Mississippi Woodland Nursery

11/04/2023

A new blog post is up about the science of using dragonflies as mosquito control. Does it work, and should you add a water feature to your landscape for dragonflies? The answer may not be what you think.

There is a growing movement toward mosquito control that doesn't involve spraying organophosphates and synthetic pyrethroids, both of which can kill people when used incorrectly and can decimate beneficial insect populations, on top of failing to control mosquitoes in many cases. Some sources recomm...

07/07/2023

Can you guess which of these plants are natives?

The landscaping at Mississippi State University can be phenomenal—the Landscape Architecture Complex, Dorman Hall, Thompson Hall, and the Entomology Museum, for instance. Those areas all have a lot of native plants, which means they don’t look dead in the summer, unlike the other buildings lined with meatball shrubs. Gray, crisp twigs form strangely beautiful branching patterns in Loropetalum and Chinese holly, metastasizing formerly lush hedges into skeletons.

This photo is of the northwest side of Davis Wade Stadium, planted with a mix of native and exotic plants. In the first picture, everything that’s dying is an exotic plant and everything that’s thriving is a native (southern magnolia and wax myrtle, if you’re wondering). In the second photo, we have a stalwart stand of oakleaf hydrangeas that used to be surrounded by a dense hedge of exotic threadleaf thuja. All the thuja had to be ripped up, as it died in last year’s unseasonable freezes.

I see two main takeaways: first, this Minecraft-style landscaping has the major flaw of requiring consistency. And if you plant a consistent hedge, then all it takes is one freeze or disease outbreak to take it out. If you plant with many species, the inevitable freak events won’t take out everything.

Second, perennial exotic plants that tolerate our normal conditions may not be able to survive the crazy freezes. I never thought I’d see Loropetalum die back like this, as I grew up in a house with large loropetalums by the porch and I have always thought of them as an invincible landscape choice. Such freezes don’t happen every year, but the will happen eventually. Don’t invest too heavily in exotic plants, or you may have to dig into your pocket to replace them.

10/29/2022

Vine time!

There are a lot of great native plants for fall and early winter interest, and these are some of the top ones for humans and wildlife. Alabama supplejack has pleasing bluish berries that are eaten by turkey, quail, and probably by other critters too. Carolina snailseed is loved by songbirds. I call it “instant holly” because if you let it climb a bush or tree, it turns anything into a holly! Angelpod has large leaves that turn various shades of yellow, reminding us of fall.

I have plans to propagate all three plants this winter.

09/18/2022

Beetles are underappreciated, and often beautiful, pollinators. But unless you design a garden with them in mind, you are likely missing out on many species. Because of their morphology (small mouthparts, relatively heavy bodies) and clumsy gait, they visit different flowers than butterflies. What specific species can you plant to attract them? iNaturalist lets us answer this question. (See the Pollinator Associations project, https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=37&project_id=pollinator-associations).

Beetles were much more specialized than I was expecting. For instance, the six spotted flower longhron (Strangalia sexnotata) fed on yellow flowers, especially Helianthus atrorubens and other short sunflowers. The delta flower scarab (Trigonopeltastes delta) primarily visited Eryngium yuccifolium and Pycnanthemum albescens, and the zebra flower longhorn (Typocerus zebra) mostly visited Cirsium horridulum, Asclepias variegata, and Erigeron species. I was surprised that no beetles specialized on Magnolia, which in my experience is good at attracting a variety of beetles.

There is still a lot we don't know. About half of the MS beetles on iNaturalist have fewer than 10 observations, so we can't draw good conclusions about what those beetles pollinate. If you don't already contribute to iNaturalist, it's a great way to increase our understanding of nature.

12/21/2021

Milkweeds are for more than monarchs! Members of the genus Asclepias host dozens of other species, a mix of beetles, true bugs, flies, aphids, grasshoppers, and moths. Each critter feeds on a different part of the plant. Some bore into the stems, while others munch on the tender flowers. Others, like the large milkweed bug, prefer the seeds.
Here’s a non-exhaustive list: https://www.illinoiswildflowers.info/prairie/tablex/table49.html.

Often, gardeners seeking to support monarchs try to rid their milkweeds of other insects that might compete with or eat the monarch caterpillars. In the wild, however, competition actually increases the survival rate of monarchs. Even though the other bugs are eating the monarchs’ food, they act as a “meat shield,” reducing the likelihood that a bird or lizard will grab a monarch. And predatory bugs have no measurable effect on monarch caterpillars, which means there’s no reason to fret about assassin bugs and bot flies in the garden.
Here’s a study from TX that I believe is generalizable: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4450/12/6/567.

Below: Oncopeltus fasciatus (the large milkweed bug) feeding on Asclepias viridis (green antelopehorns).

12/10/2021

This is a post highlighting a few underused ornamental plants. This is purely educational, as I am not in production of any of these.

11/14/2021

A lot of us have areas of our property that we want to make nature-friendly and less of a hassle to manage, but we still want it to look nice and be walkable. There are hundreds of plant species that meet the requirements: low-growing, beautiful, wildlife-benefiting plants that can tolerate regular mowing. And many of them don’t require planting, but will colonize a site over time if you manage it properly.

If you have drainage ditches in the middle of a lawn, dry or shady areas where grass struggles, sandy soil where turf can’t grow, or acres of lawn that you want a break from mowing, these are some great options. Many of them are available from online seed nurseries (e.g. Native American Seeds in TX, Roundstone Native Seed Company in KY, Camp Creek Nurseries in MS). For other plants, you’ll have to patronize the plant sales of local organizations like Clinton Community Nature Center, Strawberry Plains Audubon Center, the Crosby Arboretum, and the Mississippi Native Plant Society.

Here are 80ish of the 300 plants I’ve photographed or grown that will work well in a backyard “meadow.”

10/09/2021

If you’re gardening for wildlife, make your garden structurally complex.

Structurally complex landscapes fill in every space in a 3D puzzle. For instance, in this photo, there are ground-level plants (Browne’s savory), short herbs (Dixie wood ferns), tall herbs (cutleaf coneflower), small shrubs (oakleaf hydrangea, not visible), vines (Virginia creeper, on the fence), understory trees (behind the fence), and canopy trees (behind the fence). Salamanders and ground beetles hide among the savory and leaf litter, songbirds forage under the coneflower leaves, lizards and praying mantises hide in the ferns, and bumblebees sleep high-and-dry on the flowers to avoid the morning dew. If all the plants were the same height, far fewer animals could take advantage of them.

It’s important to keep in mind that structural complexity looks different in every landscape. For my full-sun garden, the different growth habits of grasses and wildflowers make the garden look lush and full from above, but underneath it is much more open, giving plenty of space for wildlife, such as toads, to navigate. The side of the house, which is covered by man-of-the-earth, plays the role of a large shrub. Your landscape doesn’t need mature trees to be structurally complex.

Structural complexity has measurable effects. Structurally simple landscapes are much more likely to have pest species such as Azalea lace bug (https://academic.oup.com/ee/article/29/5/919/344984?login=true). In fact, a lack of structural complexity is the largest predictor of azalea lace bug abundance.

Landscapes that are structurally simple foster pest species, but structurally complex landscapes allow beneficial insects to keep pests in check. So even if you hate bugs, you will want to garden in a way that keeps pests at bay while providing a home for beneficial creatures.