3 Ways to Turn Christmas Trees into Wildlife Habitat

By Shannon Trimbolli, owner of Busy Bee Nursery and Consulting

This is the time of year when Christmas trees seem to be everywhere. After the Christmas season, many of those trees are hauled out to the curb to be hauled to the landfill. However, did you know that if you have a live tree that you can use it to create wildlife or fish habitat when you get ready to take it down instead of sending it to the landfill?

To use your Christmas tree for wildlife or fish habitat, first remove all decorations, lights, hooks, tinsel, etc.–basically everything that didn’t naturally grow on the tree. After your tree is undecorated, you have a few different options.

Carolina wrens are one of the many songbirds that will use brush piles. Not only will they take shelter within the brush pile, but they will also hunt for insects and other arthropods living there. Photo credit: Richard Smith, cc-by 2.0

1) Create a brush pile on your property

Brush piles provide songbirds, lizards, snakes, and rabbits and other small mammals with places to hide, hunt, and live. To start a new brush pile, move the undecorated tree to an appropriate place on your property. You don’t want to build a brush pile next to the house or the garage or shed because it could attract critters that we don’t want in our homes. If you live in town or a subdivision, you’ll also want to make sure there aren’t any ordinances against having brush piles on your property.

Once you have found the right spot for your brush pile, you can just lay the tree on its side, maybe throw some other sticks and limbs you pick up around your yard on top of the tree and call it good. This creates a small, natural brush pile similar to what would happen when a tree falls naturally. You can also make a much larger and more permanent brush pile by gathering your neighbors’ discarded trees, cutting off the branches, building a tick-tack-toe type grid with the trunks, then piling the branches and any other limbs you find on top of the trunks. If neither of these designs works for you, then you can do an internet search on “how to create a brush pile for wildlife,” and you’ll come up with several other designs for building brush piles. No matter what design you choose, you can keep adding to your brush pile every year and even grow vines over it during the spring and summer.

2) Create a fish attractor in your pond

If you have a pond on your property, you can use your discarded Christmas tree to create fish habitat. The branches will provide places for smaller fish to hide from larger fish. Small invertebrates living in the water will also take up residence along the branches. The simplest way to create fish habitat with your Christmas tree, is to secure the tree to something heavy like a cinder block and plop it into your pond in an area that is deep enough that the tree will be submerged. (When you secure the tree to whatever you are using as a weight, you can lay the tree on its side; the tree doesn’t have to stand up underwater.) Larger, fish attractors can be built by securing several trees to the same weight or by building a lean-to type frame out of untreated lumber and then securing multiple trees to the frame.

Christmas trees can be used to create fish habitat in ponds and lakes. Many state and federal agencies collect trees to use for fish habitat in public lakes. Photo credit: Sue Sapp / U.S. Air Force, public domain

3) Give your tree to someone else to create a brush pile or fish attractor

If you don’t have a place for a brush pile or fish attractor on your property, you can give your tree to someone else who can use it for those purposes. In Kentucky, the Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources has several drop off locations all across the state, where they will accept Christmas trees to use for creating fish habitat. If you aren’t in Kentucky, call or email your state’s Fish and Wildlife Department and ask them if they have a program to accept Christmas trees for wildlife or fisheries habitat. If they don’t have such a program, then ask if they know of another agency or organization who might be able to use your tree.

Whether or not your state has a program to reuse discarded Christmas trees, please don’t just dump your tree on public property (on land or in a lake). Let the land managers decide where to put the fish attractors and brush piles because they know what all of the land uses are in the area and are tasked with balancing wildlife and natural resource needs with visitor use and safety issues.

Shannon Trimboli enjoys helping people connect with nature in their yards and communities. She owns Busy Bee Nursery and Consulting, which specializes in plants for pollinators and wildlife. She also hosts Backyard Ecology where she provides a free weekly blog and podcast focused on igniting our curiosity and natural wonder, exploring our yards and communities, and improving our local pollinator and wildlife habitat. Learn more at www.backyardecology.net.

