Jericho Habitat Garden Network

Here is some information from the National Wildlife Federation's recent blog post.

LEARN HOW TO CONVERT LAWN INTO NATIVE PLANT HABITAT

WHY WE HAVE LAWNS

WHY WE SHOULDN'T HAVE LAWNS

The Jericho Conservation Commission recently added a "Leave the Leaves" sign to the Pollinator Garden. Leaving leaves where they fall within garden beds is one of the many ways you can help pollinators and birds in your garden.

Pollinator Pathways of Addison County in Middlebury, Vermont recently hosted a webinar from Xerces Society scientist, Emily May. Click below to watch this extremely informative discussion on how we can do more for pollinators by "doing less work" in our gardens.

Putting Our Gardens To Bed Presentation

Spring might be the time when you want to do a "clean up" in the yard, but before you grab that rake or your pruners take a minute to consider doing a good deed for bees. Some insects like our native Bumble Bees (and other beneficial insects too) will overwinter in leaf litter or just below the soil. Raking out the beds can harm them by taking away their shelter and exposing them to the elements., or (!) sending them to the CSWD facility in a brown bag where they can't complete their life cycle. The stakes are high for these bumble bees - the Queen, who will lay the eggs for a brand new colony in the spring, is the one who overwinters so we can unintentionally wipe out a whole new generation of bees if we kill that Queen by mistake when "tidying up".

What you can do: Either skip this chore entirely and let the leaf litter turn to free natural fertilizer over time, or wait until the days are consistently in the mid-50's to allow time for the insects to come out of their winter homes.

Some Bees prefer nesting in the dried hollow stems of perennial plants (not all plants have stems that are are hollow).

What you can do: If you have left the stems long over winter, but want to cut them back now here's a trick to allow those stems to be available for bees to use. If you cut them in varying lengths about 8-24 inches from the ground you will leave enough old stem material for the bees to use later in the season. When the new growth pops up it will hide the cut stems and no one will be the wiser (except for the healthy, happy bees). Here is a great illustration of this concept by bee expert, Heather Holm and her colleagues.

Want to learn more? Here is some additional information from the Xerces Society: Bee Habitat Information

From the HealthyYards.org website:

The global effect of climate change is that more vulnerable species disappear in favor of more resilient species, like ticks and mosquitos. Mosquitos and ticks are a serious health threat, and the chances are that the number of these types of pests will increase in the future. So what is the best way to deal with these pests? Full article: https://www.healthyyards.org/homeowners/ticks-and-mosquitos/

Heather Holm is a biologist, pollinator conservationist, and award-winning author. She has created a great way to illustrate the importance of using plants and leaves under keystone tree species to enhance the ecosystem which she is calling "soft landings".

Soft landings are diverse native plantings under keystone trees (or any other regionally appropriate native tree). These plantings provide critical shelter and habitat for one or more life cycle stages of moths, butterflies, and beneficial insects.

Read more here: https://www.pollinatorsnativeplants.com/softlandings.html

On September 9th, 2021 Vermont Natural Resource Council hosted a panel discussion for anyone interested in making their backyard more welcoming to wildlife. Tune in via the link below to hear stories, tips, and see photos of examples of the diversity of wildlife that visits your yard if you follow some simple steps.

Webinar: Backyard Habitat

In August 2021 VNRC and the Vermont Alliance for Half-Earth hosted Doug Tallamy in a visit to Vermont. Read about the call from Doug Tallamy to transform the places where we live, work, and farm to create a Homegrown National Park.

https://vnrc.org/a-homegrown-national-park-doug-tallamys-call-to-preserve-half-our-planet/?emci=7175b3a2-def6-eb11-b563-501ac57b8fa7&emdi=1185ca0c-9410-ec11-981f-501ac57ba3ed&ceid=8501244

From the Xerces Society Website:

Most firefly researchers agree that habitat loss and degradation, light pollution, pesticide use, and climate change are the leading threats to fireflies. Despite concerns about potential population declines, fireflies have received relatively little conservation attention. You can help initiate this important conversation by advocating for fireflies in your community, participating in community science projects that track their distributions, and taking steps at home to turn out your lights at night and identify, protect, and restore high-quality firefly habitat.

Everyone can contribute to firefly conservation. For detailed recommendations, check out our conservation guidelines and other resources highlighted below. Here are some simple actions you can take today:

• Provide habitat! Set aside a part of your yard or garden where things can get a little wild
• Avoid pesticide use, which can kill fireflies and their prey or degrade habitat
• Turn off your outdoor lights at night, especially during the summer firefly season
• Contribute to our collective firefly knowledge by participating in a community science project
• Spread the word and let others know about fireflies and their needs
• Donate to the Xerces Society, which is working to conserve fireflies

Read more here: Xerces Society Guidelines for Protecting Fireflies

Other Firefly Resources:

click here for Firefly Conservation and Research

click here for International Dark Sky Association

How can plants help birds? Did you know that most songbirds rear their chicks on insect caterpillars? Caterpillars are little packets of protein, fat, and nutrients and in a garden with native plants they will be abundant. University of Delaware professor, Dr. Doug Tallamy, has shown that a pair of Black-Capped Chickadees need to catch between 6000 and 9000 little caterpillars to raise a single clutch. That is a lot of caterpillars!

Having the right native plants in your home landscape can help birds find the food they need to raise their young.

North American plants and insects have coevolved over millennia to have a complex relationship. Every native plant has some form of insect that uses the leaves as food for its own development and to protect themselves plants have natural chemical defense systems that keep the insects from having an overall net-negative impact

The insect larvae either go on to become adult moths or butterflies, etc.

and they are all part of the food web as bird food.

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Plants from outside this ecosystem, which were introduced by humans and planted in our home landscapes within the last hundred years or so, and are not naturally found in North America do not contribute to this food web because the native insect populations haven't evolved to use them as food so therefore, the non-native plants don't support native caterpillar development.

Some of the best plants to help birds are native trees. Dr. Tallamy's research has shown that the trees which support the most insect life are NATIVE varieties of: Oaks (support 534 species of Lepidoptera - butterflies and moths), Willows (support 456 species) Cherries (support 456 species), Birches (support 413 species). If you can plant any of these in your garden you will help birds and insects.

Plants that have fruit and seed heads also provide important food for birds as they migrate and to sustain them during winter months.

Audubon has a great tool to help you find plants native to Vermont that support birds. It will generate a list and tell you which local nurseries carry the plants. Click here to find PLANTS FOR BIRDS

Lawns are the dominant feature of most of our home gardens, but they do very little to provide ecosystem services (i.e. benefits to wildlife) and they carry a large carbon footprint when managed with traditional methods. We 'produce' a LOT of lawn in the United States. Estimates place the amount of lawn we cultivate between 3 and 4 times the amount of any other crop.

Did you know that: Each hour of gasoline-powered lawn mowing generates as much pollution as driving a gas engine car nearly 100 miles!

There are ways to decrease the size of your lawn and increase the biodiversity of plants and animals that use your home landscape. A first step is to start thinking of lawns as "area rugs" and not "wall to wall carpets" and keeping lawn only where you use it most by "mowing where you go" and transitioning less used sections into non-lawn areas.

These articles provide great tips for how to get started:

HOW TO DECREASE YOUR LAWN SIZE

CONVERTING LAWN TO HABITAT