Wildflower Wednesday: Dichanthelium clandestinum

When  I walk the rolling hills of this neighborhood I can still see pollinator friendly lawns in front of the 1950s ranch houses and the woodland remnants in the hills that surround the neighborhood. The lawns come alive in March when Claytonia virginica/Spring beauties bloom, followed by Salvia lyrata/Lyre leaf sage, Ruellia humilis/wild petunia, Carex/sedges, Danthonia spicata/poverty oat grass and other native witch grasses. I hope that enough of these lawns will be safe from the developers who are bull dozing the trees and the 1950 suburban ranches to the ground in order to build houses that fill almost the entire lot. They have replaced the pollinator friendly lawns with sod...Gone are the spring beauties, gone are the other pollinator plants and gone are the lightening bugs. Ignorance of the value of saving native, trees, grasses and plants are destroying the habitat of pollinators, birds, insects and mammals. That breaks my heart.

But, in my wild garden you will find many of those plants, along with our Wildflower Wednesday Star, Dichanthelium clandestinum. Deer-tongue grass is one of the witch/panic grasses that I've discovered happily growing  in damp spots in the garden. The unbranched leaves of early spring caught my eye and made identifying it easier.

Photo by Stephanie Brundage

Most of the various panic or witch grasses  are members of the Panicum or Dichanthelium genus. Many are hard to identify by this author. Deer-tongue grass is easily identified by its attractive silver flower heads that shimmer in the slightest breeze. The clasping leaves give the plant a bamboo like appearance and the foliage turns yellow-brown in autumn.  After a hard frost kills the fall stems and leaves, they are replaced by low winter rosettes of basal leaves. The winter rosettes of this plant make a good evergreen groundcover. The root system is rhizomatous and can form colonies. It's attractive and has good wildlife value....so it's a keeper! 

Deer tongue grass occurs in the eastern half of the US and a few states west of the Mississippi River. It prefers damp soil, so look for it in shady moist woodland areas, in moist sandy soil, in ditches, and along roadsides. The genus name comes from the Greek words di, meaning twice, and anth, meaning flowering, referring to plants that may have two flowering periods. The species name means hidden, referring to the tiny flowers that hide within the leaves. (source)

I like it for its looks and wildlife value. According to Illinois Wildflower dozens of birds eat the seeds, at least 5 different skipper larva feed on it and dozens of beetles and other insects feed on the leaves. The site has links to both bird and insect tables if you want more info.  When left standing in winter it provides shelter for birds and small mammals. Is grazed by mammals,  but isn't particularly nutritious for cattle.

The tiny flowers are produced on open, airy clusters called panicles and are nearly impossible to photograph

A Special Note:

 Imagine my surprise to discover that Deertongue actually has a cultivar! Tioga’ deertongue (Dichanthelium clandestinum (L.) Gould) is a cultivar released in 1975 in cooperation with the Pennsylvania Agricultural Experiment Station, and Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station. (source) Tioga was developed to be used for re-vegetating disturbed areas where site conditions limit the use of other species. It's quite adaptable! It tolerated droughty sites and can tolerate moist soils and streambanks. Apparently it's ability to lodge ( bend over and creates a mat) ) helps this cultivar spread.  The old stems and leaf parts form a layer of mulch that aids in seedling establishment and critter cover.

THE PARTICULARS

Botanical name: Dichanthelium clandestinum

Grass family (Poaceae)

Common name: Deertongue, Deer-tongue Witchgrass, Witch Grass 

Perennial cool season grass 

Inflorescence: A panicle that is typically 3 1/2 to 5 1/2 inches long and 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 inches broad. 

Leaf: Green 

Size: 24"

Bloom Time: May through Sept

Partial sun/shade (4-6 hrs light daily)

Hardiness Zones: Zone 4 to Zone 9

Range: Eastern US, including Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas. Also eastern Canada

 

Soil Preference: Clay, loam, sand, damp

Pollination: Early flowers are wind pollinated, later ones are self pollinating  

Landscape Uses: Massing, Natural garden, used to re-vegetate disturbed areas with infertile soils  

Comments: It's most attractive in the early spring when the silver flower heads shimmer in the slightest breeze. The clasping leaves give the plant a bamboo like appearance and the foliage turns yellow-brown in autumn. It's attractive and has good wildlife value. In the right conditions this grass can spread aggressively. 

Care: No known diseases or insect pests.

Wildlife Value: Dozens of birds eat the seeds, at least 5 different skipper larva feed on it and dozens of beetles and other insects feed on the leaves. When left standing in winter it provides shelter for birds and small mammals. Is grazed by mammals,  but isn't particularly nutritious for cattle.

