Grow Like Wild #7: Sugar Moon

Sugar Moon Newsletter

Hi Plant People,

Happy Sugar Moon!

March’s full moon name comes from the Chippewa, who use the term to mark the maple sap running. Others call it the “worm moon” which I find less than romantic, especially considering that the northeast has no native earthworms. Full moon names are a mishmash of origin, from indigenous peoples, to European traditions, to early colonial farmers. I tend to rely on the Farmers’ Almanac for info.

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I was honored to be interviewed by The Cultural Landscape Foundation for their Stewardship Stories. Always fun to talk about the political context and meaning behind the work we do.

GARDEN NOTES

HOLD!

Do NOT get into your garden!

I know, I feel the urgency. I also want to get outside and cut everything back to make room for emerging greenery. I even might, in small selective patches, just to get outside on warm days. But people, cutback is not natural. If you’re growing native plants and encouraging wildlife, cutback can be super destructive to the beetles, bumblebees, and caterpillars nestled into the leaf litter in your garden. Imagine if an alien nation leveled your city, removed all the buildings and even the people, then proudly considered the remaining street trees, dreaming of the habitat it was providing for humans. It’s harsh but true. We are sometimes the most destructive forces in our own gardens. And often the best thing we can do is leave them alone.

Are there areas of your garden that don’t need to be cut back? Maybe very other year or maybe never? Maybe you can let the backs of beds go wild while tidying the front? We should call this the “Garden Mullet.”

Anyway, if we must cutback, let’s do it right. Cutback early in places where birds may nest. And later in places where insects overwinter. Here is a solid overview on how to leave stems for bees from the good folks at Tufts.

RESOURCE SPOTLIGHT

Brooklyn Bridge Park gardeners Bella and Pawel wrote an article for the ELA on our work removing invasive praying mantis ootheca (new word alert! it means egg case) from our park. This sort of “animal weeding” is controversial but important, as the giant invasive mantids eat many butterflies and other insects who we’re trying to encourage, including our native Carolina Mantis and endangered Monarch butterfly. Handy, high res guide can be downloaded here to help ID oothecae (it’s hard).
Here is a short video in which Robin Wall Kimmerer walks us through the woods in March, showing us how to see the gifts of the forest and learn from the land.
Have you heard the term “tree equity”? It refers to the fact that trees are not evenly planted in all neighborhoods, and often maps of tree cover in the US are also maps of race and income. Given the many health benefits of trees, this is a matter of environmental justice. How does your block or neighborhood score? There’s a new website where you can put in your address and see if you have enough trees.

