Wild Patch

Author: wildpatch

  • Go-to Books for Native Plants

    As a tech-saturated culture, we’ve gone full-circle in information life-cycle and what I’ve noticed lately is that auto-scraped-and-dumped misinformation is clogging search feeds. It’s now harder to find vetted, human-written and researched information about native plants online than even a year ago.

    It’s time to return to considering book (audio and digital inclusive) and print resources in our default-pathways to information seeking. Published books on native plants remain the most vetted, reliable sources of information and, being analogue, retain their information integrity.

    On to the fun part: book recommendations

    Learning about native plants is a journey not just of ID’ing a plant, but of learning, slowly, how that plant inter/relates to the rest of it’s native ecosystem. The more-than-human world is a galaxy of interdependencies. Each plant has not-yet-known and/or once-known relationships to soil microbiomes, insects, birds, fungi, moulds, lichens, and the four-leggeds and us, two-leggeds.

    I highly recommend you buy all of these from your local independent bookstore. If you can only pick one, let it be this first title:

    1. A Garden for the Rusty-Patched Bumblebee: Creating Habitat for Native Pollinators: Ontario and Great Lakes Edition

    Lorraine Johnson and Sheila Colla created this definitive source that is rich in information, coloured throughout, and highlights which pollinators rely on each plant. Additionally, there are urban and suburban pollinator garden sample designs which are accessible to implement. Most importantly, the interior design and the content lends itsself to being used by everyone. Thoroughly researched, but not academic in style, I return to this regularly.

    City of Toronto’s PDF booklet is a hyper-condensed version of the book and serves as a good toe-dipper. The plant information and layout reflects what you find in the more comprehensive book.

    2. Bringing Nature Home by Doug Tallamy

    You’ll never look at a tree the same way again. This book delves into the inter-connectedness of beings that comprise functional ecosystems. Foundational to the ‘why’ and ‘why it all matters’ to (re)establishing native plant gardens.

    3. The New Ontario Naturalized Garden by Lorraine Johnson

    This needs to be republished! Woefully out of print, Johnson’s prececessor to “Rusty-patched Bumblebee” contains fantastic pairings of plants based on similar growing conditions – after reading this you won’t accidentally place your cardinal flower next to prickly pear cactus! The book goes deeper in to ethics and deeper considerations and conversations, which I appreciated.

    Perhaps your library or an online used book vendor has as copy for you. Highly recommend! In the meantime, it is available on archive.org.

    4. Plants Have So Much to Give Us, All We Have to Do Is Ask: Anishinaabe Botanical Teachings by Mary Siisip Geniuz, Anishinaabe Plant Scientist

    Geniusz writes from Menominee, Ho-Chunk and Dakhota and Bodwewadmimwen land currently described as eastern Wisconsin. Her writings are critical for settler people to begin to understand and see plants as entire relationships, as friends, and beings that support and sustain us. The plants can go on without us, but we are dependent on the more-than-human world for our survival. Much of her book comes from teachings from Elder Keewaydinoquay and the stories within are nourishing, enriching. There’s so much in this one book; I return to it often.

    5. Braiding Sweetgrass and 6. The Serviceberry

    by Robin Wall Kimmerer

    If you haven’t already heard about Robin Wall Kimmerer’s writing, please pick up a copy of both! Potowatomi scientist and professor, Kimmerer combines Indigenous plant science with euro-centric science. Again, it is a book to reread. Her essay, The Serviceberry, is a manifesto in the gentlest of ways, urging us to adapt the framework of abundance and anchor our lives in reciprocity. This framework is not only part of her own culture, as she describes, but also reflected in the abundance of acorns, berried trees, and in the more-than-human world we belong to. Her essay asks us to critically evaluate our internalized values and Weltanschauung from living in a culture that is anchored in scarcity and values resource guarding, competitive taking.

    Recommended Listening:

    Future Ecologies Podcast

    Emergence Magazine Podcast

  • New England Aster

    New England Aster

    New England Aster (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae) has been a cornerstone of our garden. In rich soil New England Aster will grow to over six feet tall! The plant has a strong structure that withstands wind and heavy rain and provides texture and colour throughout the year with its dark purple stems.

