Converting a section of Lawn into Native Wildflowers
A Yellow Warbler has caught an insect inside this stand of Joe-Pye-Weed. Goldenrod is in the foreground
Joe-Pye-Weed (Eutrochium fistulosum) was wrongly named. Not a weed at all, this is one of the most valuable wildflowers native to the eastern half of North America. Each year, emerging in early June, this very tall cultivar grows into a spectacle! It's taken about 6 years for my stand to reach a height of 8 feet! I am hoping it reaches 10 feet this season (2024) but will be happy if it has reached its peak at 8 feet..
1. In 2014 I rented a cultivator from Home Depot. It’s important to rent the bigger cultivator because it cuts through the sod much easier than a lighter one would and I believe that the tines are longer so to cultivate deeper. I used my truck to haul the trailer that the Home Depot provides and that is designed specifically for the cultivator. Home Depot would have delivered the cultivator right to my yard and pick it up later. Operating this self-propelled cultivator is easy, even for all but the frail of us. The trailer platform was very low, so that there was no steep incline to deal with. It is very easy to set the tine depth and I made sure they were set deeply enough to loosen the soil deeply. I think that 6” was deep enough. I want to really disintegrate the soil so that when I am done, the soil is fluffy and full of air deep down inside the soil. This assures that when I plant my wildflowers, the roots will not have a compaction problem and there will be plenty of room for gas exchange and a large buffer capacity to hold water.
2. Using a stiff leaf rake or a steel rake, I removed most of the chunks of sod that resulted from the cultivating. I wear gloves for this type of work and I will do whatever it takes to shake off or knock off the loose soil that is sticking to the chunks of sod. And that brings up another point. It is probably best to do this when the ground is quite dry, not totally desiccated, but dry. In this way the soil is less likely to stick to the sod roots. I want to keep as much of that precious soil as possible.
3. Even after the sod clods have been removed, I would expect the grass to make a bit of a recovery. But if I have removed those clods (which have the grass roots), the grass will no longer be able to compete with the already rooted plants that I put in place of the grass.
NATIVE PLANTS ARE VITAL TO THE FOOD WEB
4. With a few significant exceptions (such as Butterfly Bush), it's important to plant only native plants. The species that are native to an area co-evolved for millennia at least. It takes a long time to develop the relationships between species in a native ecosystem. In other words, if you plant “ornamentals”, as most people have over the last 50 years, you are planting organisms that our native insects did not co-evolve with and so are not familiar with and may not eat. This leads to a brief explanation of the necessity for our native insects. We have become perverted into thinking that all non-grass herbaceous plants are “weeds” and all insects are our enemies and must be destroyed. This thinking is a product of the mega-chemical companies.
the importance of Insects!
The late E.O. Wilson is regarded by most to be America’s most notable ecologist.
I consider the following to be his greatest quote:
"If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos" ..... E.O. Wilson (https://eowilsonfoundation.org/about-us/e-o-wilson/)
And the following is a New York Times interview of him titled “The Last Word.”
https:///video/obituaries/1194834030869/last-word-e-o-wilson-obituary.html
The facts are that those “weeds” are our native herbaceous plants and those insects are a vital part of the same ecosystem. How? Why? Well, here is the short, truthful and accurate response: There are about 4 million insect species globally and much less than 1/10 of 1 percent (.001) of those species are our enemies. So which ones are those enemies? We can include most of the biting insects, especially the mosquitoes, many of the other fly species, the fleas and the cockroaches. All of these parasitize us and are vectors for our diseases. But other than these, what more insect species out of that 4 million or so, can we justly label as our enemies? Yet, the insecticides that we use are ALL broad-spectrum, though the chemical companies get away with using such words as “targeted” and in some cases even “organic”. These are lies! In suburban American, we have poisoned off most of the base of our beloved terrestrial food web, just so that we can have perfect looking lawns with a light stripe, a dark stripe, a light stripe a light stripe and so on. When I look at a perfect lawn I can only think of how vain and how ignorant the owner is. And guess what.....a natural area of native wildflowers not only looks much better, much more intelligent and is much better for out beloved songbirds and butterflies.........it is also much less resource-intense to maintain; i.e. it is cheap to establish and maintain. Not so with a lawn.
