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A Brilliant Fall Banquet for Birds, Butterflies, and Bees

November 6, 2024November 6, 2024Maryland GrowsLeave a comment

It’s that most glorious time of year in Maryland, peak autumn, a time of constant change where every day brings new explosions of color. Beyond leaf peeping along our morning commutes, changes large and small are detectable in exquisite detail, if we only pause to step out in nature to look, listen, and smell the fragrance of the season in the air.

Right now, migratory birds are coming and going, shrubs are blooming and berrying, bees of all stripes are scrambling for the last drops of nectar as fall flowers fade. With some surprisingly low-cost, low-maintenance strategies, you can begin right away to transform your local landscape into a brilliant fall banquet for birds, bees, and butterflies.

bumble bee on yellow flower — Pollinators continue to gather nectar from late fall flowers. Photos: S. Small-Lorenz

honeybee on a pink flower — Pollinators continue to gather nectar from late fall flowers. Photos: S. Small-Lorenz

At this time of year, wintering birds are beginning to arrive from the north, while some summer visitors linger to enjoy the bounty of fall. Dark-eyed Juncos (Junco hyemalis) are already returning from their northern breeding grounds. I spotted my first juncos of the season flitting about the raised garden beds on Halloween right outside of the Anne Arundel County Extension office.

cabbage white butterfly — Cabbage White (*Pieris rapae*) butterflies were introduced to North America and are common across Maryland. Their larvae are considered to be crop pests. They typically reach the end of their adult life cycles toward late October. Photo: S. Small-Lorenz

On the same day, Cabbage White butterflies were still mobbing blooming New York asters in the brilliant noon sunlight on a day of record-breaking late October heat. The viburnum berries had already been plucked, possibly by the Northern Mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos) singing nearby, and its outermost foliage had turned a deep Cabernet red on a chillier night. I suspect that mockingbird has now staked out the American holly berries ripening nearby, as he seeks to maximize his energy intake before winter sets in.

Northern Mockingbird. Photo: Matt MacGillivray, CC BY 4.0

At Howard County Conservancy the day before, I noticed winterberry shrubs loaded with ripening berries, where another singing mockingbird steadfastly stood guard. Native honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens) is flowering and berrying simultaneously, gracing the trellis archway into the native plant garden, and the common witch-hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) is blooming, our only witch-hazel to bloom in the fall.

red holly berries — Ripening American Holly (Ilex opaca) Berries.
Photo: S. Small-Lorenz

red flowers and berries on native honeysuckle plant — Ripening American Holly (Ilex opaca) Berries.
Photo: S. Small-Lorenz

a winterberry shrub full of red berries — Winterberry Holly *(Ilex verticillata). Ph*oto: S. Small-Lorenz

common witch-hazel tree in the fall - yellow leaves and flowers — Winterberry Holly *(Ilex verticillata). Ph*oto: S. Small-Lorenz

Taking cues like this from nature can be an excellent strategy for planning our conservation landscaping for year-round color. Planting native berrying shrubs and evergreens not only extends our color palette, it provides natural sources of food and shelter for songbirds like Gray Catbirds (Dumetella carolinensis), Northern Mockingbirds, Cedar Waxwings (Bombycilla cedrorum), Eastern Bluebirds (Sialia sialis), Yellow-rumped Warblers (Setophaga coronata), Ruby-crowned Kinglets (Corthylio calendula), and thrushes as temperatures cool and extra energy is required to fuel up before, during and after migration.

Depending on your specific location and site conditions, consider planting Maryland native berrying shrubs to enhance your fall bird banquet. These could include northern bayberry, maple leaf viburnum, red osier dogwood, native honeysuckle, black elderberry, native hollies (American, inkberry, and winterberry), huckleberries, and red chokeberry.

Leaving fall seed heads standing into winter also provides resources for a whole array of seed-eating birds like sparrows and finches. Even as flowers begin to wilt and fade, they still provide essential nectar resources to native insects that are beneficial for their pollination and pest control services, not to mention as songbird prey.

So if you are considering what you can do right now for nature and the environment in your own neighborhood, here are a few low- to no-cost fall strategies to get you started right away:

Map out one or more locations that you would like to dedicate to a native shrub planting area. Make note of conditions (wet/dry, sunny/shady, soil type) so that you can select the right plants for your site when the time comes. It isn’t too late to plant native shrubs in most parts of Maryland, but if you choose to wait for spring, you can still start preparing the bed and browsing for fall-berrying shrubs now (see #5)! If you don’t know your soil type, this is the perfect time to do some home soil analysis. Observe where stormwater flows off of your property, and consider planting a mulched stormwater buffer using arborist wood chips and native plants to absorb rainwater which can both help reduce downstream flooding and improve water quality while beautifying your landscape.