    New England Aster starts blooming in September and provides colour late into the season. Right now our asters in full sun are beginning to bloom and the ones in the shade are forming buds.

    New England Aster will spread by seed fairly easily once established and are very drought tolerant. We have one New England Aster growing in dry silt and it does well every year.

    New England Aster does will with early to mid-season pruning to encourage a shorter, bushy plant with more blossoms. I’ve found you can prune a New England Aster back as late as mid-August and it will send out new growth and with buds.

  • Little Bluestem

    Little Bluestem

    Little Bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium) is a dense, short grass that provides texture and colour in your garden. It makes a great hiding places for bugs and small wildlife and is the host plant to a number of butterflies including a few Skippers.

    Little bluestem will form a clump and send up flower stems up to three feet high. In late summer the plant mass has a blue/purple hue and the delicate, feather-like seeds move in with the wind.

    Once established, Little Bluestem is extremely drought tolerant and will slowly spread through runners and seeds, but it is not competitive and will die out quickly if it is crowded.

    Little Bluestem is a garden workhorse that will add mass to support flowers, provide a beautiful border plant, and produce grass and stems for mulch. It is a warm-season grower that send roots down up to eight feet deep.

  • Where to Find Native Plants in the Ottawa Valley

    It’s tricky to find local native plants! It’s encouraging that many garden centres have a small selection, however garden centres carry only a small handful of easy-to-grow plants. It’s trickier to find plants that are specific to the Ottawa Valley.

    Make it Green

    I’ve heard good things about Make it Green but haven’t gone there myself. Don’t be fooled by their old website design, they’re in business and answer emails.

    Website: https://www.makeitgreen.ca

    Beaux Arbres

    Also known as Jewel Wing Garden used to be in Bristol, Quebec and recently moved to Eagenville, Ontario.

    Beauz Arbres has a wonderful selection of unique plants from the Ottawa Valley that are hard to find in local garden centres.

    Website: https://beauxarbres.ca

    Echo Native Plants

    Echo Native Plants is a new nursery in Mississippi Mills, Ontario. They grow a broad selection of plants and are open by appointment only.

    Website: https://www.echonativeplants.ca

    Stone Ridge Gardens & Nursery

    Stone Ridge is a treat to visit. While they used to supply local garden centres, they have shifted their business in recent years and expanded a selection of unique native plants.

    Website: https://stoneridgegardens.com

    Ottawa Native Plants

    I just discovered this East Ottawa business recently. They have a small list of native plants available for pickup.

    Website: https://ottawanativeplants.com

    Wild Patch

    Wild Patch isn’t set up to sell plants or seeds yet, but we’re working towards establishing a business. We have a very small collection of seedlings we’ve propagated and continue to grow our stock.

    Wild Patch propagates from seed. Many of our plants originally came from Northern Wildflowers and Ontario Native Plants. When we collect seeds from the wild, we take less than 1/10th of the seeds we see.

    Bastian Garden Design

    Heather Bastian is a local garden design expert who has deep knowledge of native and near native gardens that work for gardeners of all backgrounds. While Bastian Garden Design does not sell plants, Heather can help you find plants that work for you.

    Website: https://bastiangardening.com

  • How Far Do Bees Fly

    Planting for native bees and bugs is important because they don’t fly very far from their nest. The further a bee has to fly, the less productive it will be.

    • A large bee like a carpenter bee or bumblebee can fly just over 1.5 km from its nest.
    • Medium-sized bees like mining bees fly just under 500 meters. A third the distance of a large bee.
    • Small bees like sweat bees stick within 180 metres of their nest and tiny bees only fly less distance than that.

    By planting for pollinators and creating habitat, you are making helping bees find food right at home.

    Source: Attracting Native Pollinators: The Xerces Society Guide to Conserving North American Bees and Butterflies and Their Habitat

  • A Hidden Infrasructure

    A Hidden Infrastructure is an interactive map for learning about arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi, the fungal network that stores carbon in the soil and provides nutrients to plants.

    The densest AM networks on Earth are found in grasslands. Montane and flooded grasslands alone account for roughly 40% of global AM fungal network biomass.

    Under croplands, AM fungal network densities are on average 47% lower than in non-cropland soils — reflecting the cumulative impact of agriculture on underground ecosystems.

