Insect Use Not Damage!

You may have noticed a new bed along the south wall of the school. We had a turf stripper for our neighborly task of installing an entry garden at Horace Greeley Elementary School and it seemed a shame to take it back without taking a few minutes to strip turf from a new bed around the corner from our colorful nectar garden. After reading Dr. Tallamy's book "Bringing Nature Home" I will never consider insect use of a plant as damage. Is it lettuce damage when I have a salad? Well of course it is but I would never think of it that way! And when the monarch caterpillars strip my swamp milkweed it does look quite messy but the beauty of the parent butterflies sipping nectar at the same milkweed weeks earlier more than makes up for the mess. And if I am lucky I will get to watch a butterfly emerge from its chrysalis, again payback for putting up with "insect damage". That is why we are dedicating a not so public space along the side of the school to insect use. These plants will be beautiful and common milkweed has a wonderful scent but eventually these plants will be chewed up by monarch caterpillars. Thus our new lesson, how to see the beauty in insects using "our" plants next to "our" school to complete their beautiful and informative life cycle. Long before any building was on this land monarchs and milkweeds were at home here, let's invite them back. Let's have a Monarch Waystation Garden!
https://shop.monarchwatch.org/certificate/waystationcert.aspx

Quiet Time in the Garden

Last time I was in the garden with children painting bird houses and making a toad abode. We did a little math, learned the word abode and talked about what toads and frogs need and why we need toads and frogs. This time I was alone in the garden and very aware that I needed to garden slowly and quietly instead of my usual “let’s get a lot done today” style. I added a lobelia cardinalis and a fern to the west side of the toad abode to provide more shade for the tadpoles and gave the whole area a long slow shower with the hose adding just a little water to the toad abode because I didn’t want to add too much chlorine. I watched a pair of beetles on the log we added to make it easier for frogs and toads to get in and out of the toad abode. I watched the tadpoles wriggle near the edge of the abode catching tiny things to eat and caught a glimpse of a half inch 4 legged frog! The first tadpole I have seen with all four legs ready to take its place in our garden! I added a couple more tomatos and realized our well mulched playhouse was actually too wet in spite of the dry weather. Don’t forget to put a finger in the soil before watering, the mulch may be working better than you expected and a plant can wilt from too much water as well as too little. So let’s learn math, vocabulary, integrated pest management, gardening for wildlife and how to sit quietly observe and appreciate all that is in our garden. Meditation, our next lesson?