PS. My dear readers, you might consider allowing our Wildflower star and other native grasses to grow in your garden or even in your lawn. Think of all the good you'll do for skippers and other critters. Seeds can be found online, so give them a try! xoxogail

 

Welcome to Clay and Limestone's Wildflower Wednesday celebration. WW is about sharing and celebrating wildflowers from all over this great big, beautiful world. Join us on the fourth Wednesday of each month. Remember, it doesn't matter if they are in bloom or not, and, it doesn't matter if we all share the same plants. It's all about celebrating wildflowers. 

 

Gail Eichelberger is a gardener, Tennessee Naturalist and nature writer 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.

First Wednesday Taking Care of Wildlife Challenge: The Rodenticide Effects

 I don't use pesticides in my garden and wouldn't begin to think about using a rodenticide for a mouse problem in my home. So when a friend told me she was having trouble with mice in her hobby room and that her pest control company set out rat bait I couldn't stop myself from sharing my concerns about rodenticides and what the unintended consequences of trying to kill a few mice has on wildlife outside her home.

I explained to her that rodenticides work by preventing a rodent's blood from clotting causing them to bleed internally. Although these poisons target rodents- raptors and other animals, both tame and wild that eat those rodents may be harmed or killed via secondary poisoning, known as relay toxicosis. This happens when the poisoned mice/prey animals leave one's home and wander outside where they attract the attention of hunting raptors and mammals (foxes and bobcats).

Rodenticide poisons are designed to smell and taste good to rodents to entice them to eat them, but they can be just as appealing to wild mammals, including squirrels, opossums, skunks, raccoons, and foxes if the pellets are somehow spilled outside. 

Studies have shown that rodenticide poisoning from eating poisoned rodents is more widespread than was thought. Follow this link to this study: A review: poisoning by anticoagulant rodenticides in non-target animals globally to see the serious and widespread nature of this problem. A recent study showed nearly 80% of raptors and other rodent consuming wildlife tested by WildCare were found positive for secondary rodenticide poisoning. (source)

 

Source Nancy Lawson

To quote Nancy Lawson, rodenticides wreak havoc across the animal kingdom.

 It doesn't have to happen.

What to do if you have a rodent problem

Rats and mice are a serious problem in a home. Not only can they spread disease, they can do incredible property damage. Using poisons to solve this problem does not work- the mice/rats will keep returning because there's food, shelter and an entrance to both. The following posters have excellent information about how we can prevent rodents from entering our homes and what to do if they do.
 

Here's a suggestion that may seem counter intuitive -invite natural predators like owls, hawks and snakes into your garden! Rodents are a huge part of the diets of owls, hawks and eagles. Raptors are efficient rodent controlling predators that maintain the ecological balance by keeping prey populations in check. 

 My hope is that they are gobbling up all those rodents before they can head into my house. 

To encourage natural predators like snakes, hawks, owls, foxes and bobcats to hunt in your garden, focus on creating a diverse and welcoming environment for the things they prey upon. Mice and chipmunks like to hide in brush and rock piles. The are also drawn to gardens that provide them with food (seeds, berries, nuts) and water. Now that you've made the prey comfy, make sure predators feel welcome~provide ample shelter and perches for hawks and owls and hiding places for snakes! In other words you need to make your garden wildlife friendly. It's what we've done here at Clay and Limestone. I know you can do it.xoxogail

P.S. Still thinking that rodenticides are the answer?  Children, especially young children, also accidentally ingest rodenticides — more than 10,000 every year in the United States. So do pets: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reports that more than 100 dogs, cats and other pets die annually from rodenticide exposure. (source)

One more thing before I go. If you don't like what I've shown or want more info, just search the internet for solutions to your rodent problems. Here are links to helpful sites.

Raptors Are The Solution 

Center For Biological Diversity 

Hungry Owl Project

 

Want to 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

Here's an incomplete list of things you might consider doing or changing in your garden, and things you can do for and/or in your community. But don't limit yourself to my list, make your own list or check out the internet for ideas.

 

Looking for ways to get involved go here for a list of environmental advocacy groups.

Buy the best wildflower, butterfly and bird id books for your state.

Read nature books to your children and grandchildren. Buy them nature books.

Get in the garden with your children and grandchildren.

Give nature books as baby shower gifts (Nature books for infants and toddlers)

Shrink your lawn and make your planting beds larger.

Plant your favorite native perennials and shrubs. Leave them standing after they've gone to seed to continue to provide for wildlife. What you plant in your yard makes a difference to wildlife. I garden for wildlife so every tree, shrub and plant is chosen with wildlife in mind.