If you want to feed the birds, first feed the insects. Over 95% of our native songbirds (passerines) are obligated to feed their nestlings a diet consisting of greater than 95% insects....or the nestlings do not make it to fledging.
http://deepmiddle.blogspot.com/2008/03/douglas-tallamys-bringing-nature-home.html
5. WHERE DO YOU GET THE NATIVE STOCK you are going to plant?
I got some of it in the wild, along roadsides and some of it came from a local nursery. Nurseries work with me to get some native wildflowers that are ready to be transplanted. Decide what species you want as early as you can so that you can put in a request to the nursery as early as possible. This is a problem because the season is short in Maine. So though you may decide this year on a certain plant, it will not likely flower until next year. I would rather plant an established wildflower than work with seeds.
http://deepmiddle.blogspot.com/2008/03/douglas-tallamys-bringing-nature-home.html
I got some Phlox along the roadside. Another perennial flower I dug from a roadside is the Cup Plant. Don’t believe what Ai says about this plant. Ai says it is invasive. FACT: Cup Plant is native to entire eastern North America. So far, I love it. I am going to make an effort to move a stem of it into my main wildflower garden. It may outcompete most other plant species near it, but I have that problem with Goldenrod. Both are native to N.A. So, you have decide for yourself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silphium_perfoliatum
The Common Milkweed that is well established now, came from a local nursery. When you convert part of your lawn to native wildflowers, you also get some natural germination from some of the native wildflowers that are in surrounding areas, though this may take a few years.
6. START TO LEARN THE NATIVE PLANTS It is important to do whatever you can to gain at least a beginner's familiarity with the various native wildflower species. In this way you can decide which species you want to establish and you can also learn to identify the species that naturally germinate next to the species you planted. You are likely to only get a few species that you will want to pull up. Give them a chance before killing them (more on this below). Any plant that I do want to kill is simply uprooted from the fairly loose soil and tossed onto an area where it cannot become re-established.
7. DO YOU HAVE PLANT ALLERGIES? I always wear gloves because through many years of habitat management, I have become allergic to the juices and spores of many different plants. The trick here is to wear gloves and to remember to thoroughly wash (with any mild soap) the face, neck and arms. No, one does not have to buy that soap that is advertised as a defense against Poison Ivy. ANY mild soap, used immediately after exposure to Poison Ivy or any other plant allergen, will assure that you do not get contact dermatitis. But you need to remember to wash with the soap after working with the plants. If you wait, and you do contract contact dermatitis, it will have to run its course, and that for me is up to three weeks.
8. IF YOU DON'T KNOW JUST LET IT GROW. I have learned to not be too quick to pass judgement on a naturally germinating plant; i.e. to decide if I want to let it continue to grow in my wildflower area or if I want to remove it. I have been doing habitat management for more than 40 years and I've gradually learned there are very few plants that have nothing good about them and that should be attacked aggressively. Even if you find you do not want a plant that has become established, there are very few plant species difficult to eradicate even after they are established. So unless you can identify a naturally germinating plant's leaves, early in its emergence from the ground, you almost never lose by waiting and watching. You may be glad you did.
9. Don't be afraid of the water bill. I think my neighbors refuse to water their lawns for concern over a large water bill that they have never seen. Honestly, the only water bill I have gotten that shocked me was when I forgot to shut off the water a couple of times and it stayed on all night, I think two different times. But all night is a long time, too long to leave the water on.