From the Lady Slipper Archives: Sweet Fern

The Lady Slipper newsletter of the Kentucky Native Plant Society has been published since the Society’s founding in 1986. This is one of a series of reprints from past issues. This article, about sweet fern (Comptonia peregrina), first appeared in Vol. 26, No 1, Spring 2011. If you would like to see other past issues, visit the Lady Slipper Archives, where all issues from Vol. 1, No. 1, February 1986 to Vol. 35, 2020.

Sweet fern—A rare Kentucky shrub with an interesting history

By Tara Littlefield, Botanist, Kentucky State Nature Preserves Commission

Comptonia peregrine
Comptonia peregrine, KSNPC file photo

The wax myrtle or bayberry family (Myricaceae) is known for its odor. These plants have resinous dots on their leaves, making their leaves aromatic. Plants in this family have a wide distribution, including Africa, Asia, Europe, North America and South America, missing only from Australasia. Myricaceae members are mostly shrubs to small trees and often grow in xeric or swampy acidic soils. More familiar members of the wax myrtle family include many in the Genus Myrica (sweet gale, wax myrtle), some of which are used as ornamentals and are economically important. In addition, the wax coating on the fruit of several species of Myrica, has been used traditionally to make candles.

So what does this interesting family have in common with Kentucky’s flora? We are lucky to have just one species in the wax myrtle family, Sweet fern (Comptonia peregrina). In addition, it is also a monotypic genus restricted to eastern North America. This means that the genus Comptonia has only one species (C. peregrina) worldwide, and just happens to be found here in KY! Of course the common name sweet fern is misleading. This woody shrub is certainly not a fern. However, the leaves have a similar shape to pinnules of a fern frond (leaf). But having sweet in the common name is no mistake. If you crush the leaves throughout the growing season, a lovely smell is emitted as the essential oils volatilize into the air.

Female flowers (short round catkins with reddish bracts) and male flowers (elongated catkins clustered at the branch tips) – www.nativehaunts.comphenology.html

Sweet fern is a clonal shrub that grows up to one meter high and spreads through rhizomes. The leaves are alternate and simple, linear and coarsely irregularly toothed, dark green above and a bit paler below. It is monoecious (meaning male and female flowers on different plants). The female flowers are not showy— short rounded catkins [dense cluster of apetalous flowers, usually associated with oaks, birches and willows] with reddish bracts. The male flowers are elongated yellow-green catkins clustered at the branch tips, the pollen being adapted to wind dispersal. The fruit is a round, bur-like cluster of ovoid nutlets that turn brown when mature in late summer. The bark is reddish and highly lenticeled (small corky pores or narrow lines on the bark that allow for gas exchange).

While very common in the northern part of its range (northeastern United States and Canada), sweet fern is state listed endangered in Kentucky, along with being state listed as rare inOhio, Tennessee, South Carolina, West Virginia, Georgia, and North Carolina. The populations of sweet fern in the southern part of its range are isolated and disjunct from the common habitats up north. There seems to be a close association of these remnant populations with the Appalachian Mountains, which suggests that the populations in the southern ranges remained in protected “refugia” during periods of great plant migrations, such as during glaciations.

Sweet fern is typically found in openings in coniferous forests with well drained dry, acidic sandy or gravely soils with periodic disturbances. In the north, it can be found in pine-oak barrens or jack pine and spruce forests that are maintained by fire, creating openings and decreasing competition. It has also been noted to colonize road banks and even highly disturbed soils such as mined areas. Contrary to these open coniferous habitats with periodic fire, the remnant populations of sweet fern in Kentucky and Tennessee are found on sandstone cobble bars, which are maintained by annual floods. Despite being found on habitats that are maintained by different disturbance regimes, these two communities share a few things in common—they are both dry, acidic, sandy and nutrient poor. Disturbances are a natural occurring impact in these communities that removes shrubs and saplings, thus decreasing competition so that sweet fern can thrive.

