Bee Balm: Hummingbird Heaven
Hummingbirds are attracted to the color red. And bee balm is red. Red, red. Fire engine red. Bee balm is a member of the mint family, as can be seen by its squared-off stems and paired leaves; like most mints, it’s hardy, and spreads readily–pretty easy to grow. My kind of plant. It’s a native wildflower–at least it was originally a wildflower, though I’ve never seen it growing in the wild–what I’ve got in my garden is a nursery-bred variety of the original wild plant. And it’s red. Blood red. Hummingbirds, which have keen color vision, are...
Read MoreGoldenrod: Bird Seed
It’s been a long tough winter. And even though it feels a bit like spring–Daylight Savings, birds cautiously chirping–this is the worst part of all. The last gasp of winter is a tough time for wildlife. The sun is making efforts to warm us up at noon, but it’s still frigid at night. And there’s practically nothing left in terms of food for hungry birds. Good thing there’s still a bit of goldenrod in the back yard. Goldenrod, a native plant, still has a few seeds left on the winter stalks.
Read MoreSumac: Rabbit Food
It’s an old saying: it’s an ill wind that blows no one any good. The wind and ice and snow that blew so outrageously this winter were definitely bad for this young sumac tree. The fragile wood bent and cracked under the weight of wet snow. But this turned out to be extremely good news for the rabbits. The rabbits hang out in the shrubbery and tumbledown sheds at the edge of the yard. Things have been pretty tough for them this epic winter. Not being talented at climbing trees or flying south, they’re stuck down here, like the rest of us, knee-deep in snow. Food sources,...
Read MoreLeaf Miner: An Artist’s Journey
The Highlights Foundation in Boyds Mills, PA. An oasis of calm and creativity, a place for writers and illustrators to work. In between revising chapters and tinkering with adjectives, I took a walk along one of the woodland trails, and discovered that an artist had been this way before me. Not an illustrator of children’s books; an illustrator of leaves. It looks as though some demented graffiti artist has been spray-painting leaves in crazy, random patterns. But this botanical doodling is the work of an insect called a leaf miner. There are hundreds of species of leaf miners, which...
Read MoreHeal-All: First Aid Kit
Heal-all is a hardy, ubiquitous little wildflower–in fact, it’s found all over the world in temperate zones. On a mowed lawn it will flower at two inches high, though it can get knee-high in a meadow. The square stem and opposite leaves show that it’s in the mint family, though with no minty smell. A humble little plant, easy to overlook. But it’s often noticed by bumblebees–the short, strong stems and stubby flower heads are a handy perch for the portly insects, who need stalwart flowers to support their weight. Bumblebees are important plant pollinators whose...
Read MoreBee Balm, Year Two
Last summer I decided to attempt a thing I rarely do–garden. For a person who is obsessed with plants, I have the very antithesis of a green thumb. If my family had to live on the proceeds of my vegetable garden, we’d all lose a lot of weight. This year I have harvested to date exactly eleven string beans, a summer squash, and one tomato the size (and taste) of a golf ball. I’m the only person I know who can kill zucchini. It’s no better in the flower garden. I routinely murder rose bushes, assassinate peonies, and cause tulips and begonias to commit suicide. This is...
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