    While more work is needed to link specific farming practices to mycorrhizal health, scientists worry that less dense networks diminish a soil’s ability to store carbon, cycle nutrients, and resist stress.

  • Ottawa Valley Ecoregions

    Ottawa Valley Ecoregions

    I’ve noticed that many plants labelled as native to Ontario, are native to South West Ontario, an area called the Carolinian Zone. There are plenty of organizations advocating for native plants in the Carolinian Zone because of the dense population and industry in that corridor.

    The Ottawa Valley is quite different from the Carolinian Zone. A plant native to Windsor, Ontario, for example, might not contribute to the ecosystem here in the same way it does in Widsor.

    Ecozones and Ecoregions

    The Ottawa Valley is at the intersection of two ecological regions in Ontario. These regions are huge!

    Ecozones and ecoregions are a system for classifying land that Ontario uses to delineate distinct ecosystems.

    An ecozone is a large region with distinct bedrock from the areas adjacent to it. The interplay between the bedrock and weather patterns produce a unique ecosystem. Ecozones change very slowly in response to global or continental cycles. You can think of ecozones naturally changing over hundreds of thousands or millions of years.

    Ecoregions are smaller, unique formations within a zone that can change quickly in response to the local climate. Ecoregions are susceptible to climate change and human activity, but are still thousands of hectares in size.

    Ottawa Valley’s Ecozone

    In Ontario, the Ottawa Valley has two ecozones, the Ontario Shield and the Mixedwood Plains. These are large areas that account for most of the province.

    The Ontario Shield accounts for parts of the Ottawa Valley near the city of Ottawa, and includes the Ottawa River north of Renfrew.

    The border between the Ontario Shield and Mixedwood Plains cuts a line through areas that are culturally referred to as the Ottawa Valley. In many of those places if you look east you’ll see lowlands leading to the river and if you look west you’ll see rock outcroppings indicating the beginning of the shield.

    Ottawa Valley’s Ecoregions

    Ontario Shield – Georgian Bay

    The Georgian Bay ecoregion is the southern part of the shield known as the Precambrian Shield. If you live in Lanark County, you likely live in the Georgian Bay ecoregion and are surrounded by mixed forests, exposed rocks, and occasional flat, clay plains. The south-estern parts of Lanark County are In the Lake Simcoe-Rideau Region.

    Forest species in this region include:

    • Eastern White Pine
    • Red Pine
    • Easter Hemlock
    • Yellow Birch

    Hemlock has replaced Red Spruce in this region because Red Spruce has been largely eliminated due to poor forest management.

    On dry sites you will find:

    • Sugar Maple
    • American Beech
    • Wild Black Cherry
    • American Basswod
    • White Ash

    Some boreal species grow in this region in cooler locations like:

    • Black Spruce
    • White Spruce
    • Balsam Fir
    • Jack Pine
    • Tamarack

    And, finally, you will find Balsam Fir growing in the understories here.

    The landscape here provides rich habitat for animals including the Little Brown Bat, Black Bear, Moose, Fisher and many others. Warblers abound here along with a few newts, salamanders, frogs, turtles, and snakes.

    Mixedwood Plains – Lake Simcoe-Rideau

    The Lake Simcoe-Rideau ecoregion includes Manitoulin Island and extends from Lake Huron to the southern part of the Ottawa River. The bedrock is deep in this ecoregion as receding glaciers deposited lots of soil here. This ecoregion is home to a special ecosystem called an alvar, a limestone bedrock with shallow soil deposits. Alvars flood in the rain and dry out in the summer, making a unique ecosystem for shrubs and low vegetation.

    The forests in this ecoregion are dominated by deciduous trees icluding:

    • Sugar Maple
    • American Beech
    • White Ahs
    • Easter Hamlock
    • Green Ahs
    • Silver Maple
    • Easter White Cedar
    • Yellow Birch
    • Balsam Fir
    • Black Ash

    The northern edge of this region is home to peatlands, fens and a few bogs that host Black Spruce and Tamarack.

    Lake Simco-Rideau is home to White-tailed Deer, Racoons, Skunks, woodchucks, plenty of shore birds including Wood Ducks and Great Blue Heron. The Northern Leopard Frog, Spring Peeper, and American Bullfrog occupy the vernal ponds and wetlands.