Sweet fern has adapted to these specialized habitats. It is a fires adapted species; it will resprout after a fire and increase its clonal sprouts through underground rhizomes. It is also a xerophyte, a plant adapted to dry conditions. And since it is adapted to living in nutrient poor, acidic soils, it has evolved with the bacteria Frankia that fixes nitrogen, somewhat like the more famous nitrogen fixing legumes who have partnered with the bacteria Rhizobium. Did you know that there are over 160 species of nonleguminous plants that fix nitrogen? It is also the host of the sweet fern blister rust (Cronartium comptoniae) which reduces the growth of pines, particularly Jack pine. What interesting relationships this shrub has with bacteria and fungi! In addition, sweet fern is the food plant to larvae of many species of Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies). These include the Io moth (Automeris io), and several Coleophora case-bearers (some of which are found exclusively on sweet fern).

But perhaps the most fascinating facts about the rare shrub sweet fern is what it can tell us about the evolution of plants, the history of the earth, and the paleovegetational past of Kentucky. Geologically speaking, sweet fern is an old plant. In Kentucky, it was most likely more common some 20,000 years ago during the last glaciation, as Kentucky used to look like Canada. Analysis of pollen in sediment cores taken from natural ponds in Kentucky confirms this, spruce and jack pine was common in the uplands in the bluegrass. Sometimes it is difficult to think of plants migrating north and south in order to adapt to a changing climate. But what is even more mind blowing is that the genus Comptonia is perhaps millions of years old. Numerous fossils of dozens of extinct species of Comptonia have been found all across the Northern hemisphere, and the earliest of the fossils have been dated back to the Cretaceous period (the age of the Dinosaurs) over 65 million years ago. The first flowering plants (angiosperms) evolved only 135 million years ago, so Comptonia is one of the oldest living plants in the world—a true living fossil!

So when April comes around, and all of the spring wildflowers are emerging, think of sweet fern tucked deep into the gorges of Big South Fork and Rockcastle, its catkins releasing pollen in the wind, using the nitrogen fixed from its bacterial friends, withstanding the massive floods of two of Kentucky’s last wild rivers. And if you use your imagination, you may be able to see dinosaurs and tree ferns in the distance.

  1. Berry, Edward W. 1906. Living and Fossil Species of Comptonia. The American Naturalist. Vol. 40, No. 475, pp. 485-524.
  2. Darlington, Emlen. 1948. Notes on some North American Lepidoptera reared on Sweet Fern (Compontia asplenifolia Linnaeus) with Description of new species. Transactions of the American Entomological Society (1890-). Vol. 74, No. 3, pp. 173-185.
  3. Liag, X., Wilde, V., Ferguon, D., Kvacek, Z, Ablaev, A., Wang, Y., and Li, C. 2010. Comptonia naumannii (Myricaceae) from the early Miocene of Weichang, China, and the paleobiogeographical implication of the genus. Review of Paleobotany and Palynology. Vol. 163, p. 52-63.
  4. Medley, Max and Eugene Wofford. 1980. Thuja occidentalis L. and other noteworthy collections from the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River in McCreary County, Kentucky. Castanea. Vol. 45, No. 3, pp. 213-215.
  5. Natureserve Explorer, 2010.
    https://explorer.natureserve.org/Taxon/ELEMENT_GLOBAL.2.134920/Comptonia_peregrina
  6. Wilkins, Gary, Delcourt, Paul, Delcourt, Hazel, Harrison, Frederick, and Turner, Manson. 1991. Paleoecology of central Kentucky sicne the last glacial maximum. Quaternary Research. Vol. 36, Issue 2.
  7. Virginia Tech Woody Database
    http://dendro.cnre.vt.edu/dendrology/syllabus/factsheet.cfm?ID=869
  8. Zomlefer, W. 1994. Guide to Flowering Plant Families. University of NC Press, Chapel Hill.

Rediscover hedgerows

By Alicia Bosela, Owner of Ironweed Native Plant Nursery

Hedgerows—strips of mixed plants and shrubs—are a wonderful under-utilized and under-appreciated habitat. They have been called linear nature preserves in the sense that they can be highly diverse (combining meadow and forest plants), they support a wide array of wildlife, and they provide ecosystem functions that sustain the health of our air, land, and water. 