 

Plant more natives and then consider planting even more. "A typical suburban landscape contains only 20-30% native plant species. Try reversing that trend in your own landscape by using 70-80% native species." (source) 

Plant for bloom from late spring to early winter. Bees are most active from February to November (longer in mild climates) late winter blooming Hamamelis vernalis and the earliest spring ephemerals (like the toothworts, hepaticas, spring beauties, and False rue-anemeone) are perfect plants for a variety of pollinators.

Commit to never, ever, ever, ever using pesticides in the garden.

Stay away from native plant hybrids and cultivars that are double flowered. They are sterile and have no pollen or nectar for insects and no seeds for the birds. If possible plant “true open-pollinated native wildflowers”

If you want to garden for wildlife and pollinators, don't let lack of space stop you! Plant your favorite wildflowers in large containers. You just might have the prairie or woodland garden you've always wanted...in a pot!
 
Create a water feature. Provide water year round that is accessible to birds, bees and other critters.

Make a rain garden in low spots to collect and mitigate runoff.

Show some soil! Our native ground nesting bees nest in bare soil, so don't mulch every square inch of your garden. 

Get rid of the plastic weed barriers in your garden, it's not good for anything.

Invite bugs into your garden. Plant annuals that attract beneficial bugs.

 

Learn to tolerate damaged plants. Imperfection is the new perfect.

Don't be in a rush to clean up the fall garden. Leave plant stalks and seed heads standing all winter. Leave those fallen leaves or as many as you can tolerate! Insects over winter in the fallen and decaying leaves. Leave a layer of leaves as a soft landing material under trees for moths and butterflies to over winter. Many caterpillars drop to the ground from the trees in the fall and need a soft landing site and a place to live over the winter.

Allow a fallen tree to remain in the garden. Limbs on the ground are a perfect shelter for small animals such as rabbits, chipmunks and squirrels and a habitat for beetles, termites and other insects.

Make a brush pile. Stack fallen brush, cut tree limbs, broken pots for ground beetles. Ground beetles are excellent at eating "bad bugs". Bugs are also good bird, toad and small critter food. 

Rethink what you consider a pest. Lots of good bugs eat aphids. Spiders are important predators and they're great bird food!

Add nesting boxes for birds. 

Turn off your yard up-lighting, eave lights and porch lights after 11pm. This is important for nocturnal critters including mammals, snakes, insects, bats, birds (especially during migration). (Birdcast suggestions)

Plant shrubs and small trees that provide berries and nuts.

Keep a nature journal: You can observe visitors to your water feature, make note of when they visit. Notice which flowers attract the most pollinators and which ones are just pretty faces. 

Join your state native plant society (Tennessee Native Plant Society)

Join WildOnes even if there's no local group you can join the national organization.  (Middle Tennessee WildOnes)

Support your local native plant sellers. (GroWild in middle Tennessee, Overhill Gardens in east Tennessee,  Resource Guide TN Native Plant Society)

Encourage your local garden clubs to offer native plant talks.

If your garden club has a plant sale encourage them to sell more native plants.

Get trained as a naturalist (Tennessee Naturalist Program. Almost every state has their own Master Naturalist training program

Take an online course on tree, fungi and wildflower id. 

Take an online course on designing with native plants.

Take a walk in your neighborhood and observe nature. To quote Joanna Brichetto in Sidewalk Nature "Look Around. Nature is here, is us, our driveways, our baseboards, parks, and parking lots."

Read! There are hundreds of books on gardening for wildlife, the environment, and rewilding our world. There are delightful blogs with wonderful and informative articles.

If you are already gardening with wildlife in mind then add a few signs that help educate your neighbors. (Xerces Society, Pollinator Partnership)

Join the Xerces Society.

Set up an information station where neighbors can pick up brochures about your garden and other info. 

Get certified (National Wildlife Federation, check to see what your state offers)

Support trees by joining the effort to make sure developers don't remove more trees than are necessary for their project. Work to make sure there are tree removal permits and that they are actually enforced in your community.

 

 

 

 

 

Gail Eichelberger is a gardener, Tennessee Naturalist and nature writer 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.

Wildflower Wednesday: Scutellaria parvula — Small skullcap

Dear readers,  There are far too many lovely native wildflowers that are underappreciated or overlooked and Scutellaria parvula is one of them. Even its species name "parvula" means very small and insignificant! It may be small but, it's not insignificant. It's a lovely flower and I hope you are as excited about meeting it as I am to introduce you to our Wildflower Wednesday star.

