Grow a Blue Thumb

Have you noticed that seed catalogs are coming earlier and earlier?Like Halloween decorations on sale in August, these gardeners’ temptations arrive before Christmas. Many people are not quite ready to think about planting at that time, but soon after the holidays, as the thought of another four months of winter creates cravings for home-grown greens, turning to those seed catalogs provides relief from yet another snowy sub-zero day. Before you succumb to the glossy photos of hybrid flowers, out-of-this-zone fruit trees, and promises of continuous wildflower blooms, check out the Blue Thumb website. Here you’ll find information to help you have a lowmaintenance lawn, native plant pollinator gardens, and a beautiful shoreline that reduces pollution and prevents erosion. You can also apply for up to $400 in matching funds to help pay for labor and materials.

Traditional lawns are a major source of pollutants in our lakes, even up north. Fertilizers run off, adding nutrients that can increase algal blooms. Pesticides move up the food chain, causing problems for fish, birds, and other wildlife that eat them, and humans who would like to catch fish for food but have to limit their intake due to toxins. In drought years watering a lawn can be expensive and waste a valuable resource. Blue Thumb’s Lawn-to-Legumes program helps landowners learn how to have a lawn that is resilient during droughts and floods, supports the dwindling bee population, needs less mowing and watering, but is still fine for playful children’s lawn games and wrestling.

Small garden sites around a yard or neighborhood are also important resources for pollinators. Flower nectar is their primary food source, and when plants are too far apart, the butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds may have trouble finding enough food near their homes. Then they have to expend energy they need for reproduction to reach a food source.

Why is it important to use native plants? Our native pollinators and plants evolved together to be mutually beneficial. Critters will go to non-native plants, but don’t get as much nutrition from them and aren’t as effective at pollinating the plants. In some cases, like buckthorn, animals can suffer from malnutrition. In others, like the common tansy that is ubiquitous along Pioneer Road and the Trezona, can crowd out the native plants and tree seedlings, depriving pollinators of healthy habitat.

How to find native plants? If you learn to identify them accurately you can harvest seeds in late summer and fall. Most plants in nurseries and seed stores are not native unless they are labeled as such. Ask, and be sure the staff is well informed about this topic. Some landscapers, like Zone 3 in Ely, specialize in native plantings and can provide plants as well as the knowledge and labor to prepare the space.

The Plant Finder at Blue Thumb can help you find the vegetation that will thrive in the location you have chosen, whether it’s shady or sunny, wet or dry, and whether you want vines, flowering plants, trees, or shrubs. Flowering plants can be searched by the month they bloom and their colors. Some plants that are more familiar as prairie species will do very well in a micro-habitat that suits them, such as the dry space under an eave on a south-facing exposure. Each yard has its own peculiaritys and the trick is to match its characteristics to the plants’ preferred habitat.

If your yard has a naturally wet spot, consider a rain garden. Deep-rooted plants there help slow down run-off, preventing flooding and filtering out pollutants before they can reach streams.

Pocket plantings are small spaces that do a big favor for pollinators. Just a few square feet can create a beautiful addition to your yard, a haven for bees and butterflies, and a project that can be expanded a little every year. A full size wildflower meadow takes some time and effort to establish, but can be started with a few pocket plantings that are merged and expanded over time.

If you have developed shoreline, adding an unmowed strip of native vegetation along the water’s edge can reduce erosion and pollution as well as providing wildlife habitat.

Websites and YouTube are one way to get information, but your neighbors might be the best resource. There are many lovely gardens and skilled gardeners in Ely, some incorporating the best practices for pollinators and resilience.

Have you heard of No Mow May? It is a growing movement (pun intended) to provide bees and other pollinators with the nectar they need when they first emerge in the spring.

Changing your mowing practices, and also seeding your lawn with lowgrowing blooming plants like clover, violets, and johnny-jump-ups, can mean less watering and a healthier lawn. Leave the grass at least 3” tall on your first mowing. Longer grass shades out weed seeds and promotes longer roots and more drought tolerance. Leaving the clippings on your lawn can eliminate the need to fertilize. Decomposed clippings enrich the soil and reduce run-off. If clippings are too long and might smother the grass, save them and use them as mulch on your gardens once they dry, or add them to the compost bin.

You can get a printable version of this sign to laminate and put in your yard so neighbors know you aren’t just being slothful. See xerxes.org. And stop mowing so often...

So when those glossy catalogs land in your mailbox, ignore them for a while and go to the online sources listed below to relieve your winter doldrums. An excellent 38-page booklet, Planting for Pollinators, A Design Guide, has detailed instructions suitable for both beginners and experienced gardeners, plant guides, advice for involving the community, and inspirational photos. It is free as a pdf at the MN Board of Water and Soil Resources, but hard to find from the BWSR home page. It’s easier to Google the title adding MN to your search. And cheer up! You’ll be trading your snow shovel for your trowel in no time.

Online Resources

Xerxes.org

BlueThumb.org