10. When I am trying to get a plant established, I make sure the base of that plant gets copious amounts of water, but only until I can see that it is not wilting. This does not require much water. I build a small dam of soil around the base and gently pour small pool or basin of water into it. It might wilt immediately after planting. But because of that copious watering, shortly after the wilting, the leaves will regain their rigidity (from turgor pressure) and the plant is now established in its new location.
Watering During Drought: Saving Money
If you see a drought beginning in your area, I advise you to make sure your plants, including your lawn, get enough water. You can see a drought beginning in the leaves of the trees and in people's lawns. The leaves of the White Birch especially will wilt and remain wilted during the beginning of a drought. And of course, lawns will simply turn brown.
During the 2016 drought, I ran my water for an hour here, moved it over for an hour there, and over into another area for another hour......and I did not get a big water bill. Another way to save is to water during crepuscular or nocturnal hours. These are the best times to water, because water loss to evaporation is dramatically less. So, before it can evaporate, most of the water percolates down into the soil and gets up-taken by the plants.
Besides, every living thing must have water, so even if the water bill is a little high, just do it. During the 2016 drought several people in my area lost their lawns. It was that severe. They knew that they had to water, and they decided against it. I would rather have a living lawn and living wildflower garden than a brown lawn, and wilting trees and wildflowers.
I love nurturing things that live. I am not saying that I saturate the soil with water. I do not come anywhere near this. Here is my trick: I water for about an hour in each location, using the stove timer in my kitchen to tell me to shut off the water. Then, using a spade, I open up a thick sliver of soil down to more than say.....6 inches. Then, still using the shovel as leverage, I pry it open and lay it over so that I can actually see and FEEL with my fingers, whatever soil moisture is now there. If I can see and feel just some moisture down for most of 6 inches, my worries are over for now, because the roots of those plants will get much of that water and they will NOT turn brown or wilt. Try it, it works. And of course, watch your water bill. I think you will be pleasantly surprised. The objective is to pull the plants through the deadly drought......that's all.
I wrote the following article for the Portland Press Herald of Portland, Maine in September 2013. But the problem probably occurs across the United States. You can let the link transfer to the letter or you can just read the letter after this link
Where Have All the Butterflies Gone?
The insects will return if residents restore habitat, plant wildflower lawns and stop using insecticides.
By Robert King
PORTLAND – Over several years, I have noticed a decline in butterfly numbers in Portland. So starting this spring, I began stopping and visually scanning residents’ flower gardens and the wild meadows remaining in town.
I searched the entire summer and did not see a single butterfly. I did see many of the exotic white cabbage moths, and I do see butterflies outside Portland, in the countryside.
A decade ago, there was a diversity here: Eastern tailed-blues, pearly crescentspots, an occasional red admiral, tiger swallowtails, viceroys, several skippers (including the least skipper), mourning cloaks, etc.
Why have butterflies vanished from Portland? Several reasons come to mind:
• Use of neonicotinoids: “Neonics” are a group of water-based, nicotine-based insecticides. One neonic, imidacloprid, is the most commonly used poison in home and commercial insecticides worldwide. If you use insecticides to protect plants around your home, odds are you’re using imidacloprid.
Neonics are applied as seed dressing, soil saturation, plant injection or foliage spray. Because of their high water solubility, neonics are systemic, absorbed and circulated through the plant, becoming intrinsic with plant tissues.
Unlike contact insecticides, systemics supposedly can target only insects that eat the treated plant’s tissue, and so are marketed as environmentally friendly. But if the toxins are systemic, then how is it that pollen and nectar escape the toxin? They don’t.
Neonics are highly toxic to adult bees and adult butterflies, as well as, of course, the butterfly larvae (caterpillars) that eat the plants. Also, bees and butterflies inadvertently spread toxins when visiting flowers.
Please Google “Chensheng Lu in situ CCD” to read only the short abstract from this conclusive research on the effects of imidacloprid on our honeybees. Chensheng Lu, Ph.D., is an associate professor of environmental exposure biology at Harvard University’s Center for the Environment.
