, it was a great way to appreciate all the pollinators that have been hard at work in my yard.

The 'Woodland Island'

An old stump planted with new trillium and jack-in-the-pulpit

 

I have never owned a property with shade. I've always longed after the subtle plants one sees on a woodland hike - the trilliums, wood ferns, trout lilies, wild ginger, jack-in-the-pulpits - but I've never had the shade to grow them. Until now.

I have been itching to get my hands in the dirt along the side of house where dense shade lurks. Having already planted the shade border nearer to the road I've had a chance to play around with foam flower, coral bells and solomon's seal. But the area where I've been planning my 'woodland island' is where I really get to play with native woodland plants. The path through the area will create an island of plants with a border all around it,  allowing a lot of frontage in which to display smaller, more subtle specimens that might get lost in a deeper border. 

'Before'

This area had been yet more bare mulch with an ancient yew shrub that was going (left) and a cool, old, mossy stump, which I was definitely keeping (above). It was a large area to tackle so breaking it up with an island of plants with pathways around it not only avoided a very wide border, but it allowed pathways for my kids to explore, hopefully keeping them from bushwhacking their way through the tender new plants.

Island prepped

After we removed the yew I painstakingly removed the plastic sheeting from the marked-out island area, added a bird bath and outlined the outer path (right). One of my rain barrels in also adjacent to this area and in need of an overflow solution to keep the extra water out of the basement. I plumbed the overflow line from the barrel into a pipe buried underground which drains out under the 'island', making this area slightly wetter than normal.

Finished woodland island

Before I tackled the plastic in the rest of the area I rewarded myself with a shopping trip and native planting session to finish the island (left). Species in this area include bugbane, ostrich fern, sweet pepper bush, lady fern, sensitive fern, wild ginger, trillium, foamflower and goat's beard, all plants that should not only tolerate but do well with the rain barrel overflow.

Plastic removed from the outer border of the woodland garden

Now that the island was done it was time to deal with the rest of the plastic. I brought in reinforcements in the form of two college students who made short work of the remaining sheeting (piled up to the right). It is nice to know it's no longer blocking the flow of rain into the ground. And now I was finally able to brick out the inner pathway with bricks removed from the back patio, leaving a spot for a garden bench along the right side. I only have a few unplanted plants left with which to landscape the outer border, which means one thing: another shopping trip to my favorite local nursery. Oh twist my arm!

The woodland island awaiting its woodland border

the monarch waystation

Monarch on swamp milkweed

I hadn't planned on creating a monarch waystation. Last weekend I rescued a few daylilies from the backyard where our fence was going in and quickly stuck them in a sunny spot near our mailbox, and I hit more plastic. This is an area of the yard that I hadn't planned on landscaping this summer, it's a border of dense beach roses (Rosa rugosa) where the rest of the yard was just bare mulch. At least it had plants, so it could wait. And I assumed since it had plants there wasn't any plastic sheeting, I was wrong.

 Of course I couldn't leave the plastic in and in tearing it out I discovered all the plants in this area, including the four foot high beach roses, were growing on top of the plastic. In getting out the plastic I ended up taking out a lot of the beach roses and suddenly had a nice patch of empty, sunny dirt.

Monarch on butterflyweed

That night I read an article in the summer edition of Country Gardens entitled "Of Milkweeds and Monarchs" (if I could find it online I would include the link) and its message about declining monarchs really struck home. The article sites many facts from monarchwatch.org, and I instantly went online and poured over their website. Simply put, monarch butterflies are in crisis for the following reasons:

• Roundup resistant crops now dominate the midwest, meaning about 100 million acres of corn and beans are now sprayed with the glyphosate, creating milkweed-free fields. Monarchs making their way from the north to overwinter in Mexico now navigate a 1000 mile near-nectarless, flowerless, waterless landscape from Kansas through Oklahoma, Texas and into northern Mexico. 
• Development of subdivisions, shopping centers, etc. now tops 6,000 acres a day. That's 2.2 million acres a year where there was often milkweed and other butterfly supporting plants. 
• Roadside management practices of mowing and herbicides now often creates monocultures of grass, not native wildflowers. 
• Illegal logging in the monarch's wintering forest in Mexico has diminished their former 23 acre habitat to a mere 5. 

Monarch on blazing star (Liatris)

It was clear what I had to do.  That nice, newly-cleared and plastic-free sunny patch was destined to be a monarch waystation (places that provide resources necessary for monarchs to produce successive generations and sustain their migration). In fact, the whole yard could qualify. I already planted nectar plants like blanket flower, sedum, beesbalm, blazing star and black eyed susans. I started a milkweed strain called butterflyweed (Asclepias tuberosa) from seeds this winter and they're about 4 inches tall now and will be amazing in a few years. I just needed at least one more milkweed species to qualify as a certified "monarch waystation" with monarchwatch.org.

A few days ago I went out and purchased swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) and tomorrow a friend with a farm in Rowley is letting me take a few common milkweed plants (A. syriaca) from his unmown fields and then I will have all three species of native milkweed. Where there was once a monoculture of introduced beach rose there will now be milkweed, blanket flower, blazing star, yarrow, echinacea, cardinalflower, and Joe-pye weed. My three-year-old is now eagerly awaiting the appearance of those stunning little yellow and black caterpillars. She's already learned all about monarchs in her preschool and told me one day last fall that she just couldn't eat lunch because she was a monarch and was busy migrating to Mexico. I thought for her sake I would certify our new monarch waystation with monarchwatch and she could proudly display this sign.

As far as I can tell from the International Monarch Waystation Registry our waystation is the first certified in Ipswich, MA. I sure hope it's not the last. Stay tuned for photos of the finished, and flowering, monarch waystation.