    References:

  • Aster Yellows

    We have a garden full of Asters. Last week, I started to wonder how long that would last because I noticed some of our Purple Coneflowers were blooming funny and had odd, spiky shapes coming out of them caused by an infection called Aster Yellows.

    Aster Yellows is relatively rare in Ontario but can get bad in years with strong southerly wind in the spring followed by a cool, rainy summer. Aster Yellows is caused by a bacterial infection and affects more than 300 species, most of which are in the Asteraceae family including Purple Coneflower, Coreopsis, Marigolds, and Sunflowers, as well as vegetable and grain crops.

    There is no cure for Aster Yellows and depending on the strain that has infected the plant and the climate conditions, the symptoms can range from deformed, poorly growing plants, to something you don’t notice at all.

    There are lots of detailed articles about Aster Yellows, so I’m not going to repeat that information here (but I’ll add a few links I found helpful below).

    How Aster Yellows is Transmitted

    The Aster Leafhopper (Macrosteles quadrilineatus), an insect Native to North America that travels on the wind, transmits the disease from one plant to another. Only 5% of Leafhoppers carry the infection but leafhoppers are fairly prolific.

    The leafhopper feeds on an infected plant causing a bacterial infection in the leafhopper’s digestive tract. The infection does not affect the leafhopper. The leafhopper then does it’s leaf hopping thing and hops to a new plant. When it feeds on the next plant, the bacteria infects the new plant and begins to multiply.

    A diagram showing the aster yellows disease cycle: feeding, multiplication, inoculation feeding, and infection.

    Canola Council of Canada aster yellows disease cycle graphic

    Why do Some Plants with Aster Yellows Look Worse than Others?

    Aster Yellows takes 10 to 40 days to become visible in a plant and symptoms will be more acute in a plant that is actively growing because its leaves and flowers will become distorted.

    It is possible for a plant to get infected late in the season and then not display symptoms until the next year.

    Similarly, some plants will be asymptomatic either due to the plant’s growing conditions or it simply won’t show visible signs of infection.

    How We Manage Aster Yellows

    The key piece of information that helped me understand Aster Yellows was that some plants can be asymptomatic. Meaning you might have a Cone Flower that is in rough shape showing symptoms and a Golden Rod showing no symptoms. But they both could have it.

    We do our best to remove Aster Yellows to protect our veggie beds and our native plants, but we know that there is no way of keep it out of our yard.

    Destroy Visibly Infected Plants

    This is the sad part. I hate killing a plant but I also hate having a diseased plant that could impact our veggie beds. On the first year of infection, a plant with Aster Yellows might not show many symptoms, but on the second year, when the bacteria has time to spread in the plant, the symptoms will be severe.

    When we see signs of Aster Yellows, we bag up the plant and throw it in the garbage. It doesn’t go in our compost pile because the plant will stay alive there for a bit longer and leaf hoppers could still spread the disease.

    We still destroy plants that have minor signs of infection because they will come back worse next year.

    Let Other Plants Be

    There really is no guaranteed way of knowing if a plant has Aster Yellows if it isn’t showing obvious symptoms (distorted flowers, petals growing out of the wrong spot, etc.), but if it’s not showing symptoms, we let it be.

    Use Light Coloured Mulch

    Light coloured mulch has been shown to confuse leaf hoppers because they rely on the colour navigate. We are mulching with wood mulch and straw.

    Remove Dandelions, Plantain, and Other Weeds

    It never hurts to remove unwanted weeds from your gardens and pathways. Pulling dandelions and plantains helps reduce the chance of a leafhopper feeding on an infected plant.

    Resources

  • How I Draw Our Garden Plans

    I recently drew out a map of our 1/2 acre yard with all the garden beds and foundational plants in it. It took me a bit to figure out how to do this, but I was able to do it for free and pretty close to scale.

    Here’s a snapshot of a design I am working on for next year. I’ve saved the blank outline of the gardens as a separate file so I can print it out and draw by hand to brainstorm.

    I drew this in Excalidraw for Obsidian. If you’re not familiar with those two names, stick with me.

    Obsidian is a note taking app focused on privacy and interconnected ideas through a knowledge graph. It can get pretty technical! I’ve used it on an off and I’m sometimes intimidated by the features. Obsidian is available for MacOS and Windows.