Pledge to leave the leaves this fall. Raking a thick layer of leaves into your designated shrub planting bed will almost immediately start to create habitat, retain soil moisture, and build rich living soils. I call this “Raking by Design.” Think about this – who rakes the leaves in the forest? Towhees, sparrows, jays, bats, squirrels, deer, and many more wild residents…a reminder that leaf “litter” is an important habitat component for many creatures, and it puts essential nutrients back into the soil as the leaves decompose. If you’re concerned about leaves blowing around, it’s fairly easy to contain whole leaves with low garden border fencing, but it isn’t entirely necessary. Consider designating a portion of your yard a ‘no-rake’ wild zone, where you leave the leaves undisturbed, right where they fall.

leaves piled in a garden with a leave the leaves sign — Leave the leaves for healthy soil and habitat. Photo: S. Small-Lorenz

Leave your native flowers standing well into winter, beyond peak bloom. Birds, bees, and butterflies will benefit from the stems and seed heads well into fall and early winter.

Use fall prunings, cuttings, logs or stumps to create shelter for overwintering birds, bees, and other wildlife. Recycling your “yard waste” is one of the easiest, low cost ways to start building healthy soil and creating habitat to benefit biodiversity in your local landscape. This can take the form of a brush pile, wood pile (situated well away from your home’s foundation), leaving a natural stump instead of stump-grinding, or building a simple “bug snug” like the one pictured here.

sticks piled into a pyramid to make a bug snug shelter for insects — A “bug snug” made with cut woody stems, seed heads, and leaves will provide a shelter for overwintering insects, stem-nesting bees, and birds. Photo: C. Carignan

Browse options for native berrying shrubs to plant this fall or next spring that would be right for the conditions in your yard. While browsing native plant resources like Alliance for Chesapeake Bay’s Native Plant Center, also make note of whether the shrubs you choose are dioecious or not, meaning that you may need to consider planting female and male plants near one another in order for flowers to be fertilized and berries to form. Finding native plants locally right when you want them can be a bit challenging when getting started, so take some time to familiarize yourself with Maryland native plant material sources via Maryland Native Plant Society’s native plant shopping resources.

Which of these low-cost, low-maintenance strategies are you planning to try to enhance your fall living landscape? Which berrying shrubs might you consider adding to your fall banquet? Leave us a comment below, and don’t forget to let us know which wild visitors are enjoying the fall feast in your neighborhood!

By Stacy Small-Lorenz, Agent, Residential Landscape Ecology, University of Maryland Extension. Read more posts by Stacy.

Colorful Shrubs Jazz Up the Fall Garden

October 28, 2022October 3, 2024Maryland GrowsLeave a comment

Our landscapes are changing into their fall wardrobe which in many cases is brown, brown and more brown. Add some pizzazz with shrubs with colorful leaves and berries. As leaves lose their green chlorophyll, the underlying colors shine through in an autumn palette of red, gold, purple and orange. Many shrubs reveal these vibrant leaf colors.

I’m a sucker for sumac. Native varieties are already blazing red and orange along roadsides, but are often too big for the average backyard. A better choice is a shorter cultivar such as the 3-foot ‘Gro-Low’ sumac. It’s a tough drought-resistant shrub that can handle poor soil. Its botanical name – Rhus aromatica – hints at another bonus: scented leaves.

Fothergilla fall foliage – Image credit Miri Talabac

Also scented is native fothergilla. Fragrant white bottlebrush blooms cover the plant in spring and in the fall it can wear red, yellow, orange and sometimes all of autumn’s colors combined.

Related to fothergilla is our native witch hazel. Its leaves turn a sprightly yellow edged with orange in fall. In winter it flaunts spidery yellow flowers. Yes, it blooms in winter.

Oakleaf hydrangeas’ distinctive leaves deepen into a rich purple, red and bronze in autumn. Their whopping blooms – like lilacs on steroids – tinge from white to mauve as they mature.

Love red? Be kind to the environment and skip invasive burning bush which bullies out native plants. Opt for a highbush blueberry instead which flashes the same rich red and provides food for both you and wildlife. Berries are berry – um, very – striking additions to the fall landscape. Here are a few of my favorite berry-producing shrubs:

Viburnums are handsome, tough, pest-resistant shrubs whose praises I love to sing. There are over 150 species and sizes run the gamut. Flower forms range from snowballs to flat-top clusters and many are fragrant. Fall leaf colors range from rose to burgundy. Then their berries take center stage in shades of yellow, orange, pink, red, blue and black. Some even have two-tone berries.