Hedrerow 2 -- Mindy Rose
Photo by Mindy Rose.
Cecropia Betty Hall
This Cecropia moth cocoon would be well protected in a hedgerow.
Photo by Betty Hall.

Their benefits to wildlife span the spectrum.  The woody species alone might read like a veritable critter buffet: hazelnut, wild plum, persimmon, red mulberry, wild crabapple, and elderberry.  Other food for wildlife includes both early nectar—blooming redbud, viburnum, dogwood, hawthorn, and black cherry—and late season nectar—asters, sunflowers, and goldenrods.  Hedgerows provide shelter for wildlife, a nesting place for birds and create corridors that allow safe passage for scores of species from salamanders to rabbits.  The leaf litter is a virtual nursery for developing stages of lightning bugs and other beneficial insects.  Many Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies) roll up in leaves to overwinter in the litter, snug as a bug! 

When we think of attracting wildlife like hummingbirds and butterflies to our yard, our first thought might be of a continuously flowering native pollinator garden.  While pollinator gardens are highly recommended and needed, we have learned from the monarch that a dearth of larval host plants might be a weak link in the chain of our pollinator’s lifecycle.  In general, woody plants host the caterpillar stage of more Lepidoptera than herbaceous plants.  More woody host plants mean more caterpillar food and more caterpillars to feed native birds and their young. 

From a management perspective, it is important that invasive exotics like autumn olive, Bradford pear, wintercreeper, bush honeysuckle, and privet be removed in favor of native plants.  A study by Dr. Tallamy, a University of Delaware entomologist and ecological gardening advocate concludes, “…in terms of the everyday needs of the animals that eat caterpillars, we found 96 percent less food available in the invaded (non-native hedgerow) habitats!” 

…native hedgerows are certainly a habitat worth rediscovering…

There are physical benefits of hedgerows as well. They catch and store water, act as windbreaks, and protect against erosion. In residential areas, they are great privacy fences, sound buffers, and can prevent snow drifts. A final benefit of native plant hedgerows is that they really ‘pay it forward’ when birds disperse seed from native plants instead of spreading seed from invasive exotics. Though under-utilized, native hedgerows are certainly a habitat worth rediscovering.

Hedgerow 1 Mindy ose
Hedgerows provide habitat and they’re beautiful–it’s a Win! Win!
Photo by Mindy Rose.

References: Nature’s Best Hope by D. Tallamy (2019).

Alicia Bosela owns Ironweed Native Plant Nursery in Columbia Kentucky, a certified woman-owned business. Before opening her own nursery, she was the Assistant Director of Clay Hill Memorial Forest Environmental Education Center. You can contact her at www.ironweednursery.com.

Ironweed Nursery logo

Book Review: The World of Clovers

By John M. Gillett and Norman L. Taylor, Michael Collins (Editor)

Reviewed by Jonathan O.C. Kubesch, University of Tennessee—Knoxville

Author’s Note: True clovers (Trifolium spp.) are the focus of this article. All scientific names abbreviate Trifolium to T.

The World of Clovers, by John M. Gillett and Norman L. Taylor (2001), is a fantastic primer on the global diversity of the genus Trifolium. Conceived in concert with a world seed collecting effort, Gillett and Taylor work to describe the many known species of this familiar genus. The global distribution of the genus is discussed and the book highlights origins for these species. Native clover species form intriguing distributions. This book covers details in morphological diversity beyond the traditional field guide using photographs. Notes cover the trivial and surprisingly nuanced characteristics of each species. In the 20 years following publication, some new information has developed about these species in the genus Trifolium. However, the book is a strong introduction for the botanist to explore a wider world of clovers.