    Obsidian has a plugin marketplace, which means you can install plugins that extend Obsidian’s functionality.

    Excalidraw is a free, open source drawing tool. That you can use in the browser. It has trimmed down features compared to something like InkScape, which is why it’s perfect for this job. It has just the right tool set and nothing more.

    The only trouble is that the free version of Excalidraw saves your drawing in the browser memory, which means you might loose the drawing unless you download it once in a while.

    Enter Excalidraw for Obsidian, a plugin that adds an Excalidraw canvas to Obsidian and saves your drawing locally. The plugin lets you use the [[]] syntax from Obsidian to link to an obsidian page in your drawing if you want to make more notes.

    Step 1: Install Obsidian

    Download Obsidian from their website and install it.

    Step 2: Turn on Community Plugins

    Community Plugins are disabled by default in Obsidian to protect users from installing un-vetted plugins. Follow this guide to enable community plugins.

    Step 3: Install Excalidraw for Obsidian

    You can find the Excalidraw plugin by clicking the “Brows” button in Obsidian or use this link to add the Excalidraw for Obsidian plugin.

    Step 4: Enable the Plugin

    Enable the plugin. This part got me. It’s confusing that you have to download and then enable as two separate steps. After you clicked “Install” the button changes to “Enable.” Click again to enable the plugin.

    Step 5: Find a Satellite Image

    Find a satellite image of your property. I found one from a local governing body that included our property lines, which was really helpful for getting the scale right. I took a screenshot of this image and pasted it into a new Excalidraw drawing.

    Step 6: Create a New Drawing

    I am on Mac so I press command+p to open the command pallet and type “New Drawing” to find the command to create a new Excalidraw drawing. I pasted the screenshot into this drawing.

    Step 7: Resize to Scale

    Resize the image until 1 m is roughly one large square on the grid. If you don’t see the grid, right click on the canvas and enable the grid.

    I referenced a few real-world anchor points to get the scale roughly correct. One of the large squares is 1 metre squared on our property. This prints out at a good size on 8.8 x 11 paper.

    Step 8: Draw Property Lines and Anchors

    Use the square tool to approximate your property line. Then use the other tools to place a few anchor points in your garden like fences, trees, and sidewalks.

    Step 9: Move the Image out of the Way

    Move the satellite image out of the way or dim its opacity waaaay down. I wish Excalidraw had real layers so you could lock and hide the screenshot, but dimming it or moving it entirely out of the way is good enough.

    Step 10: Start Drawing

    This is where I started using the line tool to outline our garden beds and other features. I referenced the satellite image once in a while, but the tree canopy covered part of our garden and it was a bit out of date.

    Printing Your Drawing

    If you want to print your drawing, install the Excalidraw Extras Plugin, which lets you create frames for printing. Be sure to hold the shift key when scaling the frames to keep the ratio the correct size for your printer. Zolt, the developer who created the plugin, has a tutorial on frames and printing on YouTube that I found helpful.

    Conclusion

    That’s how I got a base map set up for our garden. I printed it off and brainstormed garden plans in pencil then duplicated the file for my garden plans and started drawing out final plans for next year’s garden beds.

  • Native Plants in Bloom in the Ottawa Valley in Mid July

    Our garden comes into full bloom in July and August, so I thought I’d document what’s blooming, whats about to bloom, and what has seed pods.

    Full Bloom

    Black Eyed Susan (Rudbekia Hirta)

    This hardy garden standard is coming in full bloom with a few buds still opening. I’ve noticed this year that as other plants become more established, some of our Black Eyed Susans are too short for the beds they’re in. Next year, we’ll have to move them to the front of the bed or a shorter area.

    Tall Meadow Rue (Thalictrum dasycarpum)

    It’s tall! At about six feet tall our Tall Meadow Rue has been blooming for a couple of weeks now. I wish we had a small cluster of these!

    White Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)

    Unstoppable, our White Yarrow has been in full bloom for a few weeks.

    Hair Bell (Campanula rotundifolia)

    We had a small cluster of Hair Bells but a combination of last year’s drought and crowding has left us with one. But it’s going strong!

    Bee Balm (Monarda didyma)

    Our Bee Balm is a brilliant splash of colour on the berm is is a real show-stopper right now.

