At the March 2013 meeting of the Garden Club of PEI, Ben Hoteling was the guest speaker. His topic: Attracting Wildlife to Your Garden Using Native Plants.
"I'm not much of a gardener, but I love plants," says Ben. Ben talked about plants that create a habitat for wildlife. Wildlife such as birds, insects, and small mammals need food, water, cover, and space. Give wildlife a space to live by creating brush piles. Don't throw away your Christmas tree. Use it to start a brush pile. . Lawns are a wildlife desert. They don't support wildlife. When his property had to be dug up to install a new septic bed, he decided to experiment with planting half the lawn with native plants instead of grass, and was very pleased with the result.
Ben's recommendations for plants that attract wildlife:
- alternate-leaf dogwood produces red berries that attract bohemian waxwings. It is a pretty shrub that requires no maintenance and grows up to 4 feet tall. It has white flowers and produces berries that persist through the winter.
- high-bush cranberry produces clusters of white blossoms and grows up to 3 metres tall. The fruit is very sour, but can be cooked, mashed and strained, and mixed 50/50 with sugar to produce a tasty jelly. This is not a true cranberry, but a viburnum. The viburnum beetle is a pest that should be hand-picked.
- he recommends using glycophosphate (Round-Up) to clear a patch of land in the fall to plant a garden next spring.
- wild apples are not natives but are great source of food for wildlife. There can be a problem with infestations of webworms, but a tree must be defoliated 3 years in a row before it is killed. Dormant oil prevents apple scab, but scab does not affect the quality of apples. Ben does not use dormant oil on his trees. He also says to leave dead wood in place, don't cut it all down, because it provides good wildlife habitat for bats and nesting birds
- winterberry holly has red berries and grows in the salt marshes at the National Park. It attracts Bohemian Waxwings
- American mountain ash, European mountain ash, and Showy mountain ash produce clusters of white flowers and red fruit attractive to birds
- hawthorns attract ruffed grouse
- cherry, chokecherry, and plum trees are susceptible to black knot disease. Pin cherries have less problems with black knot
- wild raisin is a shrub grows that under a shady canopy of larger trees. When ripe, the fruit shrivels and looks like raisins. The leaves turn bright red in the fall.
- Rugosa rose produces rose hips that are one of the highest natural sources of Vitamin C
- Saint John's Wort is also high in vitamin C, but it is not recommended to ingest this plant because it has side effects. It is a treatment for depression.
- raspberry and blackberry are easy to grow and produce good fruit for wildlife
"I love weeds. They are just an unloved plant in the wrong place at the wrong time." Ben urges us to let these plants grow and produce seeds to help the birds get through the winter.
- Bull thistles are tall and prickly. The first year, they form a low rosette of leaves. The second year, they produce lots of stems and flowers that attract butterflies. The seeds are loved by goldfinches.
- Common mullein also produces a low rosette the first year and then a tall stalk of yellow flowers the second year. It produces capsules of seeds that are held by the plant throughout most of the winter. Its reproductive strategy: it drops the seeds when there is a crust on the snow. It has hairy leaves, which are a defensive strategy. When touched, they can cause contact dermatitis
- Evening primrose flowers glow in the dark. They produce black seeds that drop in late winter
- Deadly nightshade is a vine that produces purple flowers with yellow centres. It is related to potato, tomato. They all attract potato beetles. You can make wreaths from nightshade vines. The red fruit is eaten by birds, but it is poisonous to people.
- monkshood has escaped from gardens and is now growing wild on PEI. All parts of this plant are poisonous.
- dandelion may seem a pest, but it attracts beneficial insects.
check www.butterflywatch.ca to report butterfly sightings.
Butterfly species found on PEI:
- Fritillary
- Monarch eats milkweed, which is not a native weed. This butterfly tastes bad to birds, and birds learn to avoid it..
- Viceroy butterfly looks like a Monarch. It has the same colouring as a defensive mechanism. Birds think it is a monarch and tastes bad, so they avoid the Viceroy.
- painted lady
- question mark
- red admiral
To attract wildlife, provide water. Create a garden pond. The sound of running water attracts birds such as warblers. Put a stick or a pile of rocks in the water so that if an animal accidently falls in, it has a way to get out. Frogs are attracted to ponds. Add some duckweed, which is the smallest flowering plant on PEI. This plant reproduces very quickly, but is not destructive or harmful to the ecology of the pond.
- Spring peepers are almost deafening in the spring as they try to attract a mate
- leopard frog, green frog
- blue-spotted salamander
- dragon flies when at rest hold their wings horizontally
- damsel flies when at rest hold their wings close to their bodies
- ebony jewel wing dragonfly also has hairs on its front legs that it holds like a basket to catch prey while flying
Invasive species
- purple loosestrife got here by escaping from gardens - it is not widespread on PEI
- gooseneck loosestrife spreads very quickly
- himalayan balsom is a species of impatiens - is over 2 metres tall. It has spread all over wetland areas. The ripe seed pods explode when touched. It is also called touch-me-not. This is a strategy for disbursing seeds. It is related to the native plant spotted jewelweed. The juice of jewelweed when applied to the skin can take away the itch of mosquito bites and the pain of wasp bites and poison ivy
- Japanese knotweed looks like bamboo. It is very invasive and impossible to get rid of. It takes years to totally remove it.
- Giant Hogweed looks like a larger version of angelica or cow parsnip or wild parsnip. The sap causes blisters on the skin.
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