This book is especially relevant to Kentucky botanists. Norman L. Taylor sought to collect every known species of clover and seed bank them in Lexington, KY. This work led to a framing of the genus (~230 species) with ever-expanding global coverage. Clovers are native to North and South America, Africa, Europe, and the Near East. Surprisingly, clovers are not native to Australia! The Great Plains and Coastal Plain have few native clovers, but the woodland-grassland mosaic of the Southeastern United States supports a handful of native species, such as the running buffalo (T. stoloniferum), Carolina (T. carolinianum), and running glade clovers (T. calcaricum) in addition to the introduced Eurasian species, such as red (T. pratense) and white clovers (T. repens).

The World of Clovers appeals across disciplines and levels. Gillett and Taylor seek to make the diagnostic information as accessible as possible, using common language to avoid a technical glossary. The description and photograph accompanying each species’ seed suits the conservation mission. The black-and-white images on the pages are complemented by an enclosed CD. Moving beyond the traditional field guide or agronomic factsheet, the book gives reproductive biology information. This reproduction section of each species entry suits efforts to propagate plants in cultivation or to encourage success in the wild. The number of cross-pollinated species draws additional attention to the plight of pollinators.

Clovers have served primarily as forages for wildlife and livestock. However, the horticultural benefits of these species also come to mind. The authors mention Kura clover and buffalo clover as two prominent candidates for their ornamental beauty. Of buffalo clover, as an extension of Norman Taylor’s personal fondness, Clovers says, “Many consider this species the most beautiful of the clovers….” In addition to the technical details, these small comments offer some humanity to the often impersonal business of plant sciences. New finds in the taxonomy of the clovers have led to the identification of a new species, Kentucky clover (T. kentuckiense), which is closely related to buffalo clover (T. reflexum)(Chapel and Vincent, 2013).

In 20 years of scientific and economic advancement the world of clovers has changed. Taylor passed in 2010, and his collection was split between Washington State and Georgia USDA seedbanks. Similarly, the use of clovers in agricultural settings has expanded to develop living mulch and perennial ground cover systems. Clovers will hopefully reduce the use of synthetic inputs in agricultural to the benefit of adjacent natural ecosystems.

Dr. Michael Vincent’s 2001 summary of Kentucky’s Trifolium, complements the World of Clovers in further detail on the 11 (now 12 due to the subsequent discovery of T. kentuckiense) species seen in Kentucky (Vincent, 2001). Clovers are part of the historical herbivory and current cropping of the state. This book is a limited description at the species level which the ecologist may apply in conjunction with similar guides on the KY flora.

The World of Clovers is useful to professional and citizen scientists because it encompasses the diversity of the genus. This book goes beyond the traditional field guide, but also comes in an accessible form for the everyday user. Clovers exist under cultivation as well as in Kentucky’s natural areas. The genus Trifolium has grown in a small degree in the time since publication, but the book offers wider coverage that serves both the hiker and horticulturalist.

Acknowledgements

Norman Taylor deserves special mention to his dedication in preserving the native clovers of Kentucky. This article is part of the ongoing efforts of the Kentucky Clover Recovery Team. Will Overbeck provided helpful suggestions and strong editorial contributions. Special thanks to David Barker, Daniel Boone, and Ken Quesenberry for recommending this book. Thanks to Sarah Grace Holland, for her supporting my native clover research.

References

Chapel, K. J., & Vincent, M. A. (2013). Trifolium kentuckiense (Fabaceae, Papilionoideae), a new species from Franklin and Woodford counties, Kentucky. Phytoneuron 2013-63: 1–6.Chapel and Vincent 2013.

Gillett, J. M., & Taylor, N. L. (2001). The World of Clovers. Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press.

Vincent, M.A. (2001). The genus Trifolium (Fabaceae) in Kentucky. J. Ky. Acad. Sci. 62(1):1-17.

Jonathan Omar Cole Kubesch is a graduate student pursuing a master’s degree in crop science at the University of Tennessee. He studied evolution and ecology—as well as agronomy—at the Ohio State University. He works on forages, grasslands, and prairies with a particular passion for native clovers. 

