First Wednesday Taking Care of Willdlife Challenge: Early Blooming Spring Plants, Hummingbirds and Coevolution

Are you ready for the hummingbirds? I am and so are several plants in my garden!

Trumpet honeysuckle and Eastern Columbine bloom just in time for migrating Ruby Throated Hummingbirds and that's no coincidence. They have co-adapted with Hummingbirds over millions of years to form a mutually beneficial relationship. Hummingbirds migrate thousands of miles annually from their winter home in Central America and they're movement north coincides with the blooming of these preferred flowers. 

When they arrive in middle Tennessee they are hungry and the red tubular and trumpet-shaped flowers of both columbines and trumpet honeysuckles hold more nectar than other flowers and are irresistible to hummingbirds. This co-adapted/mutually beneficial relationship is pretty cool. The long bill and tongue of these hummers fits into the throat of preferred flowers like columbines and trumpet honeysuckle flowers to easily reach the nectar, and while feeding, grains of pollen spill onto the head of the bird and is carried to other Columbines and Trumpet honeysuckle. It's a marvelous mutualistic dance that happens in gardens all over the Eastern United States. 

It's almost show time in Middle Tennessee. Historically Hummingbirds arrive in middle Tennessee in late March to mid-April. In fact they have been reported in Franklin, TN a city 20 miles southwest of downtown Nashville. 

 So get ready! 

'Cedar Lane' Trumpet honeysuckle/Lonicera sempervirens

Hummers need a lot of fuel. David Wentworth Lazaroff in his book The Secret Lives of Hummingbirds describes a hummer's lifestyle as high octaine meaning they must consume as much as one-and-a-half times their body weight in nectar every day. He said, “Being a hummingbird is like driving a car with a one-gallon gas tank. There is an almost constant need to refuel."

 

As anyone who has tried to capture a photo will tell you they are fast moving acrobats of the air. Thank you Joanna for sharing your photo with me. Now I will set up my tripod and camera and try to capture a hovering hummer which a dear friend refers to as the holy grail of hummingbird photos. 

Joanna Brichetto photo 

Although, it's not easy to capture a photo of humming birds hovering, it's not difficult to attract migrating RTH to your garden. Like all bird visitors and residents they need food, shelter, water, nesting sites and perching sites. Plant native flowers and shrubs with nectar bearing flowers to keep them happy. Hummingbirds are attracted to tubular, nectar-rich flowers in shades of red, pink, and orange.

 

  

To provide for hummingbirds that are arriving and to keep them in your garden plant the following:

Aesculus pavia/red buckeye

 Impatiens capensis/jewelweed

 Aquilegia canadensis/columbine

 Campsis radicans/trumpet creeper   

Penstemons   

Monarda/bergamot/bee- balm   

Lonicera sempervirens/trumpet (or coral) honeysuckle 

Lobelia/cardinal flower  

Silene virginica/royal catchfly and  round-leaved catchfly fire-pink   

Phlox   

Salvias: especially red flowered 

The  Audubon organization shares some cool facts about our high octane acrobatic visitors that I think are worth sharing.

• They have specially adapted wings that not only beat 50 times a second, but they are the only bird family who can hover for extended periods of time. They can fly  backwards, forwards and upside down.
• These tiny birds are endurance flyers. They beef up their bodies with insects and nectar to make non stop flights from central America to the eastern USA and Canada.
• Humming birds run on flower power! They have not only coevolved with several of our spring wildflowers, but also fall blooming Jewelweed. All of which we can plant in our gardens. 
• Habitat Gardens, wood edges. Summers in a variety of semi-open habitats, including open woods, clearings and edges in forest, gardens, city parks.  

Audubon

There may not be as many nectar sources available with this crazy up and down spring we've had in middle Tennessee so please consider hanging feeders. It's fun to watch the hummers up close and it's an easy way to supplement their nectar needs. You don't have to buy nectar, make your own, it's just sugar and water! There are recipes on the internet. Please, do not use the red dyed syrups that are often offered at big box stores.  It's also very important to keep the feeders clean.