To read three articles relating to neonicotinoids, please Google “George Monbiot neonicotinoids” and “Neonicotinoid Wiki.”
• Loss of butterfly habitat and fragmentation: To support butterflies, habitat must have wildflowers for the nectar-feeding adults and the plant-eating larvae (caterpillars). So if we remove patches of wildflowers, it’s possible to eliminate enough food sources to ensure the local extinction of butterflies.
If enough wildflower meadows have been removed regionally, butterflies may not be capable of repopulating wildflower meadows when they’re restored.
But considering the effects of winds, I doubt that this has happened here. Coincidentally, our native butterflies don’t damage the plants we consider desirable, and so our native butterflies aren’t considered detrimental to our interests.
• Lawn obsession: Many are obsessed with their lawns, and nature pays a price for that. First, why would you allow routine applications of insecticide to your lawn when you do not have a problem in the first place? Unless you have a specific problem that you have positively identified, you’re wasting money and damaging nature at its base.
Insects are living animals with nervous systems, and death by nerve poisoning is a horrible death. How can you consider yourself a responsible steward of the nature you have dominion over if you’re killing with nerve poisons?
I have refused to use insecticides on my land, yet I’ve never had a problem with any insect. I do spot-apply the herbicide (not an insecticide) glyphosate, and then only to the persistent Oriental bittersweet.
We should be revering nature, not destroying it for our vanity.
The answer is planting wildflower lawns. In spring 2014, I’ll be following the lead of some nature-thinking Portland residents with an esplanade full of native wildflowers. And folks are beginning to establish native perennials on their lawns, too. If planned properly, you can reduce mowing time and still have it look maintained, because it is!
Over the years, the word “wildflower” has been replaced with “weed.” But after years of mowing anything we could in Portland, within the last few years we’ve allowed nature to reclaim some of what’s hers, reverting to the native species in early successional stages.
Most of us, including me, thought that would have been enough. Though perennial wildflowers have returned, however, butterflies have not. Maybe if we change a few things, they will return.
There’s hope. The other day I spotted a mourning cloak butterfly flitting through my yard. Wouldn’t you know it! And since mid-August, I have started to see a very few butterflies within Portland. Of course, all this does not take into account the impending monarch migration through Portland.
Robert King is a resident of Portland. He can be contacted at robertleeking@gmail.com, or visit his website at
July 1, 2014 UPDATE: This issue lives on in 2014. We are making progress against these neonics. Inevitably, they will be banned. Although the European Union has banned them, America's (our) Environmental Protection Agency has refused to do so. But, down the road, we will force the EPA to ban them. There are a few corporations that make billions off herbicides and insecticides..... and of course they have been stonewalling us the entire time.
I continue to participate in our local group and we are making progress. Although I have not gone ahead with planting the esplanade, I have purchased a Joe-Pye-Weed (Gateway variety) and a False Sunflower (Heliopsis helianthoides).
Both plants are North American natives and both are loved by bees and butterflies. I know that both will be covered with bees and butterflies in the next few years.
UPDATE: As of summer 2023 the JPW has reached 8 feet I height!
August 9, 2014 UPDATE……a Monarch Butterfly! :
Yesterday I was thrilled to see a single Monarch Butterfly enter my small property area and fly around to the various flowers. It showed some interest in the now-blooming Goldenrod (Solidago spp.) but would not land on any of it.
At the time, I was repairing a bird feeder that a raccoon had destroyed two nights before. While the feeder was down the American Goldfinches resorted to taking their sunflower seeds directly from the head of the sunflowers that have been growing here all Summer. So, I had my bird lens close at hand as I built the new feeder. And when the Monarch showed, I was ready.
There was just one plant species that it was very interested in: two Milkweed plants. I could not get a shot of the Monarch fully open. But this image is cute. It perched on a Milkweed leaf and peered over the top…….apparently at me.
Then it left the area.
Robert :-)
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