Kentucky Botanical Symposium 2020 (Virtual)

Kentucky Botanical Symposium and Membership Meeting

KNPS is having a virtual botanical symposium on Thursday, December 10th from 10am-2pm EST. For several years, KNPS has organized a botanical symposium in the fall with a goal of bringing together professionals, citizen scientists, academics, gardeners and students in order to learn about what’s going on in the world of Kentucky Botany. Despite the pandemic year, we thought it was important to continue this event, so please navigate this virtual world and join us to learn about all things botanical in Kentucky.

Topics that will be covered will include, but will not be limited to, KNPS updates, an overview of plant conservation in Kentucky, Kentucky’s roadside grassland and pollinator habitat program, conservation horticulture and native plant propagation, monitoring and managing rare plants and communities on State Nature Preserves, and exciting new Kentucky botanical discoveries.

Agenda

  • 10:00-10:10 Welcome & Introduction
  • 10:10-10:40 State of KY Plant Conservation and KNPS updates
    Jen Koslow, Tara Littlefield, Jeff Nelson, Susan Harkins and David Taylor
  • 10:40-11:05 Inventory, Monitoring and Management of rare plants and communities in State Nature preserves and Natural areas
    Devin Rodgers (Office of Kentucky Nature Preserves)
  • 11:05-11:10 Break
  • 11:10-11:35 Roadside Native Plants Project
    Tony Romano (Office of Kentucky Nature Preserves) and panel
  • 11:35-12:00 Native Plant Propagation Projects
    Emily Ellingson (UK Arboretum), Heidi Braunreiter (Office of Kentucky Nature Preserves)
  • 12:00-12:30 Lunch Break
  • 12:30-1:30 Keynote Speaker, Dr. Alan Weakley
  • 1:30-1:55 Exciting Kentucky Botanical Discoveries
    Mason Brock (Southeastern Grasslands Initiative/Austin Peay State University), Tara Littlefield (Office of Kentucky Nature Preserves)
  • 1:55-2:00 Wrap-up

Keynote Speaker

We could not be more excited about our Keynote speaker Dr. Alan Weakley!   Alan is a plant taxonomist and ecologist whose work in taxonomy and plant conservation has sparked a renaissance of botany in the southeast.  Just after lunch, Alan will address Kentucky’s Botanical Community on interesting topics ranging from plant evolution and biogeography, to conservation, taxonomy and citizen science. 

Alan Weakley, plant taxonomist, community ecologist and conservationist.

Alan Weakley is a plant taxonomist, community ecologist, and conservationist specializing in the Southeastern United States. He holds a B.A. from UNC-Chapel Hill and a Ph.D. from Duke University.  He has worked as botanist and ecologist for the N.C. Natural Heritage Program, and as regional and chief ecologist for The Nature Conservancy and NatureServe. He is currently Director of the UNC Herbarium, a department of the N.C. Botanical Garden, and teaches as adjunct faculty at UNC-Chapel Hill and at the Highlands Biological Station. 

Alan is author of the Flora of the Southeastern United States, and co-author (with Chris Ludwig and Johnny Townsend) of the Flora of Virginia, which has received five awards, including the Thomas Jefferson Award for Conservation. He is also co-author (along with Laura Cotterman and Damon Waitt) of Wildflowers of the Atlantic Southeast.

The Flora of the Southeastern United States is an open access, downloadable flora with over 10,000 species. See the article about this important research here: Flora of the Southeastern United States – 2020 Edition

He has also released an app, FloraQuest, co-developed with Michael Lee and Rudy Nash, covering the Southeastern United States flora. He has authored over 100 journal articles and book chapters, and is in high demand as a speaker on plant taxonomy, community classification and mapping, biogeography, and biodiversity conservation. He is active with the Flora of North America project and the United States National Vegetation Classification, serves as an advisor to the N.C. Natural Heritage Program and N.C. Plant Conservation Program, and is a co-founder of the Carolina Vegetation Survey. As a trustee and board member of public and private conservation granting agencies and foundations, he has helped oversee $400,000,000 of land conservation grants in the Southeastern United States.