I am not alone in my fondness for viburnum. Author and plantsman extraordinaire Michael Dirr says, “A garden without viburnum is akin to life without music and art.”

The native American beautyberry stops traffic in the fall. Somewhat nondescript much of the year, its cascading branches hold fistfuls of purple berries in autumn. If you see it, you want it.

Cotoneaster is another underused cascading shrub, this one dotted with red berries. Pronounced cah-toe-knee-aster (no, not “cotton Easter,”) it looks especially fine draped over the top of a wall

Red chokeberry – Image credit Miri Talabac

Native red chokeberry has dangling clusters of red fruits. The ones in our demonstration garden get rave reviews when they are loaded with fruit or their abundant snowball-like spring flowers.

Get thee to a nursery. Enjoy a pleasant stroll while you search for just the right shrubs to enliven your fall landscape.

By Annette Cormany, Principal Agent Associate and Master Gardener Coordinator, Washington County, University of Maryland Extension. This article was previously published by Herald-Mail Media. Read more by Annette.

This article was previously published by Herald-Mail Media.

Q&A: Fruit tree considerations for the home garden

May 13, 2022June 8, 2022Maryland Grows1 Comment

a grove of peach trees — Peach trees. Photo M. Talabac

Q: I’d like to eventually grow some of my own fruit. What’s a good starting point and what do I need to consider?

A: It’s fun to try growing your own food, though fruit trees require the greatest amount of commitment and patience to be rewarding. Ill-prepared first attempts can easily end in failure. We suggest inexperienced gardeners or anyone short on time try small-fruit (berry) cultivation first before diving into fruit trees – they’re much simpler to grow, need little to no spraying, and take up less space – but if you do enough research to know what to expect, you can certainly start small so it’s not overwhelming.

unrip blueberries on the plant — Blueberry – *Vaccinium corymbosum* ‘Elliott’

red fall color of a blueberry plant — Blueberry – *Vaccinium corymbosum* ‘Elliott’

Easier crops for a novice grower to start with include fig, persimmon, and some of the more esoteric fruits like jujube, serviceberry, and pawpaw. Ironically, the most popular fruits – apple, pear, peach, plum, cherry – are the hardest to grow well in our mid-Atlantic conditions. This is not due to temperature hardiness but rather disease and pest pressures.

Plan as much as possible first: where do you have enough space and the best conditions, how will they be cared for year-round, what problems should you anticipate, and how will you process the perishable harvest? Even when grown organically, there’s a lot of intervention and preventative treatments that will typically be needed to produce a useful harvest and to keep the tree healthy. After a problem arises, curative options are few, so knowing ahead of time what to look for and when is important in avoiding plant damage or a ruined crop for that year.

“Location, location, location” applies in gardening too. Fruit-bearing plants usually require full sun (6+ hours daily in summer) and well-drained soil to perform well. A site with good air circulation reduces disease, and proper pruning and training will make harvesting easier. Choose an area where you have enough space to avoid crowding and competition between plants. Different varieties mature at different sizes, and training style will also impact how much room trees use.

Most fruit trees are propagated by grafting. That means the variety you want is joined to a rootstock of a related variety for the purposes of improving hardiness, disease resistance, and/or dwarfing the plant’s stature for ease of maintenance and harvest. Terms like semi-dwarf, dwarf, and miniature refer to the overall growth habit compared to a full-size tree, not the fruit size itself.

Check which varieties need cross-pollination to fruit well, as some will not produce fruit if planted alone. Self-fruitful groups include figs, peaches, nectarines, and apricots, plus some varieties of apple, cherry, pear, persimmon, and plum. Keep like with like when you can, because cross-compatibility may not occur; for instance, don’t rely on pollination between an Asian and a European pear, or an early-blooming apple with a late-blooming apple. Web-based suppliers sometimes provide cross-pollination charts to illustrate compatible pairings. Avoid multi-graft plants (trees with several varieties grafted onto a shared trunk) unless you’re quite experienced because they run the risk of increased maintenance headaches or the loss of an entire variety’s crop.

ripening figs on a fig tree — Fig fruits.

Good inherent disease resistance goes a long way to reducing pesticide use and lowering the risk of bad outbreaks. No varieties are immune to problems, but those with noted resistance aid your efforts tremendously. It may surprise you to learn that some of the most popular varieties found at supermarkets are not the more disease-resistant options or even easy to grow overall. Ideally, narrow your options down by resistance traits first, desired flavor and other traits second.

Our website has a lot of information about growing fruit. You can search for a specific fruit type and find information on plant selection and good care practices.

By Miri Talabac, Horticulturist, University of Maryland Extension Home & Garden Information Center. Miri writes the Garden Q&A for The Baltimore Sun. Read more by Miri.