Fall – the Best Time for Planting

Cliff Fairweather, ASNV Naturalist

Spring planting gets all the attention with big plant sales and crowded garden centers, but fall is really the best time to plant. I consulted with a number of native plant gardeners in the Audubon at Home program about fall planting and I am now passing their wisdom on to you.

Fall is the best time to plant for a number of reasons. First, the plants are going dormant at this time of year and so they are less susceptible to transplant shock. In the spring, plants are expending a lot of energy on new growth, leaving them with fewer reserves to cope with the stress of transplanting.

Another good reason to plant in the fall is the weather. Summer temperatures are moderating so plants are suffering less water stress and so they don’t need as much water. Moreover, we generally have more rain, including soaking tropical storms that save us from turning on the tap. Still, you’ll have to give them some water, so water long (and patiently!) enough to encourage deep root growth.

Virginia Native Plant Society Potowmack Chapter President Alan Ford offers this advice on watering: “Water once a day for a week, once a week for a month, once a month for a year. This is most appropriate for trees but any plant will benefit. Reset your schedule any time you get an inch of rain or more.”

Cooler fall weather is easier on your plants and it’s easier on you than gardening in the summer heat. In our area, you can plant at least into November with natives – but resist the urge to tidy up the garden too much. Left-over seed heads feed birds and other animals, while plant stalks and leaves harbor insect eggs, larvae and pupae that will be next year’s pollinators and bird food. Also, take advantage of the autumn leaf-drop to create free mulch and compost.

Finally, fall planting gives your plants three seasons to get established and grow deep roots before they have to endure summer drought. I think conservation horticulturist Nancy Christmus sums up the logic of fall planting very nicely, “Just allow nature to work its magic; the plant will go dormant and appear in spring ready to rock and roll.”

Thank you to Alan Ford, Robin Rentsch, Kevin Munroe, Pam McMillie, and Nancy Christmus for their garden wisdom!

http://www.loudounwildlife.org/blog/2011/04/new-battlefield-historic-district-being-created-and-celebrated/

This location has some wonderful wildlife habitat and Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy was one of the organizations that supported its establishment as a historic district.

Here is the good news from last Thursday, Sept 22:

Today the 8000 acre Unison Battlefield Historic District was officially approved for listing on the Virginia Landmarks Register and recommended for listing on the US National Register.

At a joint meeting of the State Review Board and the Historic Resources Board the board members and DHR staff took particular notice of the important historic value of this district, and of the particularly pristine landscape, containing over 100 contributing historic structures.

As you all know this is a key landmark in the five year effort to gain recognition for this very special place in Loudoun County.  While this listing and the expected future listing on the National Register do not impose any restrictions on landowners, they do provide a powerful incentive to protect and preserve this landscape and the historic buildings, farms and roads within it.  Over 50% of this historic area is already in conservation easement and we look forward to protecting more.

Thank you all for your support for this important project.
The Unison Preservation Society 

One coalition that we support is the Choose Clean Water Coalition, and given that hurricane Irene is coming our way and we’re about to see a lot of water, I thought I’d highlight that here today.

The Choose Clean Water coalition brings together people and nearly 200 organizations from Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia, working together to help everyone in the region choose clean water.

You can follow the work of this coalition through Facebook, Twitter, and through Podcasts, as well as through the website which summarizes key issues.

Clean water is truly one of the very few things we cannot live without, yet here in the US we certainly take it for granted. 

Here in Loudoun, we live in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, and some serious work needs to be done to restore the habitat and thereby the water that runs through our communities.

If you’re interested in learning more about water quality and getting your feet wet locally, check out our Stream Monitoring Program.  It’s a lot of fun!

http://www.nwf.org/News-and-Magazines/National-Wildlife/Gardening/Archives/2011/Making-Dollars-and-Sense.aspx

Fall is a great time to plant new trees and shrubs around your garden. It’s also a great time to sow seeds for perennials that will come up in the springtime.

Check our Gardening for Wildlife Plant List  for native plants that will bring your landscaping to life!

Read the full article here: http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2011-07-21-mexico-monarch-butterflies_n.htm

Excerpt below:

Logging drops further in Mexico butterfly reserve By MARK STEVENSON, Associated Press MEXICO CITY (AP) — Deforestation in the wintering grounds of the Monarch butterfly in central Mexico has dropped to just over one acre’s worth of trees, compared to the hundreds of acres lost annually in the past, experts said Thursday. And fewer of the pine and fir trees that shelter the butterflies have been lost to bad weather this year, according to a report by researchers from Mexico’s National Autonomous University and the Monarch Fund.

Illegal logging in the protected butterfly reserve dropped from 1.56 hectares in the 2009 winter season to just under a half hectare (about one acre) in the reserve’s core zone during this year’s winter. “This is what happens when you have enforcement of the law, and economic alternatives for the inhabitants,” said Omar Vidal, whose environmental group, the Worldwide Fund for Nature, has contributed along with cellphone company Telcel to economic development projects like tree nurseries in the reserve.

Mexican federal and state police forces have also cracked down on illegal logging in the 13,550-hectare (33,482-acre) reserve and in a larger buffer zone around the park where logging is also prohibited. The reserve is inhabited by communities of small farmers who once looked upon logging as a way to supplement their incomes. At its peak in 2005, logging devastated as many as 461 hectares (1,140 acres) annually.