The flowers of this diminutive beauty are best seen and appreciated close up and that means you gotta get down on your knees to see it's pretty flower face. Trust me when I say, it was so worth the dirty pants to get a close look at this sweet flower. While there I could clearly see the square stems and opposite leaves that are hallmarks of a mint family member.

Photo Source 

It stands less than a foot high and its tiny flowers are about 1/3 inch long and are located in the leaf axils in the upper third of the plant. The blue/violet tubular corolla flower has fuse petals that form upper and lower lips. The lower lip with its white patch and blue dots is a perfect landing pad for bees.  

Those dots on the lower lip are not just for looks they're actually nectar guides. Nectar guides or floral guides as some scientists prefer to call them, are markings or patterns seen in flowers that guide pollinators to their rewards. These markings may appear as lines, spots, or "blotches". Flowers use all kinds of signals/visual displays to attract bees, butterflies and other insects to the nectar source, after all they want pollination to occur! That's how mutualism works: both species benefit, bees collect nectar and pollen from flowers, providing themselves with food and resources, while simultaneously helping the flowers reproduce by transferring pollen from one flower to another. 

Nature is truly marvelous.

interesting seedpods

Small skullcap is a denizen of limestone outcrops, cedar glades, shallow soil prairies,  clearings, savannas, glades, ledges and bluffs, in open forests, in pastures, as well as along railroads and roads in eastern and central north America. 

I've seen it growing in a somewhat protected area in my own neighborhood and suspect that once upon a time it could be found in bee friendly lawns all over here. There are areas of limestone outcropping and with its calcareous soil which makes a great place for small skullcap to be found. 

Photo taken in protected area in my neighborhood

Small skullcap is happier without competition and the rough and tumble wildflowers at Clay and Limestone are just too much for it, so I grow it in a container. I am editing to create space for it and other small plants and I will let you all know how they all fair.

Source

I suggest that gardeners plant Scutellaria parvula in the front of their garden bed. It may spread by rhizomes to form a small colony and/or it may seed among your other wildflowers, but it's by no means aggressive, even if it is a member of the mint family.  

 

Missouri Wildflower Nursery has a cool four star rating system for native plants they sell and they've given small skullcap a 3 star rating, which means it has lovely flowers, but they don't think the foliage is beautiful all season. Personally, I like when plants go to seed and I think skullcaps seeds look pretty cool. Btw, they sell Scutellaria parvula if you're interested. Local gardeners, we can find it at  Growild.

The Particulars

Botanical name: Scutellaria parvula

Family: Lamiaceae (mint family)

Common names: small skullcap, little skullcap and dwarf skullcap

Species: There are three commonly accepted varieties of Scutellaria parvula which are distinguished by the type and location of hairs on the plant. Two are in Davidson county, TN where I live: Scutellaria parvula Michx. var. australis and Scutellaria parvula Michx. var. australis

Range: Native to eastern US

Zone: 3 to 8

Leaf arrangement: Opposite with square stems

Habit - Perennial forb with fibrous roots and slender Moniliform rhizomes

Bloom time: spring into summer

Flower color: Purple/Blue

Light: Full sun to medium shade 

Moisture: Dry, average

Size: 12 inches maximum height

Wildlife value:  The flowers are cross-pollinated by various bees, including Mason bees (Osmia spp., Hoplitis pilosifrons), Little Carpenter bees (Ceratina spp.), and Halictid bees (Halictus spp., Lasioglossum spp.). Bees usually suck nectar from the flowers, although some of them also collect pollen. Less common floral visitors include skippers and Syrphid flies, which are less effective at cross-pollination. Insects that are known to feed on the foliage of Small Skullcap include the caterpillars of Prochoreutis inflatella (Skullcap Skeletonizer Moth), the leaf beetles Phyllobrotica lengi and Phyllobrotica limbata, and Asphaera lustrans (Shiny Flea Beetle). Source Illinois Wildflower

Reproduction: If you transplant small skullcap you'll notice that it has formed a string of beads underground; these are the moniliform rhizomes that it produces as a means of reproduction. Stems arise from the "beads".

Comments: Not a preferred food of mammals. 

 

Happy Gardening and while you're walking around do get down on your hands and knees to get a good look at all the sweet low growing small beauties.

xoxogail

Welcome to Clay and Limestone and Wildflower Wednesday. This day is about sharing wildflowers and other native plants no matter where one gardens~the UK, tropical Florida, Europe, Australia, Africa, South America, India or the coldest reaches of Canada. It doesn't matter if we sometimes share the same plants, how they grow and thrive in your garden is what matters most. Sharing native wildflowers on social media is one of the best ways to educate others of their value to wildlife and the ecosystem. 

Gail Eichelberger is a gardener, Tennessee Naturalist and nature writer 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.