What your gardening friends really want for Christmas

By Susan Harkins and Paula Mullins

It’s that time of year, and you’re in luck if a gardener is on your gift list. If you’re the gardener, send a link to this article to all of you secret Santas!

Passionate gardeners are probably the easiest people to please. If you’re close, you might already know that they’re searching for a specific orchid or drooling over a new set of shiny loppers. On the other hand, if you’re not sure, we can help.

Close to the holidays, you can purchase traditional holiday plants most anywhere. Amaryllis, paperwhites, and holiday cacti will show up everywhere and they’re affordable. They’re not natives, and not all gardeners are keen on house plants; if they don’t have any, skip this suggestion.

Tools are personal, but a gardener can almost always use a new set of good hand pruners, a hori knife, or a good pruning saw. A gardener can never have too many pairs of gardening shears, and they come in all sizes. If your gardening friend tends to lose tools (I know I do), a tool apron might be high on their list. It should have lots of pockets in different widths and lengths to corral they’re favorite hand tools.

A vase or planter might be just the ticket. Like tools, a gardener can never have too many. For that reason, make sure it’s spectacular or unusual in some way. They probably have tons of normal vases and planters already.

As odd as it might sound, you might hook up with a local farmer and purchase compost to be delivered in early spring. Then, help your gardening friend spread it—helping is as important as the purchase.

If your gardener is a little older, consider a new gardening cart to replace their awkward wheelbarrow. Gorilla carts are durable, easy to handle, and they come in more than one size! An easy-to-handle, flexible, lightweight gardening hose of at least 100 feet would be great. I love my bench that provides comfort whether I’m kneeling or sitting, and the handles help me get up and down.

For the reader, consider a number of gardening books: Growing and Propagating Wildflowers of the United States and Canada, by William Cullina; Gardening for the Birds, by Thomas G. Barnes; Kentucky’s Last Great Places by Thomas G. Barnes, Plant Life of Kentucky by Ronald L. Jones (this is for the studious gardener); Trees & Shrubs of Kentucky by Mary E. Wharton and Roger W. Barbour, Edible Wild Plants by John Kallas, PhD; Wildflowers and Ferns of Kentucky by Thomas G. Barnes and S. Wilson Francis; Bringing Nature Home by Douglas W. Tallamy; The Living Landscape by Rick Darke and Doug Tallamy; and many more.

A small pop-up greenhouse would be a certain winner, especially if you offer to help put it together! They come in a variety of sizes and prices. Make sure your friend has space for it before you make the purchase.

If you’re feeling especially generous, a potter’s table would be a huge surprise and a certain hit! Before you purchase anything, size up their surroundings: Do they really have room for one? If it needs to stay outside, purchase something durable, such as resin or stainless steel. They come in lots of sizes with different amenities, so you’ll have lots of choices.

Most gardeners love nature in general, so anything in that vein is a good bet. A membership to a nearby private garden or arboretum will be well-received. In our area, we have Yew Dell Gardens and the Waterfront Botanical Gardens, both in Louisville. The Arboretum in Lexington is public, so a membership isn’t necessary. However, if your gardening friend has everything already, you might consider a donation in their name.

A pretty water feature is always nice, especially if you help with (or pay for) installation. Garden art is iffy—it’s personal, but if you know the gardener well, you can probably pull it off.

If you still can’t decide, consider a gift card they can use to purchase a squirrel-proof bird feeder that really works, seed packets, tools, mulch, bulbs, nursery plants, and so on. Consider a gift card to a native nursery, such as Ironweed Native Plant Nursery in Columbia Kentucky or Dropseed Native Plant Nursery in Goshen (neither uses pesticides or sell plants treated with neonicotinoids.)

You might not have to spend any money at all. A hand-made coupon and a sincere promise to return in the spring and help your gardening friend put in a new bed, spread mulch, or just clean up the winter mess would be a gift from the heart that your gardening friend will never forget. I think I’m adding this one to my own list!

KNPS protective mask is now available for purchase.