It’s been posted online and I wanted to share it here: http://www.xerces.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/Wings_sp11_alien-plants.pdf

I remember when we first moved to Loudoun, we had to get a landscape plan for our house. This was a first for me. At the same time though, I was going through the National Wildlife Federation’s Habitat Steward Class and had just learned about native plants versus non-native. 

I remember getting the landscape plan back from the designer and looking at it wide-eyed at all the non-native plants he planned for us. 

The layout of the landscaping was great and we went with that, but that was as far as it went. It was our choice — to plant natives or to plant aliens (ornamentals). I’m sure you can guess the path we chose. I bought books, created a native plant list, and tracked down native plants at every local nursery I could find and we planted our gardens with native plants.

It’s not all milkweed and goldenrod though, we do have a few non-natives and invasives like japanese stiltgrass, multiflora rose and others keep showing up throughout our property such that while I go off to work they get busy spreading.

It’s tough to keep the non-natives at bay but what we can do is make the choice to plant natives in our landscape, to replace the ornamentals that maybe came with our houses or that landscape designers who didn’t know better selected.

Later today (or sometime this weekend), after pulling a very aggressive but so far unestablished stock of mile-a-minute from our garden, I’ll post some shots and stories about butterfly caterpillars I’ve been encountering on native plants in our yard.  It’s good fun! (not the part about pulling mile-a-minute, but the part about the caterpillars)

Here’s a really cool resource to find out: Loudoun County Stream Assessment

Simply enter your street address and click “find”.  A map will pop up showing the streams near you.  Click on the yellow pin points to pull up the reports.

Visit Loudoun Watershed Watch for more information as well as the County’s Stream Assessment pages.

So what are the Monarchs looking for? (I know, you already know this!) They’re on the search for milkweed so they can lay their eggs and continue the cycle of life!

Common milkweed is coming up pretty nicely along our roadsides and in fields. We’ve had a great mix of rain and sun in our area so far. I’m including a photo here of milkweed at the Phillips Farm in Waterford that I spotted last weekend.  Height is about a foot tall right now and it’s looking healthy.

I saw a huge stand of it near Purcellville last week too – much taller, probably almost 2 feet tall. It was lovely and I’m sure the Monarchs are sniffing it out!

The challenge, across our region, will be the mowers. Milkweed will be growing along roadsides and in medians and VDOT will no doubt be out to mow it down.  If you know of stands of milkweed in your community, talk to the HOA and ask that certain spots be left natural so the milkweed (and other great natural habitat) can flourish. You can use the area to be a nature detective a

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdXzyjwjJGk&feature=channel_video_title

Here is her story:

(Williamsburg, VA)—The odyssey of Hope, a whimbrel carrying a  satellite transmitter, continues to amaze scientists.  Hope was originally captured on 19 May, 2009 on the southern Delmarva Peninsula of Virginia.  She left Virginia on May 26 and since that time has logged more than 21,000 miles (33,000 kilometers) flying between a breeding territory on the MacKenzie River near Alaska and a winter territory on St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands.  On Friday (8 April, 2011), Hope returned to Virginia following a 75 hour, 1,850 mile (2,900 kilometer) flight out over the Atlantic Ocean.
 
During the course of two full migration cycles, Hope has clearly demonstrated how distant locations are interconnected in the life of migratory species and how their conservation requires collaboration on a multi-national scale. 

For three consecutive springs, Hope has returned to the same creek in Virginia where she has fed on fiddler crabs preparing for a transcontinental flight to her breeding grounds.  The creek, located in the  the Conservancy’s Virginia Coast Reserve,  is part of the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network, a network of international sites considered critical to  populations of declining shorebirds. 

Hope’s breeding grounds on the MacKenzie River are part of an International Important Bird Area and  one of the areas of highest conservation value in Canada.  Efforts  are ongoing to protect the area considered by many to be one of the most pristine watersheds remaining in North America. 

For the past 2  years, Hope has wintered at Great Pond, a Birdlife International Important Bird Area on St. Croix.  Protection of long-distance migrants like Hope requires that countries recognize the importance of vulnerable populations and work together toward effective conservation solutions.
 
Hope is one of several birds that have been fitted with state of the  art 9.5-gram, satellite transmitters in a collaborative effort by the Center for Conservation Biology at the College of William and Mary – Virginia Commonwealth University and the Virginia Coast Reserve of  The Nature Conservancy to discover migratory routes that connect breeding and winter areas and to identify en route migratory staging areas that are critical to the conservation of this declining species.

Updated tracking maps may be viewed online.

http://www.ccb-wm.org/programs/migration/Whimbrel/whimbrel.htm
 
Satellite tracking represents only one aspect of a broader, integrated investigation of whimbrel migration.  During the past 4 years, the Center for Conservation in partnership with The Nature Conservancy has used conventional transmitters to examine stopover duration, conducted aerial surveys to estimate seasonal numbers, collected feather samples to locate summer and winter areas through stable-isotope analysis, and has initiated a whimbrel watch program.  Continued research is planned to further link populations across staging, breeding, and wintering areas. Funding has been provided by The Nature Conservancy, the Center for Conservation Biology, The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Virginia Coastal Zone Management Program, Georgia Department of Natural Resources, The Toronto Ornithological Club, the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority, and the Northern Neck Audubon Society.