    False Sunflower (Heliopsis helianthoides)

    False Sunflower contrasts wonderfly with Bee Balm and forms a dense, flowing cluster.

    Foxglove Beardtonge (Penstemon digitalis)

    We planted our Foxglove Beardtonge in an area we call the “nursery bed” while we wait for some beds we have tarped to be available. Foxglove Beardtongue is a long bloomer and has dense flower clusters. Our nursery bed gets about 4 hours of sun a day but this isn’t enough for this plant! It’s flopped over onto the neighbouring Dogwood.

    Meadowsweet (Spirea alba)

    I’ve noticed that Meadowsweet can be a long bloomer in the right conditions and will cut it’s blooms short in dry weather. We’ve had a mix this year but really good rain in June. Our Meadowsweet started blooming about a week ago and is still going strong.

    Butterflyweed (Asclepias tuberosa)

    Butterflyweed takes a couple years to establish and once it is, it’s a long-blooming, eye-catching plant. We have five of them in full bloom on garden edges right now.

    Just Starting

    Pearly Everlasting (Anaphalis margaritacea)

    A sturdy, dry-loving plant with thick, moisture-retaining roots, Pearly Everlasting is starting to bloom right now and its flowers will last well into September.

    Spotted Joe Pye (Eutrochium maculatum)

    We have a handful of Spotted Joe Pyes in well-drained areas. They range from four to seven feet tall right now and their lavender flowers are just coming out.

    Purple Conflower (Echinacea purpurea)

    Another garden workhorse, Purple Coneflower is just coming out right now. To our knowledge, all our Purple Coneflower is native but there is a clear distinction between the straight native plants and the ones cultivated by a traditional nursery. The traditional nursery plants are stout and dense where the natives are sparse and tall. Two of our native Purple Coneflowers are almost five feet tall!

    Yellow Coneflower (Ratibida pinnata)

    This sun-loving coneflower is in the early days of blooming. The plants crane towards the sun and will flop over easily if they’re not supported. It grows really well in a dense meadow setting.

    Cool Buds Forming

    Rose Mallow (Hibiscus moscheutos)

    Rose Mallow, a species of special concern in Ontario, is forming is alien-looking buds right now. We have a small cluster of them in a rain garden and it is thriving. Rose Mallow is native to small pockets of south-western Ontario.

    Big Bluestem (Andropogon gerardi)

    Big Bluestem can take a few years to establish, and once it does it will form tall, dense stands of grass that look beautiful through the summer and fall. I noticed this morning that some of our stands are just starting to form their buds.

    Wild Bergamot (Mondarda fistulosa)

    Our Wild Bergamot has strong buds right now. I’ve noticed this year that the small clusters that have self-seeded are looking healthier than the older, denser plants. To prevent powdery mildew, I thinned the denser clusters this year.

    Dense Blazing Star (Liatris spicata)

    Dense Blazing Star is threatened species in Ontario. Like Rose Mallow, it is native to pockets of South West Ontario. In our garden, the plants that get the most sun are just starting to bloom while the ones in shadier locations are in the early stage of forming buds.

    Seed Pods Forming

    Bottlebrush Rye (Elymus hystrix)

    An early bloomer, all of our Bottlebrush Rye are forming their seedpods right now. Bottlebrush Rye’s stiff-looking flower creates beautiful texture in the garden.

    Canada Anenome (Anenome canadensis)

    Long-blooming, Canada Anenome has started forming its seeds, which provide visual intrigue and texture.

    Hairy Beardtongue (Penstemon hirsutus)

    This easy-to-grow plant is now forming its seed pods after a long spring blooming period. The pale purple/lavendar flowers were a joy in the garden this season.

    Lanceleaf Coreopsis (Coreopsis lanceolata)

    Lanceleaf Coreopsis is still in bloom in your yard but is on the tail end. Most plants have juicy-looking seedpods forming.

    Bush Honeysuckle (Diervilla lonicera)

    This is the first year our Bush Honeysuckles bloomed. It had a short bloom period with tiny yellow flowers. Our Bush Honeysuckles are still getting established. They’re not in ideal conditions for the plant due to the high silt content in our soil but we’re pleased with the low-growing density they provide.