Finally, for the native-loving gardener who has everything, consider a KNPS membership or some branded gear. For information about memberships, read https://sandbox.knps.org/membership/. You can browse gear, including masks, at https://sandbox.knps.org/2020/11/08/the-knps-gear-shop/. You can’t go wrong with either!

This article was originally published by the Franklin County Hort Newletter, but has been adapted for native plant lovers.

Paula Mullins and Susan Harkins are master gardeners with the Frankfort area group, Capital Area Master Gardeners. This group services Franklin, Anderson, and Woodford County.

Native spotlight: Hepatica

By Susan Harkins

Kentucky doesn’t have many winter-hardy wildflowers, so gardeners plant non-natives—daffodil, crocus, and hellebore mostly—to brighten up their early spring yards. By the end of February, I’m crabby and needing a respite and those early blooms sooth my soul and remind me that within a few weeks the world will be warm and full of color again. Daffodils bridge the gap between my “I’m going to die…” stage and “Ah! Spring!” You don’t have to rely on non-natives though, thanks to Hepatica.

Shenandoah National Park

Hepatica isn’t Kentucky’s earliest native bloomer. That distinction probably goes to Symplocarpus foetidus, commonly known as skunk cabbage or polecat weed. Unless you have a shady bog to fill, you probably can’t rely on skunk cabbage to scout out spring. The next earliest native bloomer is Hepatica. By mid-April, they’re everywhere, but I’ve spied them earlier.

If they bloomed any later, these small delicate flowers would be totally overwhelmed by the riotous outbreak of warmer spring colors. Somehow, they arrive at just the right time.

Kentucky claims two varieties: Hepatica americana and Hepatic acutiloba. You might once have known this native as Hepatica nobilis, but that is the European species and it no longer applies to our Kentucky species.

Botany

Tiny hairs protect the tender buds that often push through late snow. If you examine them closely, they look fuzzy, as if they’re wearing fur caps for protection. Hairs also protect the stems and leaves, and it’s possible the hairs help retain heat. They are “evergreen,” living a full year.

Blooms appear in a variety of colors: white, pink, lavender, purple, and blue. Their “petals” are actually sepals held in place by three bracts. The number of sepals varies, and they last for weeks. Heart-shaped leaves grow at the stem’s base. Hepatica means liver in Latin, and the name is derived from its liver-shaped winter leaves. That also explains its common names, liverwort and liverleaf.

Once the sepals die, a set of new leaves emerge to continue soaking in the sun’s ray, storing up energy for next spring’s early blooms. As winter moves in, the leaves darken until they seem to disappear, but they’re ready to start photosensitizing with spring’s first hint of sun. That “evergreen” leaf is the reason Hepatica can bloom so early in the spring.

You might wonder how this flower pollinates considering how few insects are out and about in early spring. Cross-pollination by an insect, such as solitary bees, is preferred, but this plant is autogamous–it can fertilize itself!

In your garden

Besides keeping you sane until spring truly erupts, this little beauty makes a lovely garden plant. Once established, they spread quickly and form little clumps of flowers that are a sweet complement to crocus and other non-native spring bloomers.

Plant Hepatica in a moist rich soil that receives only a few hours of sun (not full shade). Because they can so easily be obscured, plant them in mass or among ornamental rocks. They need good air flow to prevent leaf spotting.

Fortunately for gardeners, Heptica grows easily from seed. The small seeds are ready to collect in late spring; if the seeds aren’t easy to remove, they’re not ripe. It’s easier to cut the entire star-shaped seed cluster into a bag than to collect only the seeds because of their small size. The seeds are still green when ripe and need a period of warm stratification, followed by cold stratification before they will geminate. For that reason, I recommend that you sow them immediately.

Seeds germinate and produce seed leaves the next spring. They’ll produce flowers their second year, so plan ahead. If you’re germinating in flats, prepare to keep them for two years before transplanting.

Whether you’re a native purist or simply looking for a bridge into spring, consider Hepatica. It’s so delicate that it hardly seems possible that it has survived the harsh winter, but year after year, it not only returns, it celebrates, and we celebrate in kind.

Huron-Manistee National Forests