IN THE NEWS

Not every plant is a tomato. Many native plants prefer lean soils to the point of absurdity, some thriving in literal gravel. Plants like Little Bluestem and Coneflowers can suffer in rich soils over time, and when you give them gravel to live in, they flourish where weeds cannot. Margaret Roach shows us how it’s done.
An invasive moth previously referred to with an ethnic slur for the Romani people has a new name: the Spongy Moth. The name refers to the spongy egg masses left on trees and echoes the local name for the moth in its native France.
A UK study of 400 plants over 260 years found that flowers were blooming nearly a month earlier. Herbaceous plants bloomed later than woodies, the thinking being that they can reproduce faster and adapt quicker.
And eastern Monarchs are migrating to Mexico later. A 30 year study out of New Jersey found that Monarch migration was now 16 - 19 days later in the fall.
But some good news for Monarchs: researches may have identified one of the many factors contributing to their decline and amazingly, it’s correctible! People who plant exotic milkweed and rear monarchs in captivity seem to have been aiding the spread of a parasite called “OE.” It deforms Monarch wings, shortens their lifespans, and makes them weaker in general. To repair this damage, we must: plant milkweed native to our regions, never rear monarchs in captivity, and share this info among the Facebook butterfly scene, which is shockingly large and powerful.
Gardeners are often far more aware of life in the soil than the average person, but are you aware of the SOUNDS that life in the soil make? This is a wonderful article on the new field of “biotremology” that listens to the noisy world beneath our feet. Amazing links and insight like “Root-munching larvae emit short clicks as they break the fibers of their meal. Worms rustle as they crawl through tunnels.” Beetle grubs seem to talk to each other and birds of course are listening to all of this!
This is one of the most heartwarming pieces I’ve read in a while. The good folks at Xerces Society worked with MN landowners to restore prairie for pollinators AND BISON. They seeded in plants with high nutrients and no toxicity to bison, as well as included plants to support imperiled pollinators. Bison haven’t been allowed on the land yet but how wonderful to see stewardship take form!
Artist Bea Camacho knits herself into a cocoon during an 11 hour exhibit.
An awesome new pollination strategy was discovered in a tree in Fiji. Researchers couldn’t figure out why these flowers never open, but then found tooth marks! It turned out that bats bite the tops of the flowers off to get at the nectar within, covering their adorable noses in pollen in the process.
An interesting new book called Parks for Profit argues that fancy, post industrial parks “exist to secure the cultural and economic interests of the wealthy, not to provide an amenity that serves a broader community.” There’s a lot here. We should all read this piece and think about our roles in gentrification and the privatization of public spaces and services.
Artist Hugh Hayden opened an installation in Madison Square Park in January exploring education in America using wood and trees.
Did you know that one of the last remaining prairies in Illinois is slated to be bulldozed so that an airport service road can run straight rather than slightly to the left? It’s too stupid to be true but here we are. The endangered Rusty Patch Bumble bee is a resident there, as are many other rare plants, birds, and even a squirrel. Please take a look at this list of things you can do, and do one. I know you’ve been waiting for an opportunity to tweet at Pete Buttigieg.
Jared Barns wrote a great set of articles for Fine Gardening on how to take cuttings as well as the science behind cuttings. Jared is great for “the science behind” pieces and I highly recommend his blog.
Abra Lee profiles 19th century Black gardener, Ms. Phoebe in this piece, as well as paints a stunning picture of early Black American garden design: “a striking visual riot, plants deliberately mingled to create unique backgrounds: a profusion of blooms in hues of deep rosy red, candy-heart pink, bold yellow and brown, purple and white sat atop ‘wandlike stems' while other, complementary plants grew low.”
Wild gardens are on trend! Noel Kingsbury has a new book with gorgeous photographs of naturalistic gardens. This article covers the history of these wild spaces as a design movement. Noel says, “ For a wild garden, intelligent decisions need to be made. We need a new profession of garden ecologists.”
Good news for forests: if we can protect them properly, they might just save us from ourselves. A study in Science found that disturbed forests recovered faster than expected: carbon, nitrogen and soil density reached 90% of levels in untouched forests after 1 to 9 years and even plant composition took between 3 and 27 years to approach old-growth conditions. Animal species took much longer to return.
And even urban forests are helping significantly. A study in the northeast US (woohoo!) found that trees on the edges of urban forests are surprisingly good at pulling carbon out of the air and storing it in the ground. It’s important because this “forest edge” community describes 25% of trees in the region.
12 of the 50 Bumblebee species in North America are listed at risk, some declining by as much as 90% in the past 20 years. This piece gives a broad overview.
West African architect Francis Kéré won the Pritzker Prize. His “Xylem Pavilion” is stunning, and uses trees felled to thin for forest health.
The Garden Conservancy has a new grant called Gardens for Good. They will award $5,000-$10,000 to small public gardens and orgs making an impact in diverse areas.
Amazing to see Diana Beresford-Kroeger in the news! The NYT profiled her incredible career researching, protecting, and educating on forests. I highly recommend her book, Arboretum America. I’ve told her story on Sassafras at least 100 times.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Ohio State Bumble Bee Short Course
March 18 - April 22
Free, virtual, and open to the public.
It can be hard to find webinars that teach to advanced nerds like ourselves. Everything out of Ohio State in the last year has been golden. This one looks to be no exception.
Hardy Plant Society
March 19, 2022
10:00AM - 12:30PM
Virtual and open to the public.
I’ll be speaking on Brooklyn Bridge Park alongside the fabulous Kelly Norris, as he presents on “New Naturalism.”
The Nature of Cities Festival
March 29 - 31, 2022
Virtual and open to the public.
I am pretty excited to both attend and present at this intriguing festival happening all over the world. There will be art, poetry, politics, and science, all around nature and cities!
Perennial Plant Association Lecture
March 30, 2022
12:00PM - 1:30PM
Virtual and open to the public.
Pollination ecology! Learn to speak the language of flowers.
Roosevelt Island Lecture on Creating Urban Habitats
April 7, 2022
6:30PM - 7:30PM
Free, virtual, and open to the public.
I’ll be lecturing on Brooklyn Bridge Park and how to cultivate urban landscapes that support native plants and wildlife.
Benjamin Vogt presents for Grow Native Mass
April 13, 2022
7:00PM - 8:30PM
Free, virtual, and open to the public.
I’m looking forward to this entire series, but know this lecture will be great. Benjamin is author of A New Garden Ethic and essentially The Lorax of herbaceous perennials.
Garden Conservancy Lecture: Ecological Horticulture in an Evolving World
April 21, 2022
2:00PM - 3:00PM
Virtual and open to the public.
This will be an interesting lecture. They’ve asked me to speak on one of my favorite topics: ecological gardening and the politics around it. But also on one of the most terrifying topics: myself. We shall see!