And remember, never, ever, ever, ever  use pesticides or you will end up killing the insects aka bird food that are living in your gardens.

xoxogail

 

PS It's Spring Migration and millions of other birds are flying over our gardens at night. I'm wondering if you and your garden are ready? 

There are things we can do. Very important things!

• Go lights out at 11pm to 6am during migration (spring and fall). Turn off outside lights.
• Provide food in clean feeders, suet is still important.
• Put out hummingbird feeders and keep them clean.
  
• Provide fresh water 
• Plant native trees, shrubs and perennials. Native woody plants provide cover from predators, nighttime roosts and nesting sites. They also host insects, caterpillars and spiders which are essential food for spring-migrating birds. 
• Don't use pesticides or you will end up killing the insects/bird food that are living in your gardens.
  
• Leave your leaves where overwintering insects will provide a buffet for birds
• Be a responsible pet owner: keep your cat indoors or in an enclosure well away from birds. Cats predate on birds.
  
• Make your windows obvious and strike proof especially the big picture windows. Add decals, paint spider webs, stripes or designs, this will keep birds from colliding into them when they stop at our feeders.
  
  
  
• Where night lighting is necessary, use fixtures that direct light only where it’s needed.
  
• Become an advocate: Work to get your community involved in turning off their outdoor lights from 11pm to 6am every night.
• Sign the Home Owners Pledge at Bird Safe Nashville.

Take the Taking Care of Wildlife In Our Gardens Challenge

The first part of this challenge is to do something, even lots of things, each month that support the critters living in our gardens. Gardening with native wildflowers, shrubs and trees that make sense for our ecoregion is a good place to start or continue (as the case may be). Plants and their pollinators are a classic example of mutualism: they have coevolved through evolutionary time in a reciprocal beneficial relationship. This is also true for other critters that visit and live in our gardens. 

Activities that increase our knowledge of the natural world are equally as valuable. Helping others learn about nature is included. Golly gee whiz, there are so many things you can do. 

The second part of the challenge is to post about it somewhere: Your blog, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or even your neighborhood listserve. Wouldn't an article in the local paper be a coup for nature! Why post it? Because positive publicity is needed to educate our friends, neighbors and communities about how important even the smallest changes we make as gardeners can be for pollinators, birds, insects and mammals, including humans, that live all around us. 

Why now? My neighborhood is changing. Yours might be, too. Every day an older home along with many (if not all) of the mature oak, hickory, maple, Eastern cedar and hackberry trees are cut down. Insects, birds, even mammals lose their home site and food supplies when we lose trees. During construction soil is compacted by bulldozers, trucks and piles of debris cause runoff; surface runoff that can carry pollution to streams and rivers. It's important that our neighbors and our community have information about how important trees are to our ecosystem. Trees contribute to their environment by providing oxygen, improving air quality, climate amelioration, conserving water, preserving soil, and supporting wildlife.

In place of the "bee lawns" composed of Claytonia, Salvia lyrata, Ruellia humilis, fleabane, Western Daisy, Violets, self-heal, clovers, native grasses (in my neighborhood it's poverty oat grass) and sedges, they're being sodded with non-native grasses. These monoculture turf lawns contribute nothing environmentally. Here's what we lose when our diverse lawns are replaced with pristine turf grass:

• Gone are the lightening bugs.
• Gone are the ground dwelling/nesting native bees.
• Gone is the habitat for insects, spiders and other critters. 
• Gone is plant diversity. 
• Gone are trees that provided for hundreds of moths, butterflies and other insects.
• Gone are the nesting sites for woodpeckers, hummingbirds, Chickadees and other birds. 
• Gone is a healthy foodweb.
  

 It breaks my heart. 

We can't stop the progmess, but, maybe we can make a lot of educational noise and help our new neighbors see the value in providing for critters and ultimately helping the environment.

A gardener can hope! 

xoxoGail

Gail Eichelberger is a gardener and therapist in Middle Tennessee. She loves wildflowers and native plants and thoroughly enjoys writing about the ones she grows at Clay and Limestone. She reminds all that the words and images are the property of the author and cannot be used without written permission.